Is Egypt Really Self-Destructing? Observations From My 1st Day Back

This post is directed to Egyptians using social media:

I am terribly disappointed in you.

I have only been away from Egypt for three months. In those three months I have followed my close friends on Facebook and a large number of Egyptians on Twitter who have yelled wolf, screamed, and waved their hands in the air as one drowning. Almost everything I read on Egypt’s social media over the past three months gave me the impression that Egypt was about to self-destruct. I was terrified to come home. What I read made me feel like I wouldn’t be safe in Egypt. What I read convinced me that there was no stability in Egypt. I had already started considering the possibility of immigrating with my children to another country.

It took me only one day back in Egypt running normal errands to see that the country is exactly the same country that it has been for more than 20 years. All the bad stuff is still here. But all the good stuff is still here too. I wasn’t raped or harassed. Bearded men and face-veiled women had nothing but smiles on their faces and kind words on their tongues. The supermarket and mall were full of people buying things, meaning there must still be money in the country. Egyptian men are not out to rape me. The Islamists are not out to eat me alive. And the economy is still chugging along.

What Egyptians are posting through social media will inevitably keep Egyptians abroad from feeling safe enough to come home and tourists from feeling safe enough to visit the country.

Egypt is the same that it has been for 20 years. Yes. We have had a revolution and very little has changed for the better. But we still have lots of hope that it will. For change to happen we need to work very hard. Real change does not happen in 18 days. Real change takes decades of hard work.

If you are an Egyptian using social media, take some time to consider what you post before you post it. By focusing only on the negative you make it appear much worse than it actually is. By refraining to mention the positive, you make it appear that Egypt is nothing but a pile of shit. For those of us who are not always in Egypt, we have come to depend on social media users to get a sense whether what is published in the media is representative of reality or if it’s an exaggeration of it. When we see Egyptians echoing what the media says, we believe it. So stop blaming the media for scaremongering. Most Egyptians using social media are doing it far better than the media is. What that means is that Egyptians living abroad and tourists will not want to come to Egypt. Our country needs them both if we are to develop and to prosper.

Before you write your next status or tweet your next tweet, consider what effect it will have on people outside of the country. You terrified me. I am sure you are terrifying others. Be honest. Be balanced. Write as much about the positive as you do about the negative. Build Egypt. Stop destroying it.

 

Welcome, Egypt, to democracy

The 2012 Egyptian presidential elections are not just any elections. They are the first democratic presidential elections to happen in this country. And they come at a great cost of life and limb from the Egyptian people. There is a lot at stake for Egyptians. Egypt turned over the souls of many of its sons and daughters to their Maker for these elections to happen. Eyes were lost, limbs were broken, and every single person who participated in the revolution risked their lives.

Egypt’s revolutionaries and their supporters wish to see true change in Egypt.  But as it happens, the picture those revolutionaries and their supporters have in their heads of what that change needs to be varies widely.

But what is democracy if it is not to give the people the tools with which to dictate which change is most desired by the majority?

Egyptians revolted from January 25 to February 11 and onwards in order to bring democracy to their country. But did they all truly understand what it means to live in a democracy?

A Stranger In My Own Country

As time goes by, post-revolution, I’m beginning to realize more and more that every person who participated in the revolution had different dreams in their heads for Egypt. We all had one shared dream: we wanted to remove Mubarak and his regime. General chants calling for freedom and social justice were common among all. But my concept of freedom and social justice evidently is different from my neighbor’s concept, and his concept is different from the concept of our farmer friend down south.

When I was demonstrating between January 25 and February 11, I was dreaming of a more progressive Egypt. I was dreaming of an Egypt with less corruption, less bureaucracy, more freedom of choice, openness to information and knowledge. I’m surrounded by friends and family who want similar things for Egypt, albeit not always in the same exact way. But the differences between me and my friends and family are differences I can tolerate. They are small differences, not large differences. They are expected differences. When I thought of “democracy”, I thought of democracy between me and my friends. Sometimes I’d be part of the majority on issues and sometimes I’d be part of the minority. Either way, we’d all get along and we’d accept each other and the results of our overall democratic decisions. After all, the differences were always differences I could tolerate.

But I live in my own bubble. Too many of us live in our own bubbles.