An Egyptian Hero

A hero is someone who understands
the responsibility that comes with his freedom.
Bob Dylan

A new kind of hero appeared on the horizon of the Arab Spring. He is the excitable young man who intrepidly scaled the building where the Israeli embassy in Cairo is located and ripped the Israeli flag from its high-perched post, replacing it with an Egyptian flag. This act of defiance in the face of the passive non-resistance of the building wall struck millions of Egyptians hearts with awe and admiration. Recently liberated from Mubarak's tyrannical regime, Egyptians know a resistance hero when they see one. And Ahmad al-Shahat it was, who "shot to fame after scaling the tall building, removing the Israeli flag and replacing it with Egypt's national colors as hundreds demonstrated outside the embassy on Saturday night."

No sooner did he commit this act of hitherto unimaginable boldness, then the heroic Ahmad was immediately rewarded for his courageous climbing, ripping and replacing with a job at a quarry and a red badge of courage by the regional governor of his hometown.

And we know from past experience how clever and sharp these governors tend to be. Remember this?

"Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha, the regional governor, claimed it was not "out of the question" that Israel could have planned the attacks on tourists to dent the Egyptian economy.

He said: "What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark in the sea to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm."

Some people of high intellectual pursuits, like the professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley, were quick to hail this gutsy young Egyptian as the embodiment of the spirit of the Egyptian revolution, the spirit explicitly explained here by another prominent intellectual of wit and learning. AbuKhalil also intimates to us, his fascinated readers, that so prestigious was this act of bravery that there is a contender to the title of the flagman. His name is Mustafa Kamel Jadallah and according to this machine translation of the article, he claims that he got there there first.

You couldn't invent these events even if you tried, or were blessed with a phenomenally creative imagination.