Bring Back Blurbs (PLEASE!)

It is no exaggeration to say I have probably spent  more of my life reading then doing any other one activity except maybe sleeping, for after all, according to the BFG at least, we are a sleep at least half our lives. I have never been too fussed about format; hardback, paperback, ebook as long as I get my fix I’m not too worried what form it takes.  I have been reading ebooks since I was 12, back then Project Gutenberg was my primary source through  The Online Books Page and The University of Virginia Young Readers Library. Eventually though what wooed me to Blackmask*[1] was the fact that Blackmask gave me the one thing that Project Gutenberg did not- blurbs.

Its seems to me that in the world of ebooks publishers and more crucially creators of ebook reader software (and hardware come to that)  have underestimated or forgotten the importance of blurbs. As a reader with a massive collection of books sometimes I just like to browse my shelves reread the blurbs and revisit old friends with a quick skim through the pages especially if I haven’t time to read a whole book.

I have over 300 ebooks and I am constantly frustrated by the fact once purchased there is no way of displaying a blurb, and no I do not think having the blurb at the start of the ebook is a suitable substitute. Nor as is the case with kindle is going into each individual title and requiring wireless connection. NO I want the blurb to be available when browsing the library, without needing to enter the titles individual menu.

In the case of Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) I would like an 8^th  editable column in the library list view entitle description ( if they bulk at blurb) to display the blurb, and if as is the case of already released ebooks this does not automatically fill the owner has the option to add one.
I really do not see how hard it would be for the makers of ebook reader softwares and the publishers of ebooks to get this together when it will make the experience of reading ebooks so much more enjoyable.

So please can I have this feature by my next birthday, (September) Ta thanks!

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[1] Sadly Blackmask was taken down in 2006 although it appears to have gone back up under a different name, Munseys

Why I am in Egypt

More often than ever in the last week or so I have had people ask me why I am in Egypt? Why when I have the opportunity to live in the UK to work nearly anywhere in the world would I choose to come to live in Egypt, why do I even care about Egypt at all especially in its current circumstances?

To all those people and anyone else questioning that only answer I have is simple look around Cairo today (or anywhere else voting today), THAT is why I am so fervent in my love of Egypt.

Today in Egypt every voice counts, every person is needed, everyone and anyone can make a real difference. That is not true of other places, at least not in my experience. At this moment in time we, Egypt and Egyptians, stand on the brink of something as yet unveiled something that by turns we fear is truly great or truly amazing. Perhaps a better analogy would be Egypt walks the tightrope between the two and any one voice can tip the balance. There is an amazing heady mix of hope and fear in the air and I for one would not give up the chance to be here, to be part of history, with a chance of actually influencing the way things turn out at least not without a fight.

R E S P E C T

Since last night, I have been watching and listening to arguments about Sexual Harassment in Egypt. This is my last post of the day so, I want to sum up  a couple of points that struck me, during conversations today, before going on to what was the main point of this blog, which is, Respect, the vital ingredient needed for the eradication of sexual harassment, in my opinion.

1)    Blogging isn’t going to end Sexual Harassment: True this. But I did not believe that  that was the direct objective of today. Personally, I saw today as being a  chance to break the taboo on discussing sexual harassment. This, I believe, is  the first important step to confronting and dealing with the issue. I truly  hope that everyone took the opportunity to discuss the issue offline as well as  online.

2)  The association with poverty: I am sorry but I  see this to be another one of those Just World Hypothesis fallacies, sexual  harassment in Egypt does not occur only from the poor or uneducated, the so called ‘upper  class’ and very well educated people do it too.

The truth is this Sexual Harassment, in  Egypt, comes in many forms but its starts, in my opinion, with the assumption  of female inferiority, male superiority and the idea that society has the right to pass judgment on every action or thought of a woman even of her body itself.

Let me give you an example, I know a boy  (well he isn’t one anymore but he was 19-20 at the time of these events) who is  the least likely to sexually harass a woman I have ever met. He walked out of a wedding around the time of this story because ,”belly dancing is demeaning, and all those men  pawing her were little better than harassers on the street.” Yet one day, not  long after the belly dancing incident, he was giving me a lift and suddenly he  comes out this utterly mean comment about an obese girl across the street. I  was shocked, and am fairly sure I punched him, what right had he to pass judgment on this stranger?

This objectification of women, where their value is placed solely on their appearance,  is a the right society seems to have given  men.  When I visited Egypt  in October 2009  one of the first things my grandmother said to me in the 3 years since she had  last seen me was “Oh my God what have you done to yourself? How could you get  so FAT? How will we find you someone to  marry!”

She refused to listen, then, and still  refuses to listen to the fact I do NOT want to get married yet, instead, every  time I call her now, I am told she is still praying night and day for me to find  a suitable husband, actually recently she has dropped suitable and is just  praying for any man.

Have I mentioned I am only 23?

My point is this: why does society believe  that somehow without a man a woman is incomplete? This is not true only of  middle eastern societies, mind you, I once had a telemarketer in the UK tell me  I was unnatural because I claimed never to have had a boyfriend and never to  want one. Also see Lily Allen’s 22.

Girls, especially here, are taught, by society, from  the earliest age that their crowning achievement will be to marry well. I have  a vivid memory of plotting which boy in my KG 2 class I was going to marry  based on various merits, he is nice to me, he has a house with a garden, etc. By  the time I was 9 I had whittled down the list to 7 names, who with my already developing  distrust of males in general, I deemed trustworthy. At the time, we lived next  door to a man who hit his wife and the maid with hot iron. Something I probably  wasn’t supposed to find out, but kids see and hear a lot more than adults think.  Anyway I fast decided that I never wanted that to happen to me.

I am naturally messy, clumsy and loud. It  is partly a result of my dyslexia and dyspraxia but we didn’t discover that  until I was almost 16. Before then the years I spent in Egypt I was more than once  told by frustrated teachers that I was ‘unfit to be a girl’, that I was a ‘disgrace  to womankind’ because I was incapable of showing any ‘feminine virtues.’

So by extrapolation I find that a ‘good’ desirable  female in this society is one who beautiful, biddable, quiet, unopinionated, not too intelligent, a good breeder and last but not least a good housekeeper.

Remind me what century do we live in?  These are the very same barriers Wollstonecraft rallied against in The  Vindication on the Rights of Woman in 1792.

Last week we all cheered for the brave  Saudi women who chose to challenge the oppression and take back some self  reliance and respect. Tell me this do we really have that much more respect
here in Egypt?

In short I believe that the root evil is  the lack of respect for women. It is our impediment to equality. It is what  leads to harassment. Lack of self respect amongst women is what leads to learned  helplessness, which leads to less respect, which in turn leads to less self  respect and so on in a vicious unending cycle.

So please, I do not have a golden answer  but, please can we start demanding respect, standing up for ourselves and  wrestling the respect we deserve from unwilling minds of men. I believe with  respect we WILL End Sexual Harassment and Gender Violence.

Just World Hypothesis: aka the Blame Game

Just world Hypothesis or Just World Theory is, to quote the text book definition:

The idea that people need to believe one will get what one deserves so strongly that they will rationalize an inexplicable injustice by naming things the victim might have done to deserve  it. Also known as blaming the victim, the just-world fallacy, and the just-world effect. –PsychCentral Encyclopaedia of Psychology.

Most famously, this applies to the blaming of rape victims. While I was at university there was a spate of rapes around the area where I lived. One morning, as I sat on the bus into town, across the aisle were 3 girls discussing how the latest rape victim obviously deserved it because who could be so stupid as to walk across W******* park after 1 am alone? And hadn’t she been at several parties that night and was always bed hopping anyway!

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a prime example of Just World Hypothesis. Or, in a more on topic example, last week someone was talking to me about sexual harassment in Egypt and how near where she lives there are all these young men hanging around all the time causing problems. But, she didn’t really blame them because, how could they know the difference between a good girl and one that would go along with them. She had seen, with her own eyes, girls getting into cars with these boys. What are girls getting into these days!

In vain did I argue that the behaviour of a minority of women did not give men the right to harass women in general. Something I have noticed about our society is that we, women, have somehow developed a perfect excuses system for the men.

We wear Hijjabs to protect us, or at least so we don’t get the sin points from men’s thoughts, not that we believe that they won’t have them if we cover up, but as long as we are not deliberately provoking the thoughts it’s ok because God made them that way, so it’s not their fault.

It’s ok for men to date and sleep with people before they are married but not women, because they are made differently, it’s not their fault.

It’s ok for men to cheat on their girlfriends or wives (and I am not talking about polygamy which is a separate issue) or to string girls along because they are made differently, so it’s not their fault.

It seems that nothing is ever men’s fault.

Now, I am going to point to the Quran,  I’m sure you have heard of it, take Surrat El Baqqra (surrah 2). Remember the bit where the Children Of Israel say to Moses that it’s not their fault that God designed them with hearts incapable of accepting Him. And remember the rest of the ayah? It is 88 if you are wondering but for the full picture I would start reading at ayah 40.

The same logic applies here, you can’t very well blame God for this and then, in the same breath, claim to be a ‘pious’ person. After all what is Jihad? Don’t tell me a holy war because it isn’t. Jihad, real Jihad, is Jihad el Naffs. Being the Struggle of/against the  Self. That is, if you are more familiar with the Judeo-Christian idea of  the Battle against the Flesh or,  rising above the petty earthly desires in search of a higher Nirvana, as it were.

Just World Hypothesis leads to the strangest of ideas, for instance the idea of a girl out alone is only out to attract attention and deserves whatever comments are thrown her way.

When I was 15 (living in Egypt) our teacher planned some extra last minute revision lessons outside the school. For some reason that I do not remember my (English) mother was going to be unable to pick me up on time. As it was near a mall she had given me instructions to go over and sit there and wait for her. Below is a copy of how that conversation went- the italics are the things I didn’t have the guts to say but was thinking anyway.

Mamma: Go get an ice-cream or something sit in McDonalds and I will get there as soon as I can.

Me: Go to the Mall? ON MY OWN?

Mamma: Yes that is what I just said.

Me: ON MY OWN?

Mamma: Stop being so silly, yes on your own you are 15 not 5. It won’t hurt you. And I know you bought a book, go read it.

Me Uh.Yes it will. Only CERTAIN types of girls go sit in malls on their own. Do you know what you will do to my reputation? WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK?! If you were Egyptian you would understand!  And lots of typical teenage melodrama of how life is unfair.  

Me: No! I WILL not sit in the Mall on my own.

It ended in argument, I didn’t go to the  mall. I think she wasn’t as late as anticipated and  I opted to stay all alone in the centre or  just outside mostly because I figured I would be safer there and big packs of  scary boys wouldn’t be around. No one has ever been able to explain to me why  it is boys tend to hunt in packs. If you know the answer please leave a  comment.

We need to stop blaming the victims of  Sexual Harassment . Women do not Ask for it. We don’t want it. Enough is  Enough. We need to accept that this is not a Fair world and bad things happen to good people who don’t deserve them, bad people exist and we need to blame THEM. We need to  End Sexual Harassment and Gender Violence.

The Double Edged Sword: A Veiled Perception

I have recently come to understand  that, in terms of Sexual Harassment in Egypt, I really do generally get off lightly, provided, of course, I keep my mouth closed and my accent hidden, there is nothing like a foreigner to enflame the Egyptian would be Romeo.

For the most part, barring the Incident of the Microbus,  I have rarely been really physically touched. Usually, I’m treated to looks, words and the occasional invasion of personal space . I have come to believe this is because of 2 things: my Hijab and my fat which makes me a less attractive target.

In contrast, my foreign and non-veiled friends have a much harder time of it. It has become normal for them to be grabbed on the behind or the breast. One girl’s mother was telling me how, over 10 years ago, when the girl was only a child walking in Roxy with her mum and dad a guy leaned over and grabbed her breast, leaving scratch marks and drawing blood.

I have seen  men grab themselves when we walk by.  On one occasion one guy actually dropped his pants and indicated that we should be flattered and, of course, one of these pretty, blond foreigners would be more than happy to have sex with him.

A couple of girls I know were followed home one night, the guy got into the building and proceeded to masturbate on their door, bang on the door to get their attention and, one assumes, in the hope they would be compelled to join his orgy, he went back out the building and came back with some woman ( they said she appeared to be a prostitute, but I don’t know) and have sex against the their front door.

The strange part is they genuinely seem to believe they are complimenting women and that we secretly like it really. On a plane recently a British guy actually said that to me. He said, “It’s not that bad all you women love the attention really”.

So yes, at the end of the day, I do get off lightly in comparison. All I really have to deal with is looks, obscene words and gestures, and the occasional flasher. But there is an equal down side to the hijjab which illustrates that really I am held in as little respect as my nonveiled sisters.

It is my opinion, that all these things, and more, are directly derived from the lack of respect for women in our society. Let’s face it, women are considered incapable of making decisions for themselves and baring the responsibility for those decisions.

Case in point: occasionally I want to go out to a place that happens to serve alcohol like Deals, Jazz Club or the British Club. I usually have trouble getting in if I get in at all ( The British club usually will let me in after an argument when I prove I am in fact a British citizen – I only wanted them for their library anyway and I will not be going back!) Other places I have not been so lucky. The argument they use is, somehow because I wear a hijjab they know better than me what I should and should not do and that if I go in I will somehow succumb to the over whelming desire to drink alcohol and must be protected from myself.

Or my personal favourite- as a good girl I  don’t have the right not to marry and procreate and basically run around serving my husband and his every whim. That  it would be a crime and a sin for me to ‘go down the path of further education’ and ‘forget myself’.

It is at  times like this that I wonder if we do not  have the concept of the ‘Ape leader’ in our society, though I have never heard it that literally put into words.  If you are fond of literature or fond of modern day Historical Romances (don’t sneer, people have as much right to read junk as they do to watch it on the TV, oh fans of reality TV. Frankly I have never seen the quality of difference in either both are junk with their own fan base) you may have heard the term Ape leader or of leading apes in hell.

To quote the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

“Ape leader : An old maid; their punishment after death, for neglecting increase and multiply, will be, it is said, leading apes in hell.”

Both Donne and Shakespeare referred to it.

This lack of respect for the female as an individual, free and independent is pervasive in our society and sadly not limited only to the male part of it, women are just as guilty of underestimating their value.

There is a line that must be drawn, a point where we  have to say enough, and when it  gets to the stage, as it has in our society, where a 7 year old will cat call their teacher (or librarian in this case),
where a 14 year old has no problem flicking my bra to get my attention in class. When it gets to the stage when an extraordinarily good day is one where you don’t get molested or harassed for simply existing and carrying out your normal everyday activities. That is when it is long past time for us to say Enough. It is time to respect women. It is time to end Sexual Harassment and  Gender Violence.

The Me in Sexual Harassment

I think that before I start the series of blogs in Sexual Harassment, I need to start with a personal point of view to put this all in context.

I was born in Saudi Arabia, the ultimate Patriarchal society, and from very early on as a girl I learnt my place in society , in spite of my parents liberal attitudes. I have many negative memories of women in comparison to men.

I was what you could call an ‘early developer’ by the time I was 8 this began to cause problems, on holidays in Egypt especially, but I remember playing in front of the building in the new automatic sprinklers wearing  shorts when I was about 7 and being told to stop that ‘indecent’ display.

Around this time I started having reoccurring nightmares, about men’s eyes and hands and being trapped. To be very, very  clear I have no waking memory of being touched as a child, a psychologist told me the dreams were a manifestation of my trust issues with men and I tend to believe her, whether this is because it is the more palatable truth I do not know. What I do believe is that the nightmares are a result of becoming the target of sexual harassment in the form of looks and the occasional comment that I was only conscious of on a subconscious level.

By the time I was 11, and living in Egypt, it had become unbearable though I really didn’t understand what was going on or what men were saying and why they were always, ALWAYS staring. Even at that age these things make you feel dirty and wrong. I have ever been one to come up with a Plan in the face of a problem so I decided on what seemed at the time a reasonable solution to my problem, I would eat myself flat again! Little did I understand the realities of weight gain.

When this plan failed,  as it inevitably did, I headed for the next logical choice, the Hijab. At the time Amr Khaled had just become the big thing and everyone was saying the Hijab protects you. It really didn’t make that much of a difference, I was disgusted to find. If anything, over the next few years, my early teenage years, things just got worse. I changed schools and was walking to school which meant I was always watched and people would call out things. I remember wondering angrily one morning if I had a big stain on backside and actually asking someone. You see, I still believed the media story women are safe on the streets of Cairo all you have to do is shout ‘Mooaksa’  and a million men will mysteriously appear to save you. This is a lie one that here we like to believe but it is none the less  a lie.

This lie leads to others in the inventible way these things do, that girls who get harassed somehow deserve it or are asking for it. Just World Hypothesis in short, but I will be getting to that later today .

A few years ago I had my first microbus experience. In Hurghada on an extended family trip. There were 12 of us ‘young people’ ranging between 15 and 23 ,3 boys 9 girls, and we decided to go to the  inema.  As there were too many of us for a taxi or a single microbus we split up, 3 girls to a boy. This was supposed to keep us ‘safe’ . That 10 minute ride was one of the worst of my life I had been touched all over and the guy beside me even managed to somehow get his hand underneath  me! I was trapped I couldn’t get away and it was HORRIBLE! Happily I believe I  was the only one who really got harassed that day which some would say is  statistically really good for Egypt.

Since coming back to Egypt, little over a year and a half ago, my eyes have been  opened to a level  of and I worked in a public library in a bail hostel town with all that implies for 3 and a half years. In short I have dealt with more than a couple of paedophiles and what not in  my time. But nothing beats the general Egyptian Male for pure disgustingness. I  have been flashed, I have been followed, I have had lewd comments hurled at me,  I have been pestered,  I have endured months of prank calls. And the things I hear or that I see, Taxi drivers masturbating while driving if they have a pretty woman in the back especially if she is a foreigner.  Grabs,  lewd comments,  even 7 year olds cat calling. Just last week a friend of mine walking in the street talking to me on her mobile had to hang up on me as she needed both hands to defend herself. She was being  followed by a man, making obscene comments, her decision: pick a discarded glass bottle and threaten to use it on his face. It worked.

The worst part is the damage you carry for life. I am not totally comfortable with any male who I haven’t known all my life (or his life in some cases), I am definitely less comfortable with arab men, or men who were bought up in the middle east  than I am with ‘westerner’. That still doesn’t stop the occasional pointless mini start of a panic attack though.

My English aunt commented once on how, in a crowd I, especially if there are men, walk as if I am ashamed of who I am. It took me a few minutes to realise that I was walking with a hunch, my shoulders rounded, head down as if to make myself shrink. This was not, as she wrongly assumed,
because I felt somehow ashamed of being a Muslim or wearing my hijab.  But rather, because somehow that had become my first line of defence and now since my return to Egypt walking around with a perpetual scowl to frighten men off, has been added.

That day my aunt quoted Eleanor Roosevelt “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And you know what? She was right.

For too long have we been silent. For too long have I been silent. Now is the time to speak up. End Sexual Harassment. End Violence against women.

End Sexual Harassment : Introduction/housekeeping #endSH

Let me say, before I start, this that it will be peppered with  quotes and references to obscure and not so obscure things I have read over the  years. Also, as this has been one of my pet projects and rants it gets a little  carried away at times especially when it comes to certain attitudes.

In sixth form I read a novel, the name of which escapes me,  about a teenager whose father was molesting her and had been, since she was 3  or so. The book was awful for several reasons:

1) It was meant to be a surprise  to the reader what was going on, but the blurb gave it away.

2) The content of course was not the most  pleasant.

3) Far from least of its problems was the ending. What an ending. The girl finally  confronts her father after 15 years of abuse and he just stops. he basically says, “Well how was I to know you didn’t like it if you never said anything? . If you had said something before I would have stopped.” She, the victim,  is left feeling guilty.

Personally, if it was a real life story, I would say he only stopped  because, at the end of the day, he is a paedophile and at 17/18 she was too old for him.  That , however, is a side  issue. My point is this: I would have no one say that we give silent permission  for this, that we secretly enjoy the attention. We don’t and now we are saying it!  So End Sexual Harassment  and Gender Violence.

Unfortunately, I have far too much written, over 3,500 words,  going off on too many tangents to be able to fit it into a single post, so this  is post is really just an index to the other posts, the links of which I will  add as I go along. At posting, I have 4 blogs written though it is possible I
will add more by the end of the 24 hour stretch.

1)      The Me in Sexual Harassment .

2)      The Double Edged Sword: A Veiled Perception

3)      The Just World Hypothesis aka  The Blame Game

4)      R-E-S-P-E -C-T

Breaking the Silence

My desktop is overrun with half finished and unposted blog posts and yet I continue to write new ones. So here is a new one.

I was a member of the so called ‘Silent Majority’  I never went to Tahrir, for  various reasons including not having Egyptian ID or a valid Visa (its a long story  that  goes back to 2006 and a fight with a Passport and Customs officer wanting a bribe which I refused to pay which led to my British Passport being ‘marked’ and future harassment whenever I tried entering the country)so I was vocal in the relative safety of the internet.  But really that is just a convenient excuse.

The Truth is I was scared I still am scared. I am almost 100% sure I would have gone to Tahrir by the 1^st of Feb if not the 29^th of Jan if it hadn’t been my fear of Xenophobic reaction and arrest as a ‘spy’.

Since the 11^th of Feb I have not been to many protests, technically I suppose I haven’t actually participated in any protest if by participate you mean chant or march or carry posters. I find like the majority of Egyptians I am still afraid. But I am also angry.

Yet I am still afraid, if I get arrested, hell if I get seen in a demonstration by the wrong people, I  will get my arsed fired, and my accommodation is provided by my job. I lose my  job I might as well bugger off back to England because I will be done here.  And with no reference, the job crisis and student loans? I simply can’t afford that. Plus it is not exactly like there is  a great demand for librarians given the decision to axe public libraries.

Add to that that for a long time I was against continued protests, I thought them counterproductive. I never trusted the army but I trusted the people would be working fighting for improvement  in the slow wheels of bureaucracy along the lines of the ‘conversations’ I have  daily with taxi drivers and colleagues.  And yet I have been disappointed. Everyone speaks of politics yet I have seen no large open political forums, I have seen no 2 way communication between the people on the ground and the people apparently running the show.

In fact I have seen an escalation of fear and suspicion, hatred even. Last week I sat open mouthed as a Christian colleague talked about how her husband wants her to start wearing a Hijab  to keep her safe from the Salafis and how she wishes that the US or some other ‘western’ country would open its doors for mass immigration of Coptics and ‘mutual people swaps’ so they could send all  the nutso fanatic Muslims they don’t want here and they would take all the Coptics.  I pointed out this was not a good idea and that if they let like that they would never ever be able to return and that the country would be destroyed forever. Her reply: “ Let the country burn, get us out we never want to come back we hate the country”.

I have come to a decision enough is enough and I will break my own mini barrier of fear and say MY piece. If this revolution should fail now I truly believe this country will be completely  destroyed. I believe that in our own ways every citizen of Egypt old young, here or abroad has a role to play and we must pick  up the baton and do our bit. I believe that standing up tomorrow in Tahrir for just a few hours and saying ‘Hey remember us we are still here and we are getting more annoyed by the day’ might do something. Really and truly though I believe that nothing could be worse for public image of the revolution than an indefinite sit in. So please don’t sit in.

I still have hope for the future and for this country and so tomorrow May 27^th  I go to Tahrir and I join my first real protest. And my requests to everyone are simple stop lying to me. Stop saying  one thing and doing another. Enough with the melodramatics.  Get organised and start working the politics properly or give up and let someone else take over because this willy nilly shilly shallying is bloody pissing me off! Get working on minimum wage NOW even more important than maximum wage. Work on your communication skills hiding behind social media, be it Facebook, twitter or blogs is getting to my nerves. Enough with the demonising of anyone who doesn’t agree with you. And most importantly, Dear SCAF, STOP ARRESTING PEOPLE!

I have rung my mother up and told her what I am doing now I just hope to God I don’t get arrested or in some kind of violent trouble because frankly the Murphy’s law irony of that situation would be more than I could handle and remain sane.

To the Future Rulers of Egypt

Last week in conversation with a Canadian friend regarding upcoming May27th proposed protests she said that she did not understand what we (the people of Egypt) were complaining about, as far as she could see, SCAF were doing what they are meant to do and doing it well. “After all,” she said, “they are only a caretaker government.”

Though I hate quoting Wikipedia I will : “Caretaker governments are expected to handle daily issues and prepare budgets for discussion, but are not expected to produce a government platform or introduce controversial bills.”

Or as my selfsame friend put it: “ The role of a caretaker government is to uphold the laws and order of the previous government until a new elected government can change them”

Say what?! I know that was my reaction too.

So does the SCAF truly not have the power to change things? And if so were you told? Because I certainly was not informed of this .

This brings me to the body and point of this blog post, my grievances as a citizen of Egypt. Now I hate dwelling on the negative so I will not discuss allegations of incompetence, corruption and abuse of power. Nor even the conspiracy theories relating to the ‘counter revolution’, there are plenty of people who I am sure will deal with these subjects and as I know little about them, and have no firm evidence,  I will speak of none of these. If I am willing to accept that it is not the responsibility of the SCAF to be the instrument of change that we long for then I must address my points to the future interim government of Egypt.

I would tell them about communication and the spread of information and the lessons that must be learnt from the previous government’s behaviour and in fact any overthrown government as well as the lessons we MUST learn from successful modern revolutions such as the Velvet Revolution of Czechslovakia (Now the Czech and Slovak Republics respectively)

Communication. Communication is a 2 way street as they say, what this means is that listening is just as important as speaking. Something most people forget and sadly governments are not exempt from this.

Recent conversations with taxi drivers have led me to the conclusion that many Egyptians do not actually mind having restrictions provided they are the same restriction that they would naturally choose to apply to themselves within the boundaries of social norms. Now I am not going to argue the rightness or wrongness of this but merely I will say the following, if the previous government had not been so out of touch, had not been so ‘let them eat cake’ in their attitude to the people the revolution would never taken place. The key to staying in power successfully and peacefully is giving people what they want.

A large part of this is the manner in which news is given, the language and the spin that is used, sadly it seems that the old speech writers are the ones writing the SCAF facebook statements the language is obscure and it is pompous, yes it is official language and correct formal Arabic the problem is that people hear the language and echoes of the old regime become undeniable. Also the old regime was very much guilty of patronising the people not explaining or allowing itself to be questioned and assuming media naivety would allow them to blatantly lie.

Whoever is in charge needs to hire a decent PR team who will understand that people need to hear the truth (this is a form of spin in itself) but will also understand that there are ways and ways of delivering it! A team that will help give people the hope and unity of purpose that we are currently loosing rapidly if not already lacking.

Using social media to contact the people is simply not enough especially when we live in a society with such a drastic Digital Divide meaning that social media reaches only the tiniest portion of the population which begs the question are the messages in them pointed at these people only or they meant to be Universal? In which case why is the traditional media not being properly utilised? After the Velvet Revolution President Vaclav Havel managed to go on the radio for 2 hours every single week to answer and address the concerns of his country, tell me do we deserve any less?

I would like the future interim president of Egypt to be concerned mainly with reassuring the people. We cannot continue in an atmosphere of uncertainty and what’s more the stress is killing me, personally, and I don’t like it!

So please take heed rulers and future rulers of Egypt: the people wish to be reassured we wish to be heard, please utilise the means to do so. I personally would like to see our future president on the radio or TV taking call-ins on a bi-weekly if not weekly basis allowing every man or woman or child on the street to contact them and air our troubles and insure we are heard. This would also have the added benefit of insuring that everyone has an opportunity to listen understand and participate in the Great Change that is happening around us.

Now I do not think that I have said anything that would warrant getting me arrested all I have done is offer a bit of citizenly advice. However if you do choose to arrest me at least, as my mother said during the 18 days, I would now have proven my ‘realness’ as an Egyptian.

Lines in the Sand

Racism, Bigotry, Chauvinism, Religious Intolerance, in fact, discrimination of every kind are symptoms of social disease.

We need to stop blaming other people. We blame the government , we blame the Amn el dawla, we blame the salafis , SCAF, Bin Laden. And yes they are all to blame, but in part, in a way so is EVERYBODY else. WE see signs everyday small signs and we ignore them we let the rot spread and now the foundations are in danger. When I was 11 an adult at school told us the following  ‘joke’  :

A Muslim was walking by a ditch, a passing Christian saw him so decided to kill him, he pushed him in then a Jew who was also passing jumped into save the Muslim . Later the Christian asked the Jew why did you save him? And the  Jew said: do you want him to go to heaven, he will if he drowns.

This adult then smiled like this was the funniest thing ever and then with a straight face ( and I will never forget this ) said:

It’s a funny joke, but don’t forget all Christians hate us, but not as much as the Jews, who loathe us so much they would steal heaven from us if they could.

Needless to say, I found this very disturbing at the time. Here was an adult who I respected and generally thought well of telling me a blatant lie, my family is over half Christian, atheist, Buddhist and all manner of other things and I knew  my grandparents had no desire to kill me.

But the point is, there are small jokes people say everyday (not as bad as this one) but little ones about ( I don’t actually know that many Egyptian ones as I refuse to listen to them so to reference a few other cultural ones) polygamy, jihad, ‘desert rats’ , Catholic Priests, choir boys, nuns. And mostly we don’t bring people up on them. We don’t say hold up and confront them with the meaning behind the joke. People repeat them till the attitudes they reflect become ingrained in them.

Small slights and things, people who think you should only give aid to people of the same religion, or should give priority to them, people who won’t share food with people of a different religion. Or Race let’s be honest about this Egyptians are also very racist. Ideas that women should only stay at home and pander to hubby and kids. We see these reflections all over the place and mostly it seems too big a thing to take on or perhaps we think can one person talking to one person change anything?  Or worse we have become desensitised to these cues? So we ignore them and they spread and put down roots and become accepted social attitudes.

 The answer has got to be that everything has to start small, if I make one person think with this post, and they person think who makes one person think then, by gum, we have a thinking epidemic on out hands.

As we are now as long as we allow the constant implied messages to continue  every action becomes infused with hatred, till our whole society reeks of it. Like that smelly trace on everything in a smokers house we are all affected by it and unless we get to the root cause, quit smoking, stop even smallest kind of discrimination then we will always smell, and all the perfume in the world doesn’t hide it.

I don’t think calling for international military help will do anyone any good, at best it will mask the problems at worst, it will make things SO much worse. People who are against the attacks and discrimination would see this as invasion, as a threat, and then people will take sides and then, then War WILL break out. 

 After the Saints church bombing one of the scariest  things, to me, was the calm way my Christian friends, co-workers and acquaintances spoke of the ‘coming war’. How ‘we too have weapons and sons and know how to build bombs let them come’. These are not small isolated events the camel’s back is breaking and we need, NEED, to stop and  fix it now!

Yes we need action now, we need the people caught and tried, we need the government to pull their fingers out and start PROTECTING people and at least making a reasonable attempt to stop the violence. But we also need to accept the first change starts with our own circles from this second we need to start confronting people with the Truth, make them aware of it and themselves. It is time to rip off the bandages open up the wounds and start poking around inside to remove all the infection and the rotten flesh, cure what we can discard what we can’t. This has got to stop and stop now, but only WE have the power to stop it.

This is the line and this is where I stand.