This has been Egypt’s tale in the past sixty years, particularly the last forty. It is called ‘Paving Egypt’. It pertains to both the community and the government. And it was inscribed with a lot of money, sacred blood and– above all– a lot of ignorance.
The last chapter of the tale remains to be inscribed by this generation, either for its own benefit, or against it, and either for the sake of Egypt, or against it.
It is a must-know tale that is inscribed in the streets of cities and villages. We must know of it in order to finish it.
Every part of ‘Paving Egypt’ shows our bad side as individuals, as a society and as rulers and subjects.
Every part tells us about our administrative backwardness, absence of planning, corruption, inefficiency, neglect, complacency and laziness. It tells about our political idiocy and hypocrisy that makes officials unaccountable for their crimes in order for the regime to stay in power. It talks about our deteriorating education, our isolation from the rest of the world and our taking pride in ignorance.
Every part talks about the poverty of thought and humility, the emptiness of the soul and the lack of compassion.
It shows us that we are unable to recognize our defaults and address them seriously, let alone how we deal with our resources and our lives.
It shows how triviality is disguised in earnest, how science is neglected and myth is sacred, and how obscenity, ignorance and insanity have become a religion.
It tells us how terms lost their real meanings among us because we lie to ourselves and dump ourselves in delusions. For streets are not really streets. They are scenes of incidents or crimes.
It asks us: Why do we pave our streets? Is it for us to walk or drive in? If so, unpaved ground would be enough.
They are paved for us to walk in together towards effective, safe, sustainable development that's both economically and socially fair.
A street will only be effective if paved well. It will only be safe if the movement in it is well regulated. It will only be sustainable if its dimensions are well-defined. It will only be fair for the individuals, the society and the government if it is used by qualified people and vehicles. And it must be governed by regulations that aim to prevent error, not just collect fines.
And since we do not have streets like that in Egypt, we should know how to call things by their real names so that we find solutions for the fatalities of our daily road accidents. For as long as we do not look for the causes of what happens to us, we will never know the nature of things. As long as we do not know why we build an economy, a citizen and a homeland, we will go nowhere.
Only by looking for causes will we be able to hold a serious dialogue about the future, which I hope is not too late.
We need to know if we really have institutions of education, media, health and politics, or if these are but rubble and ruins of the past with no more raison d'être whatsoever.
The first step towards a serious dialogue about the future is for the wise and the qualified among us to discern the truth, and for us not to be shocked by it. For we can no longer afford to make mistakes. We are not on solid ground. We are on a threshold between survival and elimination.
Egypt needs an “institutional” brain that has philosophy, knowledge and values. Such a brain can still be found. We do not need brains that are scattered or neutralized in a climate that repels efficiency.
But there are patterns and conditions for building institutional brains, just as there are specifications for paving streets. For just as streets are scenes of incidents, institutions are places for brains. And we must first know why we need an institutional brain before we start building it. Without this, we will not know where we are going.
The first thing this brain should do is determine a “rational” dream for this country. Egypt needs rational dreams, not wishful thinking for a better tomorrow. For nations are not built on enthusiastic emotions.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
