Egypt in the heart of libyan revolution

Whenever an Egyptian meets the Libyan revolutionaries, they receive him with great joy in welcoming him.

The Egyptian revolution encouraged, morally, the Libyan people to fight against their tyrant regime. Meanwhile, the Libyans also benefit from humanitarian aid offered by Egypt to the insurgents as well as opening borders for refugees from Libya, even those without identity cards, and opening Egyptian hospitals to Libyans injured.

In this context, Sheikh Mohammed Boussedra said that Egypt had offered everything but arms to Libyan insurgents. He said that many of his Egyptian friends living in Libya for long refused to leave the country at this difficult time. "There are even many of them have joined the insurgents on the front," he said.

The Libyan revolution is strongly influenced by what young Egyptians did during the Egyptian revolution. At first, the Libyans started their demonstrations on February 17th, as the Egyptians on January 25th, asking for social and political reforms before the ambitions rise up to demand the departure of the regime.

The Libyan revolution also began peacefully, and the Libyans tried to keep this movement without recourse to arms, as the Egyptians did, until Qadhafi and his mercenaries used heavy weapons, which led them to defend themselves.

Libyan insurgents have inspired many of the Egyptian revolution; they even gave the name of "Tahrir Square" on the part of the Corniche in Benghazi, located opposite the northern Benghazi court. They also chanted slogans repeated during the Egyptian revolution with some changes to give local color. Even the idea of ??forming popular committees to protect neighborhoods has been applied.

After that calm has reigned in Benghazi, the Libyans began forming youth groups to clean up their "Tahrir Square. An act that the Egyptians invented the day after the departure of Mubarak and which has surprised everyone.

According to the Libyans, the success of Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions saved their revolution against repression. For them, the two revolutions are like wings that have allowed their movement to go further. But the Egyptian revolution had more influence on the Libyans because thousands of them are married with Egyptians.

In addition, the Libyans never forget that Egypt and Tunisia had strongly supported their struggle against Italian colonialism. Egypt had hosted the former King of Libya Idris al-Sanusi and was the seat of the political leadership of the Libyan resistance against the Italians.

Zuhair al-Barassy, ??a young Libyan, remembers that he watched with his friends the revolution in Egypt and they were crying every time they received news about the victims of the revolution. They were even panicked the February 2nd, at the battle of camels, for fear that the Egyptian revolution would be suppressed.

For his part, Hisham, a young Libyan revolutionary, remembers that the Libyans were afraid of reaching the February 17th, the day they had set to launch their protest, before the success of the Egyptian revolution, which means abortion of their movement as they were sure that the Mubarak regime would have helped Qadhafi.

For her part, Iman Bugaighis, a dentist, a political activist and former spokeswoman for the National Transitional Council (CTN) blame the Egyptian government not to take a firm stand against Qadhafi. "Egypt is the big sister to all Arabs and the Egyptian government, chosen by the Egyptian people, must express the feelings of the people ... It's the people who will rule from now on", she says.

But in same time, Bugaighis recognizes that the Egyptian government is concerned about many difficult issues on the domestic scene, which moves it away for the moment of Foreign Affairs. "But the egyptian government must know that Libya is one of the Egyptian internal affairs", she adds.

Iman confirms that the Egyptian workforce will always be welcome in the new free and democratic Libya. She says that the Egyptians will have the same rights as the Libyans, not like what was going on at the time of Qadhafi.