I received a lot of
comments over the domestic development dream which I tried to tackle some of
its features in last week’s article… it was not a coincidence that I found an almost
collective agreement and hope over the knowledge, experience and character of
the minister Dr. Hesham el-Sherief… also, there were skepticism and doubt that
the current hindrances existing in the heart of the composition of many
government entities could defeat that knowledge and experience and dash the
hope… and so we will keep spinning in the same empty circle for good.
Many were suspicious of
tens of “generals” who occupied the leading positions in the ministry and the
municipalities while they, due to their educational and career background and
the age range when they finished duty in their original jobs, are far from
realizing the work nature in the domestic development… also many of those “generals”
are absolutely convinced that the civil job they now occupy is just a reward
for the time they spent serving their duty in the army or the police… and that
the hardest effort they could exert is to stay loyal to the regime and
guarantee stability… in plain words, not allowing any rebelling of any kind… of
course, the corrupt people made use of this to practice their corruption in
exchange for maintaining stability.
Also many are scared of
the historic experience – historic here means old in time and not unique – of the
Egyptian bureaucracy in scuttling any sincere endeavors exerted to do something
useful based on science and its applications… also based on clear cultural and
civilization bases… that is what happened since the time when the employees
made the Eloquent Peasant shout his complaint out loud asking help from the
ancient Egyptian king “the Pharaoh”… and throughout all the ages until the era
of contemporary and modern Egypt… to the extent that we – my generation and the
ones preceded mine – lived the reality of trying to have a liberal entity
without having real liberals… then building a socialist entity without having real
socialists… then trying to have a capital liberal entity without having liberals…
etc.
In each time, we faced
the same ugly faces that thwarted every sincere attempt to do something useful
for this country.
There are also fears
that those anti-change and success people, those who always oppose science, knowledge
and culture and consequently are in harmony with ignorance, underdevelopment,
selfishness and corruption, may deliberately block the way before the new
minister and set the traps and obstacles in his way… and even put iron bars – not
just sticks – in the science and culture wheel!
It is okay to mention
all these fears in order to avoid them… however, I believe we shall mention the
other aspects as well… including the fear of that mentality and culture that
blames the official in charge alone for the responsibility… as if we are
standing in a circus round where the magician is doing his magic tricks while
everyone is clapping and then everyone goes home… in my opinion, this issue is
not a simple one and actually it represents the main problem we should fight…
it is exactly what the president took notice of and since then he keeps saying
that he alone cannot do everything to save the country… and that the people and
the government and presidency should cooperate together to fulfill such
mission.
I think that despite all
the negativities and depression we have, it is the duty of all those who care
about our country’s present and future to move in two directions… the first is
to cooperate with the official in charge – in our case here, the minister of
domestic development – by accepting his invitation which he coined in few words
he said during his visit to Assuit as he called for establishing a council for
experienced people in every governorate… now, it is time we thoroughly discuss
such idea… how to implement it and what is the mission of such councils… and
how these councils can escape the endemic diseases we have in our social and
cultural composition… etc.
As to the second
direction, it is to act freely and horizontally nationwide… and discover or may
be come up with the means and forms that can revive the spirit of the
comprehensive renaissance in the Egyptian body… as we have hundreds of non-government
organizations and thousands of creative people, whether poets, story tellers,
painters, craftsmen spreading in all corners of our beloved Egypt… we just lack
the network that can collect all these lines together, exactly like the fishing
net… and when the active people in both directions meet – and definitely they
will – the true face of our beloved country will appear… our Egypt that was the
example to validate the law of “challenge and response” set by the most important
history philosopher as the basis for achieving the nations’ progress.
Those many people
concerned about our country and who are aware of the enormous and tough
challenges we face stood still and did nothing but diagnosing the problem…
until we all became professional in diagnosis without overcoming this to
finding the cure… and until we had so many challenges to tackle… we came back
to the first challenge that faced the first inhabitants of the valley… it is
the challenge of dealing with the river, desert and sea… our ancestors
succeeded in facing such challenge but it is back again… right now, we are
facing the challenges of desertification and the sea – meaning the attack of
the sea on our lands in the north –… also, we have to face the challenge of water
crisis or shortage… that clean water needed for life.
In addition to so many
serious challenges we all know and talk about… in my opinion, the solution is
that we should respond to all these challenges on a wide scale… as wide as the
whole of Egypt… from its villages and deserts to the allies and cities… I wish
those people inhabiting “the compounds” or those gated communities can
contribute to such required response otherwise the consequences will have no
mercy on all of us.
This saying of “you have
our hearts with you” is no longer working for our current time… it is either we
work hard or we are doomed… let us all unite our efforts, hands and potentials to
build our country.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This
article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on February 23, 2017.
To
see the original article, go to:
#alahram
#ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #hesham_elsherief #domestic_development #renaissance
#challenge_and_response
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