We did not come from the middle class; we were the children of the poor, and so we remain. We never once disavowed our past, our families, or our teachers—and Rifaat El-Saeed was, without question, the greatest of them all.
Nine years have passed since his departure, and I can admit—as all my fellow leftist rebels had admitted to me before—that we loved him as much as we criticized him.
Perhaps it was because we could never stay a step ahead of him. Though an elderly man, he was always ahead of us—in vision, in analysis, and in his responsiveness to reality.
And while we turned inward, chasing our dreams, he devoted himself to that reality, studying and analyzing it, and drawing from it his penetrating vision.
Blessed are you, my teacher; blessed are your name and your image, your history and your noble life story. Blessed, too, are your generation, your ideas, and your principled stands.
May your path endure—for us and for Egypt—as a beacon illuminating our way toward the future.
