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| Mawaled in Egypt |
I wrote before about the
precancerous condition of muslim brotherhood and salafists striking and taking
command of Egypt’s body and mind. I also mentioned injuries inflicted with our Egyptian
national immune system allowing that cancer to spread. The first injury
detected was duplicity of education system after failed attempts attained by
both Muhammed Ali Pasha and later Gamal Abdel Nasser to reform the old mosque
of al-Azhar. Another injury was represented in the disruption of
Egyptian history continuity depicted as adjacent dwarfed lines instead of a
continuous one with ups and downs, meaning that accumulation could have been
achieved and change guaranteed if it wasn’t for that disruption.
Today I mention a third injury
that wreaked our Egyptian immune system; what I call Egyptians’ migration to
oil-rich countries, meaning migration of millions of Egyptians either
temporarily for a pre-decided set of years or permanently by immigration and visiting
Egypt frequently where many left their families bahind in homeland and
travelled. This migration was not a coincidence or a surprise for it
started relatively long ago when professional teachers, physicians, and
engineers travelled to the Arab countries especially those of the Arabian Peninsula;
now states of the Gulf Cooperation Council in addition to Yemen, and later
Iraq, Sudan and Syria joined as well. The Egyptian treasury used to fund and pay for the salaries or
differences in salaries for those travelling. It also used to send in-kind aid
like school supplies including notebooks, books, pencils, and even rubber
erasers.
It was until Infitah[1]
phoenix landed on our beloved country prior to the first half of the seventies
when the October, 1973 war prompted the high prices of oil and its revenues in
turn. After the war, hundreds of thousands of young men; those who were residing
in trenches since the 1967 defeat until victory was achieved, came out
searching for the outcome of their victory achieved in blood, souls, and
knowledge. They were disappointed when they saw their triumph stolen and eaten away
by Infitah tycoons. It was then when the tragedy of crunching lower and
middle classes started… land and construction materials’ prices went high, deal
was set between all parties of the Egyptian, regional, and international mafia;
between those of the executive and parliamentary authorities at that time,
then-head of state president Anwar Sadat, and private sector tycoons with its
then-famous fat cats on one side, and other regional parties who had vengeance
with the July, 1952 regime on the other side. Other international parties had
vengeance as well, not to mention their earnest endeavors to reshape the region
making sure no other Nasser is born, and also for the Hebrew state to stay the
ultimate and only power in the region. This era had a name that best describes its
nature; the era of Cash or Cashism. Massive amounts of money of aid, loans, and money transferred by
expatriate Egyptians flooded. All those fortunes were stolen and transferred
overseas while part of it was used to build a cemented wall extending from
Sinai shores in the east to Matrouh[2]
in the west.
The nation’s savings hard-earned
by its people migrating to the Arab oil-rich countries turned into apartments
and chalets inhabited for a month or less a year. Tens of billions of hard
currency were squandered over toilettes, kitchens, and buildings, and thus,
industries like ceramics, sanitary equipments, moquette, and other consumable goods
thrived, such industries that do not establish any industrial renaissance in
the proper sense of the word. Air-conditioners replaced Mashrabiyat[3] and wooden windows since buildings’
facades transformed into wide sheets of glass and aluminum, turning homes into
closed glasshouses where germs can proliferate and human and family warmth is
missing!
Spread of individual
salvation philosophy was the greatest calamity that hit the Egyptian conscience
and later mentality. Adopting the malicious doctrine of “end justifies the
means”– no matter this end is – led to violating laws, traditions, ethics, and
religions’ true teachings.
People turned into machines
collecting money, tools for acquisitions, and even into consumption-addict
creatures in the broad sense of consumption; normal, luxurious, and
extravagantly lavish. Disputes used to run in public and secretly, no matter right
or wrong, about dreams possible to come true or fancy illusions as to living
neighborhoods, apartments’ areas, chalets, gold, diamond, vacations, high-end
clothes… etc. Genie of acquisition and showing-off was unleashed to squander
what was left in our Egyptian conscience; that conscience that was once a solid
mixture of patriotism, moderate consumption behavior, and high morals such as the
one saying that any human is evaluated by his work, productivity, knowledge,
culture, strong will, and freedom of his country. It was the philosophy of
individual salvation set up by Infitah policies and consecrated by Egyptians’
migration to oil-rich countries that contributed to destroying the Egyptian
middle class, killing its awareness and amputating its progress-seeking leg for
its other underdevelopment-mired one to inflate, as it is said that bourgeoisie
has a leg walking forward and another desperate to go back.
With that philosophy clearly
represented by a development-inhibiting set of values came the disaster that
can be described in all superlative words and expressions; that is cultural submission
by Egyptians for the economically strong and predominant; that is oil-rich countries.
It’s not a matter of chauvinism
or narrow-minded fanaticism but merely the historical truth that Egypt has been
dominating for long time. It’s a fact stated in history exactly like the fact
that Christianity came to Egypt from Palestine and Levant countries, and that
Islam came to Egypt from the Arab Peninsula, and that using irrigation tools more
developed than Shadoof[4]
was adapted from the Greeks and Romans like Tanboor[5]
and Saqieya[6]… etc. Egypt, and
for centuries, has been spreading its soft power in all fields even in what came
to it from abroad when Egypt reproduced it again in a new version. The Arianism
belief in Christianity and moderate interpretation school in Islam were
examples of this, not to mention Egypt’s contributions to the Greek philosophy
and the Roman culture. Egypt had also its military might that didn’t adopt
aggression or invading other countries as a doctrine but rather was for
protection and security even if distances were far. Egypt had its economic
might as well that was known to all around when it was unlimitedly generous
that money was called Masari[7] as derived from the word Masr[8]. Egypt, and for long
times, has been a pioneering centre for hymns and church melodies, Inshad[9],
Sufi Tawasheeh[10]
and supplications, Quran reciting, and schools of Qira’at[11], not to mention music,
singing, folklore dancing, oriental dancing, musical composing, telling jokes,
light sense of humor, pioneering in parliamentary life, setting up universities
and research centres, and many other unlimited fields. But as we all know, even
a worm will turn, Egypt underwent circumstances like any other society that was
once standing in the foreground for long times and later declined and degradation
took place.
We shall continue
talking about cultural dependency that wrecked our Egyptian national immune
system later.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on
February 11, 2016.
To see the original Arabic version, go to:
#alahram#ahmed_elgammal#our_Egyptian_immune_system#Egypt#Egyptian_migration_to_Arab_oil_rich_countries#infitah#Sadat
[1] Infitah: (Arabic: إنفتاح) the Arabic
word for the open door policy adopted by President Sadat in the years following
1973 October war. (Source: Wikipedia)
[2] Matrouh
Governorate: (Arabic: محافظة مطروح) is one of the governorates of Egypt. Located in the
north-western part of the country, it borders Libya. Its capital is Marsa Matrouh. (Source: Wikipedia)
[3] Mashrabiyat is
plural of Mashrabiya or Shanasheel: (Arabic: مشربية or شناشيل)
is the Arabic term
given to a type of projecting oriel window enclosed
with carved wood latticework located on the second storey
of a building or higher, often lined with stained glass.
The mashrabiya (sometimes shanshool or rushan) is an element of traditional
Arabic architecture used since the Middle Ages up
to the mid-20th century. It is mostly used on the street side of the building;
however, it may also be used internally on the Sahn (courtyard)
side.
Mashrabiyas were
mostly used in houses and palaces although
sometimes in public buildings such as hospitals, inns, schools and
government buildings. They are found mostly in the Mashriq –
i.e. the eastern part of the Arab world, but some types of similar windows are
also found in the Maghreb (the western part of the Arab world). They are
very prevalent in Iraq,
the Levant, Hejaz and Egypt. They are mostly
found in urban settings and rarely in rural areas. Basra is often called
"the city of Shanasheel". (Source: Wikipedia)
[4] Shadoof: (Arabic: شادوف) is an irrigation tool. A less common English translation is swape and
it is also called a well pole, well
sweep. or simply a sweep in
the US. It uses a bucket attached to a lever with a fulcrum fixed in the
ground. The shadoof was an early tool used by Mesopotamian and Nile River
peoples to draw water. It is still used in many areas of Africa and Asia and very common in rural areas of India such as in the Bhojpuri belt of the Ganges plain where it is named "dhenki".
(Source: Wikipedia)
[5] Tanboor: (Arabic: طنبور) also called The Archimedes screw, the Archimedean screw, or screwpump,
is a machine historically used for transferring water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches. Water is pumped by turning a screw-shaped
surface inside a pipe. (Source: Wikipedia)
[6] Saqieya: alternative spelling sakieh or saqiya: (Arabic: ساقية) is a mechanical
water lifting device which uses buckets, jars, or scoops fastened either
directly to a vertical wheel, or to an endless belt activated by such a wheel.
The vertical wheel is itself attached by a drive shaft to a horizontal wheel, which is traditionally set in
motion by animal power (oxen, donkeys, etc.) Because it
is not using the power of flowing water, the
saqieya is different from a noria and any other type of water-wheel. It is still used in India, Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, and in the Iberian
Peninsula and the Balearic
Islands. It may have been invented in Hellenistic
Egypt, Persia or India. (Source: Wikipedia)
[9] Inshad: (Arabic: إنشاد) a kind of
chanting that makes musical sound with the voice. It’s found in both Islamic
and Christian heritage.
[10] Tawasheeh: (Arabic: تواشيح) A form of
postclassical form of Arabic poetry arranged in stanzas and an Islamic music genres
emerged in Egypt.
[11] In Islam, Qira'at (Arabic: علم القراءات) which
means literally the readings, terminologically means the method of recitation. Traditionally, there are 10 recognised schools of
Qira'at, and each one derives its name from a famous reader of Quran recitation. (Source: Wikipedia)
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