Millions of people’s attentions are always attracted to the speeches delivered by a country’s president, whose breath, body language and voice’s volume are being watched closely enough. A president addresses millions of his people and the world as well; therefore those who write his speeches have historical significance and almost go as famous as president. Who can forget the speeches of the late president Gamal Abdel Nasser, or the unforgettable speech of Al Sadat, which gave in the wake of the first hours of October War.
Writing the speeches delivered by presidents became a science; it is being taught at the current time. They also have protocols and rules, because they are important media materials. As it is known that the media became available in each house; consequently any president should have a group of consultants and specialists to write the speech and determine its language and gestures pursuant to the occasion on which the president is going to deliver. Being out of context of a pre- prepared speech or any improvisation by the president may cause problems and even crises for the decision makers. Also it may have a complete negative result leads to toppling a president or firmly reinstating him to his position, and the most evidence proves is Gamal Abdel Nasser’s resignation speech on June 8th, 1967.
From this stance, only one question remains unanswered; who is writing the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s speeches?
The president has not only ignored all the protocols in his speeches, but also fabricated the historical facts. In his most recent address to the Central Security Forces last week, he said “The police were part of the successful crossing of the Suez Canal in the 1973 war and were at the heart of January 25th Revolution, Almighty God willed the January 25th to be the Police Day, a day of remembering the sacrifices of the police.”
I really don’t know what crossing he is pointing to; does he mean the crossing of the Police over the protestors? And how come the Police were at the heart of the revolution which mainly erupted against Police forces who were manipulated by the political regime to oppress people?
Morsi’s speeches have largely reduced his popularity and raised much debate especially because they are very lengthy, redundant and full of contradictions such as saying the “Police were at the heart of January 25th Revolution”. In addition, the televised speeches are sometimes poorly directed.
In an attempt to reach to the poor, Morsi says slang words such as tok toks and microbuses, not knowing that this class needs to listen to solutions to their everyday problems such as the diesel shortage crisis, not a list of greetings similarly delivered in folk weddings.
Even when a glum-looking Morsi delivered his televised speech on late Sunday January 27th announcing a state of emergency in the Suez Canal governorates in the wake of deadly clashes, things turned even worse and anger boiled followed by witnessing a state of civil disobedience in the 3 governorates.
Clashes were still ongoing in Port Said, with angry protesters and police forces reportedly firing gunshots at each other. Army was deployed in Port Said and Suez, another city which was a scene of constant confrontations. Unfortunately, Morsi’ speech has failed to contain the growing violence in the 3 coastal governorates. Waves of anger spread more widely against a president who has come into office in less than a year.
In fact, during addressing the Suez Canal governorates’ people, Morsi was evidently unaware of their nature and psychology which would never accept such a speech based on an arm-twisting policy.
However, after Morsi has imposed a curfew in those governorates in order to end the state of lawlessness with glum-looking at that time, he tried then through his second speech on Thursday March 15th to show compassion and to appease the escalating waves of anger but with his placatory smiles at that time instead.
In his second speech, Morsi promised to return Port Said a free trade zone, to head investigations into the post-verdict deaths and to allocate EGP 400 million of Suez Canal revenues to develop the governorate. Yet, the placatory smiles and considerable promises were too late to ease the widespread outrage.
The people of Port Said have referred Morsi’s second speech as filled with hollow promises for his speech contained no particular references to making apology to the families of the martyrs and victims and to fair retribution.
Obviously, Morsi’s speeches need a sort of a second-eye ahead of broadcasting them in order to test their validation and effectiveness.
