Egypt preprares for the twenty-first century

Contemporary Review, Feb, 1997 by Habeeb Salloum

Samir Ragab, Editor-in-Chief of the Egyptian Mayo and Al Messa newspapers, speaking at the 1996 International Book Fair, stated that Egypt has advanced far on the path to democracy and the country is set to reap the dividends of partisan pluralism and open thinking.

He went on to say that the success in reining in terrorism nationwide has been a cardinal factor in the country's economic progress. Continuing, he said, that beside cementing the pillars of democracy, Egypt has launched a promising economic programme which has been acknowledged as a resounding success by many countries and international organizations.

To a visitor, this assessment seems over optimistic. Even though, according to the Minister of Economy, Dr. Nawal Tatawi, the economy is set to grow from 7 to 8 per cent and create some 500,000 jobs, there does not seem to be, as yet, much improvement in the daily life of the people.

The per capita income is only $800 and the population is increasing by leaps and bounds. Most of Egypt's 62 million inhabitants can barely eke out a living, mostly farming the few miles wide irrigated land on each side of the Nile.

The cities and towns appear run-down with streets, especially in the poorer sections, covered with debris. As if competing with the urban centres, the small verdant fields of the countryside are even more littered.

Riding a first-class train from Cairo to Alexandria, I was horrified to see, amid the lush green landscape, garbage strewn along the railway tracts and a good number of polluted canals. In many places the banks of these waterways were covered with trash, especially discarded plastic products - the eye-sore of developing nations. Adding to this marring of nature, all along some of these canals, women were washing clothes and scouring pots in their waters.

In spots, piles of garbage were strung all along the edges of the railway tracts and, in places, these were being burned, obviously polluting the country air. There was no doubt that the appealing landscape was being made ugly by the hand of man.

Seeing all this refuse reminded me of an incident a few days earlier when I was strolling with my friends Philip, a British contractor working in Egypt, and his wife Yvonne along Aswan's Comiche - the city's Nile side boulevard. The couple had lived in Egypt for a number of years and knew the country well. Every time we came to a spot covered with litter, I would look at it in disgust. Yvonne, seeing my annoyance, smilingly remarked, 'To enjoy Egypt, you must look skyward above the garbage.'

Yet, her words did not give me much comfort. As I travelled through the country, no matter where I looked, up or down, I could still see refuse strewn throughout a good part of the towns and villages in that ancient land.

In addition to the run-down conditions in the country, at least 20 per cent of the workforce are unemployed or working part-time. For those fortunate enough to have jobs, wages are insufficient to cover the cost of living - very high for a developing nation.

On the other hand, even with this poverty, there is very little crime and begging is much less than a decade ago. Egyptians with whom I spoke, attribute this to the newly revived Islam which pervades every corner of life.

Apparently Egypt has succeeded, to a great extent, in breaking the power of the Islamic Fundamentalists. However, this has been accomplished by putting most of the Islamists' programmes into effect. The country is today vibrating with Islamic fervour. This was vividly illustrated to me by two incidents which I encountered in my travels in the country.

The first happened on the Cairo metro, a newly opened subway. No sooner had I sat down, then a middle-aged man sitting beside me began to recite verses from the Koran, looking straight ahead as if in a trance. On and on he went until I reached my destination, Sadat Station, in the heart of Cairo.

In my travels throughout the Arab world, I have never seen people so devoutly religious as the Egyptians. More than once, I noted that taxi drivers, when passing historic mosques, would bless the name of their builders. To a stranger, it appears that the whole country is living in a religious cocoon.

The second episode occurred during a train ride from Cairo to Alexandria. Ahmad, my seat companion, aloof when he first sat down, became quite friendly as time passed. We discussed Egypt's fundamentalist terrorist problems and the effect this was having on the lives of the people.

'The government has broken their power, but at what cost? Or have they?' Seemingly, he was asking himself the question. He continued, 'Didn't you notice? The country has become much more religious. To overcome the fundamentalists, we adopted much of their programmes.'

On the other hand, Ahmad could be mistaken. Perhaps the people themselves yearn for a truly religious life. The vast majority of women in Egypt now wear the hijab (a covering for their faces) - according to a good number of observers - voluntarily.

It is said that, for the people of the Nile Valley, nothing has changed since the pharaohs built the pyramids. The ancient Egyptians spent half their lives building temples and tombs dedicated to the gods; after Christianity, masses of men spent their lives praying in desert monasteries; and when Islam came, for a thousand years, Al-Azhar, the world's first university, has continually sent men all over the world to teach the tenets of Islam. Perhaps, the solace in religion will keep the lid on social unrest until those better times, promised by government officials.