when are we gonna stop being that shallow seeing nothing but the outer line of the west and think they're all living in heaven?
when are we gonna start realizing that the bigger part of our problems actually lye within us and not only the government and the corrupted dictatorship regime?
i'm not living in denial or underestimating the amount of corruption we're facing in our political system.
but who doesn't?
i've tried to name one single country that lacks corruption, couldn't find any!
the richest countries of the world have corruption, unemployment, terrorism, high crime ratios, lack of medical insurance, racism, fake claimed democracy, manipulation, poverty and the list is rather long...
So before you start cursing, sending me hate messages and assure everyone that i'm a member of the national democratic party and maybe hired from that Mr. X to be part of the government conspiracy to brainwash the mass, let me tell you where i'm coming from and list down few facts that might be of your interest.
i've recently seen the latest social indicator in the last 10 years that was published in a special report on Egypt in the Economist by Max Rodenbeck titled the long wait:
i wouldn't say much, you can simply refer to the report for further elaboration, but i believe that the above box says it well and for further reference please listen to the reporter interview regarding the same topic.
another report that i personally think everyone who allowed him/herself to complain & accuse others, should read, KNOW and acknowledge that despite all the challenges, Egypt is still moving forward somehow - Egypt Human Development Report 2010 -
couple of days ago, i had a very surprising conversation with a good french-spanish friend of mine about the escalated depression & suicidal rates amongst french young people, which made me dig deep and try to know more on where do we stand from this holly-preceived world called the west and that's when i found A LOT and picked some random facts & figures.
- Unemployment rate in France hits 10% versus 8.7% in Egypt
- Crime rate in USA is 21.1% versus 9.43% in Egypt
- Fatal no. of terrorism attacks from 1968 - 2006 is 983 in Algeria, 522 in Turkey & 366 in United Kingdom versus 306 in Egypt
- Egypt supersedes most of the Arab countries in democracy level "it's true, don't jump", leaded the entire Arab world in women's suffrage & has the highest percentage of parliamentary elections registered voters in the Middle East
- Egypt considered to be one of the Arab countries with least restraints on press and has the largest space among Arab world in freedom of speech & expression
- Ranked the 7th worldwide out of 210 countries in electricity production
i'm obviously picking our top & best ranks in whatever we're doing good and avoiding any negative ones, which are many as well!
okkkaayyy, enough of that utopian world and back to the drama.
What are the major problems other than poverty that irritate you?
Let me list down the very common ones that will come out of anybody's mind once asked that question
- Traffic
- People behavior & attitude
- Education system
- Political repression
- Overpopulation
- Medical care
fine, we've got loads of shit, but we really also have an issue with our perception to the government role!
we're always expecting to be fed in the mouth and cuddled afterwards if possible, we grow up with the idea that everything is -and should always be- subsidized! bread, gasoline, transportations, water, electricity and all other commodities! even entertainment, TV has to be for free including satellite channels ;\
and after a long deep thought, I kept sticking to my personal belief: a big part of fixing most of our problems MUST be initiated by us, we should be doing the change.
we should put our corrupted brutal regime excuse aside for a bit and start working on ourselves, educate ourselves and the forthcoming generations how and when to take actions; not only complain, nag & snap then keep doing nothing!!
and after a long deep thought, I kept sticking to my personal belief: a big part of fixing most of our problems MUST be initiated by us, we should be doing the change.
we should put our corrupted brutal regime excuse aside for a bit and start working on ourselves, educate ourselves and the forthcoming generations how and when to take actions; not only complain, nag & snap then keep doing nothing!!
Dear Marwa,
ReplyDeleteFirst the simple fact that you wrote this little article is in itself a positive attitude. My main comment is that figures never tell all the truth. In a country like Egypt, ruled in a despotic fashion for the past 50+ years, figures and statistics are usually "doctored"..
Take an example, the unemployment rate is taken from the labor ministry that record ONLY employees that are registered, some independent estimate that less than 50% of the labor force have contract and/or social insurance. Usually those people are the ones that are hit in 1rst by unemployment. You could walk in the streets of Cairo, Alexandia, Tanta , Mansourah, Assiout, and see the number of people sitting in coffee shops or window shoppers to understand that the actual unemployment rate specially in the 25-35 years old bracket is higher than 30% for sure...
I could go further for each and every figure that you displayed. But this would be a trivial and unnecessary effort. You also would be better off in comparing Egyptian figures achieved to other countries, as similar economies have achieved better result in a lesser time span.
My second point is related to how should we appraise the future of the Egyptian economy/society? definitively the historical performance as measured is a good indicator on the performance of PAST policies, but for the future will always take something called business/investor sentiments..
Guess what you would get today? without a complete transparency of the governmental decision making process, and accountability of the political leaders toward their electors and not the president of the republic we will get nowhere..
A last comment, I truly beleive that "our problems MUST be initiated by us, we should be doing the change" is all BS. In history the leaders are the one that does the change.All what "people" can do is pick the best possible leader they can find... unfortunately we have along history in failing miserably in this very simple task, so my recommendation would be: teaching people how to choose the right leader - right here is for "good" and for "capitalist"... :O)