Egyptians need no longer watch TV serials, as has been their habit for years. TV dramas can’t match the state of suspense created by the real-life events Egyptians read about in the papers in the morning and watch on TV bulletins at night.
But the crucial difference between those soaps and real-life events is that, while the former are entertaining to Egyptians, the latter are heart breaking.
The title of today’s episode is the “Corruption Case of Suleiman Amer.”
Al-Shorouq newspaper wrote on 20 May that it managed to obtain documents confirming that Suleiman Amer, chairperson of an agricultural development company, has sold ten cultivatable feddans to Hyper One at LE20 million. Amer had purchased the land in the 1990s for LE181,000.
This piece of news best describes the nature of Egypt’s regime. Making money in Egypt is no more related to how much effort you exert or work you do, or even to investments in industry, agriculture or services, but rather to how much you are able to abuse your position and power.
In Egypt, being well-connected means you can buy a plot of land and then use it to become a millionaire and even a billionaire. The lack of mechanisms to combat corruption within the regime itself is the inescapable corollary of a lack of transparency and political and judicial accountability.
In such a context, the statement “Corruption will not be covered up”–now reiterated day and night by state-run media–is more comical than reassuring or expressive of good intentions.
I’m convinced the elimination of corruption in Egypt is connected to our ability to replace the current regime with a genuinely democratic one. More than ever, there’s a need to examine the phenomenon of corruption in Egypt as being propagated by an entire regime rather than just certain individuals.
Corruption is another reason to push for change.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
