A Hope in Egypt When There was None

Walking down the streets of Cairo, all I see is representations of the West, starting from the way we dress down to the things we eat.

What we did not, however, duplicate from the West is how to follow rules. It has become a dilemma where we seemingly have lost our identity as Egyptians.

What makes us Egyptians? It used to be our compassion, our hospitality, our smile, loyalty and our Egyptian soul. However, somewhere in between when we were trying so hard to become Western, we lost ourselves.

Masryeen used to trigger the definitions of compassion, valour and loyalty across the Arab world.

That isn’t the case any longer, and society seems to have deteriorated greatly.

Walking down the street, you see children – supposedly, the most compassionate of us all, being cruel and beating a dog. If these kids are capable of such cruelty than what is the rest of society capable of?

Harassment has become a norm on the streets of Egypt and instead of standing up for the girl, society blames her. By both man and woman. You’d hear the craziest of things, like a man stabbing the husband of a woman, whom he was sexually harassing. A girl, who premeditated the murder of her fiancé with her father. A parliament member suggesting that we put all street dogs to death and send them to Korea.

What has the world come to? When did Egyptians become so immoral and detached from life? We have become so insensitive to our surroundings, that it ceases to surprise me.

Most people who have the choice to leave Egypt, choose to leave. Allegiance to our nation, to our families has all but dissipated. We no longer know how to differentiate between state and nation, the nation, (the people),  where our loyalty should always lie, which leads us to negatively view every aspect within Egypt.

I have seen glimpses of our compassion that still exist, I have seen a man rush to help my grandmother down a few steps.

I’ve seen it when a micro bus driver, was smiling proudly at my friend and I, while we were singing our lungs out in the midst of traffic. It’s moments like these that give me hope, that I know for sure that some part of us could never be killed. It’s a reason for us to try to change ourselves and our society.