December 20, 1906
Abd-el Nebi
Abd-el Nebi
World of Injustice
The world is full of injustice. Allah did not compensate for the world of cruelty when my villagers and I were given a life sentence of penal servitude, terms of hard labor, punishment of flogging, and death in the gallows. Why did all these calamities strike us? Why is the world so unjust?
It was June 13, 1906. Five British officers visited my village Denshawai from their troops. They hunted pigeons which were kept as domestic animals in Egypt. Hearing the gunshots upset villagers who went out to the field to stop the hunting. As result, British officers became angry and responded to the villagers by force; five villagers were wounded and my grain in the field was burned into ashes.
Among the five wounded villagers one of them was my dear wife. She was seriously injured. My warm tears wetted the ground and I led my villagers to fight back, including Hassen Mahfouz whose pigeon has been killed. We threw rocks at them. Because there were so many of us throwing rocks, the officers surrendered giving up everything they had for their lives: money, weapons, and watches. However, the villagers were too angry for such mercy. We proceeded to attack the officers killing three of the officers. Another two escaped the village but one of them died of heat stroke some distance from the village. Another safely escaped officer contacted the British army.
On the next day, the British army arrived with armed soldiers, arresting fifty-two villagers including Hassen Mahfouz, Darweesh, Zahran, and me. We were all sent to the court composed mainly of British officers: they, of course, side with British in judgment. Four men including Hassen Mahfouz, Darweesh, Zahran, and a man who were accused of being the ones responsible for death of the man who died of heat-stroked man, were hanged on gallows. My friend Hassen was hanged in front of his house in the full view of his wives, children, and grandchildren. Before it was Darweesh’s turn to be hanged, in gallows, he said in chagrin, “May God compensate us well for this world of meanness, for this world of injustice, for the world of cruelty.”
Meanwhile other villagers were flogged and made to work in hard labor in the fields without good foods and shelter. I am seated on the jail floor staring in anger at a tight, steel-barred window. The British soldiers who did such horrible things to us claim that they had been a “guest” of the villagers and had done nothing wrong. (They are such bad liars!) I am humiliated with the suppression of my empire; incidentally, I mourn for the souls of my fellow villagers.