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[Sayyid Qutb] Colonialism took care to kill in the conscripts every sense of national pride, every sense of human dignity, and every protective zeal for honor, dignity, and every other sacred value.

This colonialism went so far in its crimes that it worked intensely to corrupt the morals of students in military schools and the morals of conscripts in the army, so that every protective zeal for honor would die within them. Once honor was cheapened, the homeland, dignity, and the sacred values armies defend would also be cheapened.

Beyond that, the mistreatment of conscripts and what they faced after their discharge as a result of the cruelty, humiliations, and obscenities they had endured was by itself enough to make people hate soldiering and recoil from the specter of conscription. The people alone paid this tax. Colonialism expended all of this effort for fear of the day when Egypt would awaken and speak to the pirates the words it speaks to them today: Leave our country.

Egypt has now risen and thrown all of this off its shoulders in a single moment. Its youth crowd at the doors of parties and organizations. They seek no job, gain, or reward. They seek death for the sake of honor and martyrdom for the sake of the country.

Partisan rivalries were a plague upon this homeland because they were a race for power and a race for gain. But today's rivalries among the parties and organizations are good, God willing. They concern burdens, not spoils. They are not in the cause of Satan but in the cause of God.

Let the racers race, then, and the competitors compete in forming battalions and mobilizing