Another trip back to Alexandria after a week of work in Cairo. A metro trip to Ramsis station. Another sad look on my face watching the marvelous steel ceiling of the station being shadowed by an ugly steel structure that destroyed the beauty of the irreplaceable old structure. Huge columns of welded steel boxes that will apparently be covered later in a completely out of context marble cladding.
An urge inside me to take some photos of what is spared from the ongoing “renovation”. I got out my camera and started roaming the station looking for good angles and shots, something of a rarity after all the small ugly book booths and other meaningless plastic cubes scattered around the station. People bearing the usual sad Egyptian face, the smell and roar of the diesel engines pulling the renovated yet still old carriages. I’m suddenly stopped while taking some photos of workers trapped in a huge cage of scaffolds creating an interesting texture of horizontal and vertical lines.
An “undercover” nformer in civilian clothes asking me for my I’d and giving me this look as if I made a huge crime. I was thinking not another place in Egypt where you need a permit to take some pictures, an addition to a growing list to the list of such places which now seems to be almost everywhere. I’m dragged from one officer to a higher ranking one until I found my name being logged in the station’s police outpost’s log book for taking some freakin pictures! Or “elteqat magmoo3a men el sowar bedoon tasree7″ as the undercover agent kept saying. I was surprised by the amount of informers all over the station wearing civilian clothes. I signed in the log and went to platform 3 to get on the 1919 9:00pm train to Alexandria which was now due in 10 minutes.
As soon as I get in my seat happy by the fact that my chair was next to the window. A place that I prefer over the isle chair cause I can rest my leg on the little area between the chair in front of me and the wall. A woman starts arguing with her voices getting louder with every word. I assume my usual state in the train, headphones in my ears, book at hand, completely oblivious to what’s going around me. It’s been a while since I decided that I don’t have to listen to the dumb arguments going on around me.
The woman’s voice was still getting louder hitting a very high pitch at points to the point that I stopped doing what I was doing, pulled off the headphones and waited for this crab to finish and choosing not to look at her like all the passengers in the car are doing now and wearing a disgusted face looking out of the window watching the train now moving out of the station.
All the conductors now gathered in the isle with their supervisor calmly watching the situation and standing in the little space in front of the chair next to me.
The woman kept blaming the guy who booked her the tickets for booking her on the 9:00am train instead of the 9:00pm trying to throw the ball on one of the train’s conductors to find her a solution and sticking to her chair not permitting the guy who’s supposed to sit in her place, and who’s interestingly calm throughout the fight. The lady and her daughter finally decide to move to another carriage where they found her empty seats after making the child sitting with his mom across the isle from where I’m sitting start crying and making me wish they charge her double the fare for the seats she got.
As soon as I thought the fuss was over, music starts coming from somewhere to the front of me. I raise my head and see that two laptops are on on the other side of the isle. I decided that the music was coming from the laptop two rows to the front and stood up and politely called the guy and running the conversation in my head to let him either stop the music or put some headphones on and not start yet another fight, a completely normal consequence of asking anybody in Egypt to respect your personal space. I was surprised by the woman in front of me and telling me that it’s actually coming from her phone and quickly turns it off. Not five minutes later I start hearing an old tune by Amr Diab whom I have nothing against coming out of some other asshole’s cell phone in the back. I concentrate to figure out where the music is coming from and to my surprise I found that it was coming from the seat right behind me! The dude must’ve heard me asking the woman to the front to turn the music off and started to think that he’s only doing this to bother me, still didn’t prevent me from asking him to turn off his music too.
Rested my head on the seat and started paying attention finally to the book at hand. 10 or so pages later, the sounds of a football match starts coming from the previously wrongly accused laptop dude in the front watching a replay of the Ahly and Zamalek match which just ended an hour or so ago. I decide that this’s too many people for me to solely handle and ask the conductor to ask the guy to turn his speakers off, the man says that he can’t ask a passenger to turn his speakers down and if it’s bothering me I should ask him myself! Getting himself out of the trouble of dealing with another snappy passenger after the woman’s incident in the beginning.
Furious, I immediately step up to the laptop dude, spending a lot of effort trying to prevent myself from punching him in the face and managing to speak as calmly as possible, speakers off, round three won.
Back on my seat again, I start thinking that Egypt needs a solution, incidentally the title to the Fahmy Howaydi book I’m reading.
I put the book down, knowing that there’s no solution, and fall asleep.
Showing posts with label egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label egypt. Show all posts
31 December, 2010
16 August, 2008
The Traffic Matrix of Egypt
The discussions about the new traffic law in Egypt reminded me of Morpheus in "the Matrix" when he was talking to New about why some people can't be hooked out of the system of the Matrix; "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.". Although the case here is the opposite but the same concept applies. We as Egyptians are so hooked on having no system what so ever that we refuse any change that will enforce an improvement, or will at least try to force us to respect the law, any law, weather it's good or bad for us.
Just a note here, when I say "We" I mean "we as Egyptians" even though the fact that not following the law is not at all my nature but again, some might say that I'm not even an Egyptian having lived here for less than a couple of years. Just had to say it cause somebody telling me that I'm not organized really bugs me.
The point I'm going to base my argument here upon is the part in the new traffic law that says that every car has to have a first aid kit and a hazzard triangle. Now, call me crazy, but, don't new cars come already packed with at least a hazard triangle? I know that some top-of-the-line cars like Mercedeses and BMWs come with both, but think about it a little, aren't these things here for our own safety?
I know everybody is going to tell me that it's all a scam from the government to get more money for us and that we are not going to get any services out of all this money they're taking, that the roads are getting worse, the roads are still jammed with traffic, everybody still runs red traffic lights and that the law is only going to apply on poor people. I know all of this shit. But, have YOU ever been in a car accident? Haven't you lost someone close to you in a car accident? What if the thread between life and death for you was inside this first aid kit? Would you still be unwanting to pay for it? I bet not.
The only problem here brings us back to what I personally consider the biggest problem in Egypt. Education. Even if people have the hazard sign and the first aid kid they wouldn't know how to use them or what to do with it. I remember from when I was a kid, that's back at KSA, they had these educational short movies on TV that tells you what to do in a case of accidents and a lot of first-aid procedures. There was also a lot of short movies about traffic laws and stuff like that and I just loved to watch them, everybody did, even if you didn't like them you were bound to see them because they were like on all the time and like a bad commercial there's going to be that one time that you're going to say to yourself that what the heck, there's nothing better on right now, let me see what they're talking about here. And it's going to be useful. That's why almost everybody -at least in my generation- knows all about the traffic laws and who has the prvilage to go first and how to understand the lines and traffic signals, all of this was build into our brains when we were kids.
Now compare this to Egypt. It's just like when someone here tells me that there's this restaurant that makes this great shawerma when to me, if you haven't lived in Saudi Arabia and tasted a shawerma sandwich prepared by a Syrian osta then you are not in position to judge weather any other shawerma is good or not cause you simply didn't taste good yet. And that's exactly what happens when anything gets done in Egypt. People who haven't been abroad will never be able to tell if a road for example is paved or lined right cause they have been living in a total chaos and have no idea about what a highway for example should look like -fyi, none of our roads here in Egypt are considered real "highways", at least not to me-.
Back to our main subject here. What I was trying to say here is that we as a country have become so missed up, our standards so low if any, that wer are actually afraid of doing anything right again. We have been living so long in so much shit that when we fall into fresh water we run back again to the puddle of shit we've been living at cause that's to us is the "normal".
Just yesterday I stopped a taxi and before I get in I asked the driver if it was ok to smoke inside cause I was still holding a half smoked rod of cancer and he was like shocked or didn't get what I was saying or something, anyways, I glimpsed a pack of cleopatra's so I assumed that it was ok to smoke in the cab. As soon as I got into my seat, the dude turned to me and told me "enta ragel mo7taram", I told him "kattar 5eerak leh?" ally "enta awel wa7ed fee 7ayati yes2alni el so2al da abl mayerkab!". The dude was shocked.
This was just to give you a glimpse of how inconsiderate we became towards each other. How everybody now is only looking for how he could benefit no matter what happens to others.
-----
We don't need a new traffic law. What we had was enough. What we need is to have a little consideration towards each other. To respect each other. This plus some organization of course. Kids at schools have to be taught how to respect the law, how the law is there for their benefit and safety. How crossing a red light could mean somebody's life. How to respect the pedesterians right to cross the street. How to be humane to each other. And that is going to take years. I don't expect anything in Egypt to get better anytime soon because of two main reasons.
1\ You can't solve a problem that has been developing over decades in one week or in one day as they're trying with the new traffic law.
2\ We didn't even start to try to solve these problems - that will surely take like at least a decade to solve-.
And until we figure out how to re educate ourselves and how to raise our children with true human values, I don't think that traffic problem in Egypt is going to be solved, to say the least.
Just a note here, when I say "We" I mean "we as Egyptians" even though the fact that not following the law is not at all my nature but again, some might say that I'm not even an Egyptian having lived here for less than a couple of years. Just had to say it cause somebody telling me that I'm not organized really bugs me.
The point I'm going to base my argument here upon is the part in the new traffic law that says that every car has to have a first aid kit and a hazzard triangle. Now, call me crazy, but, don't new cars come already packed with at least a hazard triangle? I know that some top-of-the-line cars like Mercedeses and BMWs come with both, but think about it a little, aren't these things here for our own safety?
I know everybody is going to tell me that it's all a scam from the government to get more money for us and that we are not going to get any services out of all this money they're taking, that the roads are getting worse, the roads are still jammed with traffic, everybody still runs red traffic lights and that the law is only going to apply on poor people. I know all of this shit. But, have YOU ever been in a car accident? Haven't you lost someone close to you in a car accident? What if the thread between life and death for you was inside this first aid kit? Would you still be unwanting to pay for it? I bet not.
The only problem here brings us back to what I personally consider the biggest problem in Egypt. Education. Even if people have the hazard sign and the first aid kid they wouldn't know how to use them or what to do with it. I remember from when I was a kid, that's back at KSA, they had these educational short movies on TV that tells you what to do in a case of accidents and a lot of first-aid procedures. There was also a lot of short movies about traffic laws and stuff like that and I just loved to watch them, everybody did, even if you didn't like them you were bound to see them because they were like on all the time and like a bad commercial there's going to be that one time that you're going to say to yourself that what the heck, there's nothing better on right now, let me see what they're talking about here. And it's going to be useful. That's why almost everybody -at least in my generation- knows all about the traffic laws and who has the prvilage to go first and how to understand the lines and traffic signals, all of this was build into our brains when we were kids.
Now compare this to Egypt. It's just like when someone here tells me that there's this restaurant that makes this great shawerma when to me, if you haven't lived in Saudi Arabia and tasted a shawerma sandwich prepared by a Syrian osta then you are not in position to judge weather any other shawerma is good or not cause you simply didn't taste good yet. And that's exactly what happens when anything gets done in Egypt. People who haven't been abroad will never be able to tell if a road for example is paved or lined right cause they have been living in a total chaos and have no idea about what a highway for example should look like -fyi, none of our roads here in Egypt are considered real "highways", at least not to me-.
Back to our main subject here. What I was trying to say here is that we as a country have become so missed up, our standards so low if any, that wer are actually afraid of doing anything right again. We have been living so long in so much shit that when we fall into fresh water we run back again to the puddle of shit we've been living at cause that's to us is the "normal".
Just yesterday I stopped a taxi and before I get in I asked the driver if it was ok to smoke inside cause I was still holding a half smoked rod of cancer and he was like shocked or didn't get what I was saying or something, anyways, I glimpsed a pack of cleopatra's so I assumed that it was ok to smoke in the cab. As soon as I got into my seat, the dude turned to me and told me "enta ragel mo7taram", I told him "kattar 5eerak leh?" ally "enta awel wa7ed fee 7ayati yes2alni el so2al da abl mayerkab!". The dude was shocked.
This was just to give you a glimpse of how inconsiderate we became towards each other. How everybody now is only looking for how he could benefit no matter what happens to others.
-----
We don't need a new traffic law. What we had was enough. What we need is to have a little consideration towards each other. To respect each other. This plus some organization of course. Kids at schools have to be taught how to respect the law, how the law is there for their benefit and safety. How crossing a red light could mean somebody's life. How to respect the pedesterians right to cross the street. How to be humane to each other. And that is going to take years. I don't expect anything in Egypt to get better anytime soon because of two main reasons.
1\ You can't solve a problem that has been developing over decades in one week or in one day as they're trying with the new traffic law.
2\ We didn't even start to try to solve these problems - that will surely take like at least a decade to solve-.
And until we figure out how to re educate ourselves and how to raise our children with true human values, I don't think that traffic problem in Egypt is going to be solved, to say the least.
05 January, 2007
First Impressions...
First impressions: nothing seems to have changed much since the last time I've been here, but starting to talk with anybody you immediately see that everybody is angry at everything, everybody says that there's no money, poor people are getting poorer and rich are getting richer. From my personal experience, people are becoming more blunt in asking for tips, bribes to be accurate. Tips are what you give to a waitress, but every where you go people are asking your for money to do what they are actually required to do, and when you give them what you think should be enough they look at you like an alien or something and tell you "e7na mesh bnesh7at ya basha", the get the fuck out of my face! The only solution with this kind of people according to my brother is to "eddaken" -derived from the famous word "dakan" coined by Marwan Nabarawi and meaning "to be dakeen" or "to exercise dakan on others"- and treat everybody like shit, which seems to be working with him quite well. According to Ahmad's theory, all Egyptians are cowards with really loud voices and as soon as the feel that you're capable of doing them physical damage the back off, and if you are not convinced here's a story...
Two days ago I was sitting with Ahmad and one of his friends on "gawharet stanely" a nice little place on stanely corniche, when suddenly from the far end of the street, and this was around 3:00 am, a little white car with a guy and a girl which was being chased by two other cars filled with guys, the white car stopped right in front of us and the guy came to us followed by the girl who we found out that she was actually his wife and they were being followed by these ravages and asked us for help, as soon as we stood up and looked at them -since they were still at the middle of the street waiting to see what we're going to do!!- they disappeared! The guy and his wife still obviously traumatized from the experience.
Back to my first impressions:
Trains take almost an hour more to reach Cairo than they used to do, and they're not getting any cleaner too but are still dependable, at least their departure times are accurate!
The best news paper here is "el dostoor", although I heard much more about "el-masry el-yoom" but it didn't rise to my expectations, but el-dostoor is just full of good material from the beginning to the end. I spent three hours in the train reading it!
Everybody is trying to rip you off, even your family. Money seems equally capable of pulling families together -as long as there's something for everybody- and tearing them apart -as soon as one of them knows how to rip the others off and go undiscovered-.
Unveiled women are a minority, especially in Cairo, and especially in Cairo University where I saw only 5 unveiled women, and i paced the whole campus that day, twice. What was even more interesting was the amount of girls wearing the saudi-type abaya or wearing the niqab. I have also seen the weird new types of hijab, the spanish hijab and the latest advancements of the "sexy mohaggaba" which now appears to allow for short skirts, and extremely tight clothes that I doubt even unveiled girls dare to wear. But so what? Isn't her hair covered?
An old observation that still holds: no craftsman does what he's required correctly or faithfully, and in many cases doing something faithfully meant nothing more to him than cutting a piece of textile horizontally instead of vertically!
Egyptians still don't understand the concept of "queues" or even "numbers". I was happy to find that my favorite place for a coffee in Alex, the "Brazilian Coffee", has got a face lift, so I went inside to get a cup of cappuccino and I got a computer print-out with my order and a number, till now everything was fine but thats until I discovered that you have to push through all the people standing on the counter, give your ticket to the person making the coffee -who by the way is the complete opposite of what a customer-friendly people-serving person should look like or behave like-, tip him, and then of course shout a little with the occasional re-arrangement of the crowd in order to allow the lucky fucker who got the coffee to pass through spelling half his coffee in the process. A fuss that could be avoided by simply sticking to the FREAKIN NUMBERS ALREADY PRINTED ON THE FREAKIN PIECE OF PAPER!
Of course I was so frustrated that I decided to go back home on-foot, a 50 minutes walk on the corniche that ended in an awful cold that hit me for four days -thanks to our locally manufactured antibiotics that seems to do nothing and indeed according to doctors here does absolutely nothing-.
A lot of people are getting either engaged or married, and even more are doing the opposite. There's so much stupid things that happened with a lot of people I know that I really care about when they got married that I'm going to write about later.
Everybody is expecting a "change". The government is aware of it and is spreading its forces and tightening its hands on everything in anticipation. Security in Alexandria is not tighter than ever according to everybody here.
Everywhere smells like urine!
I know some of these observations might sound stupid to somebody who's been living in Egypt for a while, but I hope these don't become the norm.
Two days ago I was sitting with Ahmad and one of his friends on "gawharet stanely" a nice little place on stanely corniche, when suddenly from the far end of the street, and this was around 3:00 am, a little white car with a guy and a girl which was being chased by two other cars filled with guys, the white car stopped right in front of us and the guy came to us followed by the girl who we found out that she was actually his wife and they were being followed by these ravages and asked us for help, as soon as we stood up and looked at them -since they were still at the middle of the street waiting to see what we're going to do!!- they disappeared! The guy and his wife still obviously traumatized from the experience.
Back to my first impressions:
Trains take almost an hour more to reach Cairo than they used to do, and they're not getting any cleaner too but are still dependable, at least their departure times are accurate!
The best news paper here is "el dostoor", although I heard much more about "el-masry el-yoom" but it didn't rise to my expectations, but el-dostoor is just full of good material from the beginning to the end. I spent three hours in the train reading it!
Everybody is trying to rip you off, even your family. Money seems equally capable of pulling families together -as long as there's something for everybody- and tearing them apart -as soon as one of them knows how to rip the others off and go undiscovered-.
Unveiled women are a minority, especially in Cairo, and especially in Cairo University where I saw only 5 unveiled women, and i paced the whole campus that day, twice. What was even more interesting was the amount of girls wearing the saudi-type abaya or wearing the niqab. I have also seen the weird new types of hijab, the spanish hijab and the latest advancements of the "sexy mohaggaba" which now appears to allow for short skirts, and extremely tight clothes that I doubt even unveiled girls dare to wear. But so what? Isn't her hair covered?
An old observation that still holds: no craftsman does what he's required correctly or faithfully, and in many cases doing something faithfully meant nothing more to him than cutting a piece of textile horizontally instead of vertically!
Egyptians still don't understand the concept of "queues" or even "numbers". I was happy to find that my favorite place for a coffee in Alex, the "Brazilian Coffee", has got a face lift, so I went inside to get a cup of cappuccino and I got a computer print-out with my order and a number, till now everything was fine but thats until I discovered that you have to push through all the people standing on the counter, give your ticket to the person making the coffee -who by the way is the complete opposite of what a customer-friendly people-serving person should look like or behave like-, tip him, and then of course shout a little with the occasional re-arrangement of the crowd in order to allow the lucky fucker who got the coffee to pass through spelling half his coffee in the process. A fuss that could be avoided by simply sticking to the FREAKIN NUMBERS ALREADY PRINTED ON THE FREAKIN PIECE OF PAPER!
Of course I was so frustrated that I decided to go back home on-foot, a 50 minutes walk on the corniche that ended in an awful cold that hit me for four days -thanks to our locally manufactured antibiotics that seems to do nothing and indeed according to doctors here does absolutely nothing-.
A lot of people are getting either engaged or married, and even more are doing the opposite. There's so much stupid things that happened with a lot of people I know that I really care about when they got married that I'm going to write about later.
Everybody is expecting a "change". The government is aware of it and is spreading its forces and tightening its hands on everything in anticipation. Security in Alexandria is not tighter than ever according to everybody here.
Everywhere smells like urine!
I know some of these observations might sound stupid to somebody who's been living in Egypt for a while, but I hope these don't become the norm.
06 December, 2006
My Last Post From Saudi Arabia
With 18 hours left, I think this is my last post from KSA. The only major thing in my life that didn't happen here was being born. 25 years, with all it ups and downs, happy times and sad time. I went to school here, I graduated from college here. All my friends and memories. I admit that I wasn't the best friend and I truly appreciate the few of that kept up with my weirdness -especially recently- and I hope they will always remember these times because my brain is doing its tricks again and all of my memories from school are already lost and of college already fading.
It is hard to leave the place where you've lived for a quarter of a century especially if you're leaving for a place thats totally new and much more complex, but after 25 years here I've decided its enough. I know that a lot of people will not fully understand my choice especially that I'm leaving a great opportunity here -according to almost everybody in Egypt I have discussed this with- for getting an M.S. degree -which I have already started- but some point during the past two years it stopped being about getting good education and became an issue of personal development.
A lot of people like living in KSA, my folks love it here. But circumstances changed a lot since my dad first came here almost a year before I was born but yet a lot of stuff also remained exactly the same. My folks may like the slow rhythm of life, every day here is almost exactly the same as any other one, nothing major ever happens, the perceived lack of troubles etc. But living in such a place for so long makes you awfully aware of the emptiness of such life and of the limitations to how much you could grow. I feel that at 25 I have missed a lot of experiences in life -but I only have myself to blame for this since it is I who chose to come here in the first place- and the choice I have is either continue living here and hide from the troubles or face it right on and go back to Egypt and try to finally reach the emotional and social maturity I'm sure I'm never going to reach living here. This issue became so important to me lately -and it should- that it overthrew everything else from my priority list even if it meant the suspension of my post-graduate studies and even the probability of not ever completing it.
Every time I go to Egypt in the summer I spend a couple of weeks in a sort of "cultural shock". Life there goes so much faster its hard to keep up with. Stuff that happens in one day there could be spread over a whole month here. The number of people you have to deal with on day-to-day bases triples or even quadruples, and its not only the number of people, but also all the different types of people that you have to deal with. I feel that I have to be on-guard 24/7. Everybody recognizes from the first moment that I'm from the gulf area "khaleeg" somehow -well, not somehow, I know its obvious :)-. Its a weird situations, how much should I give the taxi driver, who and how much should I tip in a cafe. The money stuff alone is enough, your perception of the value of money totally changes when you live in Egypt. The price of a cup of coffee in a coffee shop here could keep you full for a whole day in Egypt, but I admit that the only cheap thing in Egypt is food! Clothes are way more expensive in Egypt.
I'm going to miss studio-1 FM, I'm going to miss mishwar's shawerma and of course "Ganoup Modern Cafe". And of course I'm going to miss all my friends here who were the only reason I kept on going this far without suffering from a mental break down and making it that much more bearable. Thank you Naji and Jawad, you'll always be my best friends. Thanks to all the people from the diwaniya who during the past two months helped me -maybe without them knowing- get out from my summer depression phase. Thank you Ali, Faleh, Basil, Rashid and everybody else. I know I've been a little weird in the beginning but it was out of my control, ask Naji about it. Thank you Muthanna, Dodo, Sherbini and Noami. I'm really sorry I had to go without telling you but it has been awfully hard for me and I know that you will understand, someday. You were and always have been my closest friends. Thanks to Tawfiq, whom might be surprised to when he knows that I'm leaving KSA, you've been my safety valve and always been a joy to be with in my lowest moments. Thanks to all my friends from kfupm, to Khaled, Ali and Ehab and all the crazy things we've done together, you were the only people who I've been so close with from my college years. To Faisal, my fashion advisor, to Ahmad Bukhari, to Abdulhakeem, Abdulkareem, Said and Alaa. And to Bukhari and Alaa especially since I'm going to miss their weddings.
Thank you all. And wish me luck.
end note: after settling in Egypt I'm planning on writing about the experience of living in Saudi Arabia for so long, all its ups and downs and good and bad things, about the people and the country. It is after all a unique experience, with people from all over the world, I don't think that living in Egypt I would've met people from all over the World, to appreciate the difference between a Syrian and a Lebanese. I've me and been close friend to people from all over the arab world and have been exposed to their cultures and this is one of the greatest experiences of living in Saudi Arabia.
I've always wanted to write this down in a book. I've even chosen the name of the book: Esm Ommak Aih - اسم امك ايه. classy, huh?
It is hard to leave the place where you've lived for a quarter of a century especially if you're leaving for a place thats totally new and much more complex, but after 25 years here I've decided its enough. I know that a lot of people will not fully understand my choice especially that I'm leaving a great opportunity here -according to almost everybody in Egypt I have discussed this with- for getting an M.S. degree -which I have already started- but some point during the past two years it stopped being about getting good education and became an issue of personal development.
A lot of people like living in KSA, my folks love it here. But circumstances changed a lot since my dad first came here almost a year before I was born but yet a lot of stuff also remained exactly the same. My folks may like the slow rhythm of life, every day here is almost exactly the same as any other one, nothing major ever happens, the perceived lack of troubles etc. But living in such a place for so long makes you awfully aware of the emptiness of such life and of the limitations to how much you could grow. I feel that at 25 I have missed a lot of experiences in life -but I only have myself to blame for this since it is I who chose to come here in the first place- and the choice I have is either continue living here and hide from the troubles or face it right on and go back to Egypt and try to finally reach the emotional and social maturity I'm sure I'm never going to reach living here. This issue became so important to me lately -and it should- that it overthrew everything else from my priority list even if it meant the suspension of my post-graduate studies and even the probability of not ever completing it.
Every time I go to Egypt in the summer I spend a couple of weeks in a sort of "cultural shock". Life there goes so much faster its hard to keep up with. Stuff that happens in one day there could be spread over a whole month here. The number of people you have to deal with on day-to-day bases triples or even quadruples, and its not only the number of people, but also all the different types of people that you have to deal with. I feel that I have to be on-guard 24/7. Everybody recognizes from the first moment that I'm from the gulf area "khaleeg" somehow -well, not somehow, I know its obvious :)-. Its a weird situations, how much should I give the taxi driver, who and how much should I tip in a cafe. The money stuff alone is enough, your perception of the value of money totally changes when you live in Egypt. The price of a cup of coffee in a coffee shop here could keep you full for a whole day in Egypt, but I admit that the only cheap thing in Egypt is food! Clothes are way more expensive in Egypt.
I'm going to miss studio-1 FM, I'm going to miss mishwar's shawerma and of course "Ganoup Modern Cafe". And of course I'm going to miss all my friends here who were the only reason I kept on going this far without suffering from a mental break down and making it that much more bearable. Thank you Naji and Jawad, you'll always be my best friends. Thanks to all the people from the diwaniya who during the past two months helped me -maybe without them knowing- get out from my summer depression phase. Thank you Ali, Faleh, Basil, Rashid and everybody else. I know I've been a little weird in the beginning but it was out of my control, ask Naji about it. Thank you Muthanna, Dodo, Sherbini and Noami. I'm really sorry I had to go without telling you but it has been awfully hard for me and I know that you will understand, someday. You were and always have been my closest friends. Thanks to Tawfiq, whom might be surprised to when he knows that I'm leaving KSA, you've been my safety valve and always been a joy to be with in my lowest moments. Thanks to all my friends from kfupm, to Khaled, Ali and Ehab and all the crazy things we've done together, you were the only people who I've been so close with from my college years. To Faisal, my fashion advisor, to Ahmad Bukhari, to Abdulhakeem, Abdulkareem, Said and Alaa. And to Bukhari and Alaa especially since I'm going to miss their weddings.
Thank you all. And wish me luck.
end note: after settling in Egypt I'm planning on writing about the experience of living in Saudi Arabia for so long, all its ups and downs and good and bad things, about the people and the country. It is after all a unique experience, with people from all over the world, I don't think that living in Egypt I would've met people from all over the World, to appreciate the difference between a Syrian and a Lebanese. I've me and been close friend to people from all over the arab world and have been exposed to their cultures and this is one of the greatest experiences of living in Saudi Arabia.
I've always wanted to write this down in a book. I've even chosen the name of the book: Esm Ommak Aih - اسم امك ايه. classy, huh?
04 December, 2006
Who Stole Islam?
If I have to agree with the Egyptian government on one thing, it would be the banning of the Muslim brotherhood group. And if I had to give one reason for me not liking the brotherhood so much it would be the way they look down on everybody else.
One of the thing I admire the most about people like Ahmad Zewail or Farouk El-Baz -and in fact almost everybody with such knowledge- is how having all this knowledge made them so humble and so polite because science, just like religion, has a way of elevating a persons spirit which makes me think that maybe the gaia people were right! But when you look at most religious people you will find something that almost the complete opposite. This look that they know so much more and that they're so much better than you just because you don't grow a beard or -if you're a woman- you don't cover your hair.
I'm OK with anybody who wants to go the extra mile with his religion whatever it is but I can't help it feeling that there's something "troubling" with most of these people. I know some people who either joined or tried to join the brotherhood and I noticed that the "recruiters" usually targeted people with somewhat troubled personalities, people who could be easily manipulated and maybe back then in my subconscious I felt that these people were actually being "brain washed" but I never really saw it this way until the era of terrorists attacks and suicide bombers came upon us especially after the Iraq invasion. And this maybe the main reason why I never trusted the brotherhood. But this is not the main reason why I don't like them having an "Islamic" party.
I can't get myself to forget the Luxor massacre on 1997, and I know that the group behind the attack are not the brotherhood but the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya who actually did it originated from the brotherhood. Living in Saudi Arabia too I could tell you that the followers of the brotherhood who took refuge there and who mostly worked as teachers in schools and universities were one of the main reasons behind the development of extremism -in a country that was on top of this following the wahhabi extremist understanding of Islam- which eventually lead to the emergence of Bin Laden and his friends. I can't really put my hands on it but there must be some kind of a connection between all these extremists link to the Muslim brotherhood.
You can do like my father and try to convince me that they're good people and they do a lot of services to the community, but, don't you think that this is just "marketing" for their group? To brainwash the people they're helping into thinking that they're good people so that they have their support when they call for them in any of their crazy endeavors against the government? "El qa3da el sha3biya" elly zahha2o ommena beeha? Its the same technique they've been telling us in schools that Christian missionaries are using in the poor countries of Africa when they offer them food and medicine in exchange for them converting to Christianity, something that I don't believe anymore but try telling this to almost all school students in Saudi Arabia.
Just take a look at their logo and their motto: "God is our objective, the Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations". If their message is so peaceful then whey do they need the sword for? and then below the logo you have "وأعدوا", this alone really scared me! Its as if our whole mission as Muslims is to fight and kill the infidels. And where does it say in Islam that dying should be our "highest aspiration"? These kinds of teachings are what gave us the suicide bombers and terrorists. Instead of teaching people to respect the soul and to forbid the killing of anybody regardless of his religion they're teaching us that dying should be our highest aspiration.
I still have a lot to say on this issue, wait for me...
One of the thing I admire the most about people like Ahmad Zewail or Farouk El-Baz -and in fact almost everybody with such knowledge- is how having all this knowledge made them so humble and so polite because science, just like religion, has a way of elevating a persons spirit which makes me think that maybe the gaia people were right! But when you look at most religious people you will find something that almost the complete opposite. This look that they know so much more and that they're so much better than you just because you don't grow a beard or -if you're a woman- you don't cover your hair.
I'm OK with anybody who wants to go the extra mile with his religion whatever it is but I can't help it feeling that there's something "troubling" with most of these people. I know some people who either joined or tried to join the brotherhood and I noticed that the "recruiters" usually targeted people with somewhat troubled personalities, people who could be easily manipulated and maybe back then in my subconscious I felt that these people were actually being "brain washed" but I never really saw it this way until the era of terrorists attacks and suicide bombers came upon us especially after the Iraq invasion. And this maybe the main reason why I never trusted the brotherhood. But this is not the main reason why I don't like them having an "Islamic" party.
I can't get myself to forget the Luxor massacre on 1997, and I know that the group behind the attack are not the brotherhood but the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya who actually did it originated from the brotherhood. Living in Saudi Arabia too I could tell you that the followers of the brotherhood who took refuge there and who mostly worked as teachers in schools and universities were one of the main reasons behind the development of extremism -in a country that was on top of this following the wahhabi extremist understanding of Islam- which eventually lead to the emergence of Bin Laden and his friends. I can't really put my hands on it but there must be some kind of a connection between all these extremists link to the Muslim brotherhood.
You can do like my father and try to convince me that they're good people and they do a lot of services to the community, but, don't you think that this is just "marketing" for their group? To brainwash the people they're helping into thinking that they're good people so that they have their support when they call for them in any of their crazy endeavors against the government? "El qa3da el sha3biya" elly zahha2o ommena beeha? Its the same technique they've been telling us in schools that Christian missionaries are using in the poor countries of Africa when they offer them food and medicine in exchange for them converting to Christianity, something that I don't believe anymore but try telling this to almost all school students in Saudi Arabia.
Just take a look at their logo and their motto: "God is our objective, the Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations". If their message is so peaceful then whey do they need the sword for? and then below the logo you have "وأعدوا", this alone really scared me! Its as if our whole mission as Muslims is to fight and kill the infidels. And where does it say in Islam that dying should be our "highest aspiration"? These kinds of teachings are what gave us the suicide bombers and terrorists. Instead of teaching people to respect the soul and to forbid the killing of anybody regardless of his religion they're teaching us that dying should be our highest aspiration.
I still have a lot to say on this issue, wait for me...
03 December, 2006
The Solution
Something I've noticed in the blogging world: Everybody is writing about problems, nobody's offering a solution.
I'm not saying that its a bad thing, not at all. At the very least problems are finally being discussed in public and its an indication that most Egyptian are still not corrupted by the rotten system. But talking about the problem is only a first step and it should be followed by another and another till we fix these problem, and here I'm going to propose my humble suggestion on what the second step could look like. But just in case, if anybody with legal knowledge of the issue thinks that this post could lead to me getting arrested for provoking public unrest or planning to overthrow the government please notify me so I could delete it in time 3ashan mama mwasyani arga3laha 7etta wa7da ya3ni.
The solution in one word is "education". Democracy is the legal child of a well-informed society and as long as we suffer from these horrifying rates of illiteracy we're never going to make it. A couple of days ago I was reading the Asharq Al-Awsat news paper and I came upon this article on how the Jew, originally mistreated by the "religious" mostly christian Americans, and how they forced the American public to respect them by becoming highly-educated and consequently highly influential and recognized. And they're still doing it, according to wikipedia Israel ranks 3rd amongst countries spending on Research and Development. Of the best 10 universities in the middle east, seven are in Israel. Among the same list no Egyptian university shows up on the Asian top 100 -the 100th university by the way ranked 3656th world wide! mine was the 1681! yeppy!-. Going through such statistics and noting the countries you'll find that there's a relationship between a country being an industrial and a high-tech nation with a strong economy and their education standards. Countries like China, India and Korea dominate these lists.
Now, improving our educational system is a key to both having a democratic country and one that plays a key role in international politics not a country that its foreign policy is dictated else where. I know its an obvious solution to a lot of people that we should start with the education, but what I want to say here is what can we do as highly educated Egypt loving people. My suggestion is to interact with the current educational system and putting in a little of our own time and effort trying to make it better. Small things like going to your little brother's school to talk about your profession, parents organized and financed school trips, summer camps all around Egypt where college students spend a couple of hours every day teaching illiterate people to read and write and at the same time while doing this we could tell them that we have a constitution and that we have rights. A grassroots movement to educate people on political issues and to eliminate illiteracy all at once. And I'm going to try to start something like this myself in my little brother's school after I settle in Alexandria and see whats going to happen with my army service but I promise you that I'll do my best and I'll keep you updated.
One of the things I'm going to miss the most is a two-minute radio spot called "Second Thoughts". A short radio spot where Mort Crim, the presenter, tells a short story of how one person saw something that he thought he could improve a little, and DID! And the results were much greater than he expected. At the end of each show he says "Now YOU go make a difference".
Let's all go make a difference.
I'm not saying that its a bad thing, not at all. At the very least problems are finally being discussed in public and its an indication that most Egyptian are still not corrupted by the rotten system. But talking about the problem is only a first step and it should be followed by another and another till we fix these problem, and here I'm going to propose my humble suggestion on what the second step could look like. But just in case, if anybody with legal knowledge of the issue thinks that this post could lead to me getting arrested for provoking public unrest or planning to overthrow the government please notify me so I could delete it in time 3ashan mama mwasyani arga3laha 7etta wa7da ya3ni.
The solution in one word is "education". Democracy is the legal child of a well-informed society and as long as we suffer from these horrifying rates of illiteracy we're never going to make it. A couple of days ago I was reading the Asharq Al-Awsat news paper and I came upon this article on how the Jew, originally mistreated by the "religious" mostly christian Americans, and how they forced the American public to respect them by becoming highly-educated and consequently highly influential and recognized. And they're still doing it, according to wikipedia Israel ranks 3rd amongst countries spending on Research and Development. Of the best 10 universities in the middle east, seven are in Israel. Among the same list no Egyptian university shows up on the Asian top 100 -the 100th university by the way ranked 3656th world wide! mine was the 1681! yeppy!-. Going through such statistics and noting the countries you'll find that there's a relationship between a country being an industrial and a high-tech nation with a strong economy and their education standards. Countries like China, India and Korea dominate these lists.
Now, improving our educational system is a key to both having a democratic country and one that plays a key role in international politics not a country that its foreign policy is dictated else where. I know its an obvious solution to a lot of people that we should start with the education, but what I want to say here is what can we do as highly educated Egypt loving people. My suggestion is to interact with the current educational system and putting in a little of our own time and effort trying to make it better. Small things like going to your little brother's school to talk about your profession, parents organized and financed school trips, summer camps all around Egypt where college students spend a couple of hours every day teaching illiterate people to read and write and at the same time while doing this we could tell them that we have a constitution and that we have rights. A grassroots movement to educate people on political issues and to eliminate illiteracy all at once. And I'm going to try to start something like this myself in my little brother's school after I settle in Alexandria and see whats going to happen with my army service but I promise you that I'll do my best and I'll keep you updated.
One of the things I'm going to miss the most is a two-minute radio spot called "Second Thoughts". A short radio spot where Mort Crim, the presenter, tells a short story of how one person saw something that he thought he could improve a little, and DID! And the results were much greater than he expected. At the end of each show he says "Now YOU go make a difference".
Let's all go make a difference.
28 November, 2006
The Social Significance of Bars
Bars have a bad reputation, especially in the Arab world. Their mere association with serving alcohol is bad enough in any country with a Muslim majority and only to make matters worse bars became the refuge for prostitutes since according to how an Arab mind works if somebody is doing something wrong the he must also be doing all sorts of bad things -which is how somebody who's harassing a girl in the street justifies himself "if she's wearing like this she has to be a bitch" and also in politics, whenever somebody disagrees with the regime he is accused of being a traitor, a thief and all these sorts of insults that we're familiar with.
But, I think that bars in the states and in the western world in general has a much more significant role. A bar is somewhere where people could gather, chat together, dance, meet new people, have a conversation, watch a sports event, sing or have parties. I see it as a corner stone in a normal a normal social life in the west. A place to go when you're feeling bad, good, need to meet somebody, hit on a woman, especially hitting on women since in a bar is the perfect atmosphere for something like this. Girls come with the intention of meeting somebody already in their minds which makes it that much easier for guys to attempt to make a move on them. Booze is readily available, you could dance and chat, all the requirements for a perfectly good first date are there. And thats exactly what we don't have in Egypt.
If we just had a public space where it is well-known that anybody who's going there has the intention of meeting a person from the opposite sex then we're eliminating -or at least reducing- the amount of harassment that happens on the street where women are usually defensive and anybody with even the purist of intentions could be humiliated and even beaten -depending on the location :)-, and for all the conservatives out there, there shouldn't even be booze, just regular drinks or coffee or whatever, the only important thing is the concept itself.
Just another great idea by moi.
But, I think that bars in the states and in the western world in general has a much more significant role. A bar is somewhere where people could gather, chat together, dance, meet new people, have a conversation, watch a sports event, sing or have parties. I see it as a corner stone in a normal a normal social life in the west. A place to go when you're feeling bad, good, need to meet somebody, hit on a woman, especially hitting on women since in a bar is the perfect atmosphere for something like this. Girls come with the intention of meeting somebody already in their minds which makes it that much easier for guys to attempt to make a move on them. Booze is readily available, you could dance and chat, all the requirements for a perfectly good first date are there. And thats exactly what we don't have in Egypt.
If we just had a public space where it is well-known that anybody who's going there has the intention of meeting a person from the opposite sex then we're eliminating -or at least reducing- the amount of harassment that happens on the street where women are usually defensive and anybody with even the purist of intentions could be humiliated and even beaten -depending on the location :)-, and for all the conservatives out there, there shouldn't even be booze, just regular drinks or coffee or whatever, the only important thing is the concept itself.
Just another great idea by moi.
27 November, 2006
Did anybody read this?
While looking for a piece by Osama El-Baz on the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper website, I stumbled upon this interesting document:
مصادر: مبارك سيلغي قانون الطوارئ بعد عودته من رحلة العلاج
The article is dated 1-July-2004. Is he back yet? :)
مصادر: مبارك سيلغي قانون الطوارئ بعد عودته من رحلة العلاج
The article is dated 1-July-2004. Is he back yet? :)
The Uniform
Sometimes to change from the inside you have to change from the outside.
All Egyptians now know that their country is being controlled by a few corrupt figures whose corruption spread through the entire community that corruption has become the new norm. But, knowing the problem is still only half the answer, an answer that is becoming increasingly difficult, how do you save the country?
Every time I watch an American high school on TV in a movie or a series I feel that I missed a lot of things. The school I have been didn't make us wear a uniform, but thats something we had to fight for every single year until a couple of year after I graduated they finally won and made it compulsory. I have never understood the reason behind the school uniform and short hair. Why do they want everybody to look the same? The image that comes directly to my mind when I see uniformed schoolboys in the street now is that of a military school with an oppressive authoritarian figure on the top of it, somebody screwed enough in his head that he hates everybody else to the extent of ruining their individuality and personality. Brainwashing, we are all being brainwashed, just like the Nazis brainwashed the Germans we're slowly being brainwashed into thinking that we should obey our leader and not question him, we are being taught to be all the same and not to think for ourselves because authorities know whats best for us, even in what we wear.
To me, school uniforms and short hair is a sign of oppression as anything else. I believe that schools is the ticket to solving all of Egypt's problems. Maybe American schools are not much better than ours only because they have colorful well-printed textbooks or because they have chemistry labs that rivals those in our engineering schools, maybe its because their students are taught to think for themselves and to ask questions, they're not given answers they're required to look for them and this is the foundation of scientific research that our government thinks that only by building labs we're going to produce science.
Their students have a "student governments" and these are not the "top students" the 4.0 students who well automatically be assigned to these position just because they study hard -the Egyptian model-, no, they are elected, and this is the foundation for your democratic country.
It all starts in school people. And schools are not the tables and the chairs and the textbooks, schools are much bigger than that. Schools are where we learn to be people, to learn, to tolerate the other.
I had a very close friend in primary school called Zein. Zein's mother was Australian and he himself looked very much Australian too, and this was his mistake. Just because he looked different everybody automatically hated him, just because he doesn't fit in their built-in image of what a normal person should look like and because we were all taught to look the same -I'm not talking about the school here cause I already said we didn't have a uniform, its the image by society of what a normal person should look like, and if you don't get what I mean go out to the street and see for yourself how 90% of the people look almost identical- because they were all taught to look the same he was treated like a freak!
This post is running long, continue later...
All Egyptians now know that their country is being controlled by a few corrupt figures whose corruption spread through the entire community that corruption has become the new norm. But, knowing the problem is still only half the answer, an answer that is becoming increasingly difficult, how do you save the country?
Every time I watch an American high school on TV in a movie or a series I feel that I missed a lot of things. The school I have been didn't make us wear a uniform, but thats something we had to fight for every single year until a couple of year after I graduated they finally won and made it compulsory. I have never understood the reason behind the school uniform and short hair. Why do they want everybody to look the same? The image that comes directly to my mind when I see uniformed schoolboys in the street now is that of a military school with an oppressive authoritarian figure on the top of it, somebody screwed enough in his head that he hates everybody else to the extent of ruining their individuality and personality. Brainwashing, we are all being brainwashed, just like the Nazis brainwashed the Germans we're slowly being brainwashed into thinking that we should obey our leader and not question him, we are being taught to be all the same and not to think for ourselves because authorities know whats best for us, even in what we wear.
To me, school uniforms and short hair is a sign of oppression as anything else. I believe that schools is the ticket to solving all of Egypt's problems. Maybe American schools are not much better than ours only because they have colorful well-printed textbooks or because they have chemistry labs that rivals those in our engineering schools, maybe its because their students are taught to think for themselves and to ask questions, they're not given answers they're required to look for them and this is the foundation of scientific research that our government thinks that only by building labs we're going to produce science.
Their students have a "student governments" and these are not the "top students" the 4.0 students who well automatically be assigned to these position just because they study hard -the Egyptian model-, no, they are elected, and this is the foundation for your democratic country.
It all starts in school people. And schools are not the tables and the chairs and the textbooks, schools are much bigger than that. Schools are where we learn to be people, to learn, to tolerate the other.
I had a very close friend in primary school called Zein. Zein's mother was Australian and he himself looked very much Australian too, and this was his mistake. Just because he looked different everybody automatically hated him, just because he doesn't fit in their built-in image of what a normal person should look like and because we were all taught to look the same -I'm not talking about the school here cause I already said we didn't have a uniform, its the image by society of what a normal person should look like, and if you don't get what I mean go out to the street and see for yourself how 90% of the people look almost identical- because they were all taught to look the same he was treated like a freak!
This post is running long, continue later...
26 November, 2006
Hijab Fight, Act 4
I was just watching "El-3ashera masa2an" on Dream 2. I didn't see the show for quite a while now but I came by it on TV and I immediately remembered why I hate to watch arabic talk shows. EVERYBODY IS SCREAMING! Everywhere I watch TV now I find people, all kinds of people, shouting and screaming on TV trying to make a point. A point that usually is that they're the only ones who got it right and that everybody else is wrong. Every time I see this I immediately remember when I was watching "Quadriga" on DW-TV and he said that the only reason why he's watching this show is because of how calmly and nicely do these people argue with each other! :)
Anyways, first impressions? This Salah Eisa is a an arrogant son of a bitch. He was treating everybody -especially Essam Sultan- like he was much better than them and this is just a quality that I despise. Did anyone of these see Dr. Ahmad Zewail or Farouk El-Baz and how humble they sound when they're talking and I bet that they're much more well-known in the world than any of them. Anyways, I was glad that the issue of the lacking of a culture of civilized argument in Egypt -and in the arab world- in general, because in my opinion this is the key issue in the whole fight on Farouk Housni.
I'm afraid that our country, because of the absence of a real political atmosphere, is being hijacked by Islamic radicals. These are the people who are truly behind this whole bubble. The proof? I'm going to use the same argument used by Magdi El-Gallad, where the hell were they when the real shit happens? Where were they when Egyptians are burned alive, drowned, poisoned and all these wrong doings! Where were they when women were -and still are- sexually harassed? Or is Islam now restricted to covering the hair and growing a beard?
Honestly, I didn't want to talk about this subject at all cause to me, as all the guests -and surprisingly the head of the Islamic brotherhood on the phone- agreed that this subject is irrelevant and is only a front of a much bigger problem. The hijacking of the country by extremist Islamists. And thats not at all a good thing, but thats the subject of my next post.
Anyways, first impressions? This Salah Eisa is a an arrogant son of a bitch. He was treating everybody -especially Essam Sultan- like he was much better than them and this is just a quality that I despise. Did anyone of these see Dr. Ahmad Zewail or Farouk El-Baz and how humble they sound when they're talking and I bet that they're much more well-known in the world than any of them. Anyways, I was glad that the issue of the lacking of a culture of civilized argument in Egypt -and in the arab world- in general, because in my opinion this is the key issue in the whole fight on Farouk Housni.
I'm afraid that our country, because of the absence of a real political atmosphere, is being hijacked by Islamic radicals. These are the people who are truly behind this whole bubble. The proof? I'm going to use the same argument used by Magdi El-Gallad, where the hell were they when the real shit happens? Where were they when Egyptians are burned alive, drowned, poisoned and all these wrong doings! Where were they when women were -and still are- sexually harassed? Or is Islam now restricted to covering the hair and growing a beard?
Honestly, I didn't want to talk about this subject at all cause to me, as all the guests -and surprisingly the head of the Islamic brotherhood on the phone- agreed that this subject is irrelevant and is only a front of a much bigger problem. The hijacking of the country by extremist Islamists. And thats not at all a good thing, but thats the subject of my next post.
23 November, 2006
Today's Quote
Today's quote is dedicated to Rami Siyam (Ayoub). For more information please click here.
"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
21 November, 2006
Mubarak Denies My Suggestion on Niqab
Apparently, Mr. Osama Shaltout, a shoura council member has raised my suggestion of banning niqab in Egypt to president Hosni Mubarak! Check it out here.
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