Overestimated intelligence

(published on my German blog on March 27, 2014)

So he does: El Sisi is running for the presidential elections. Many Egyptians argue that he is very clever and intelligent. Each time, I used to answer that if he was really that clever and intelligent, he would not run for the presidential elections. He may have been a good defence minister. However, this does NOT guarantee that he will also be a good president.

But he does. What a pity. I would have thought him to be cleverer. Sooner or later he will fail. The problems to be resolved are enormous. In addition, he raises too many hopes and once these hopes are deceived, the people will revolt once more.

Finally, if he IS that clever, how come that he is willing to participate in another round of fake elections?

Oh dear, what more Egypt has to face.

Beat

"Beat" is the short break in the cinema when the second part of the film is being prepared and you've got a chance to buy a drink.

However, I neither mean the first nor the second; please bear with me if I don't post anything these weeks. I'm once again in my homecountry for a couple of weeks and helping out my former employer.

I've got a lot on my mind, including lots of subjcts about Egypt. Yet, we need to be patient, especially myself. Same as waiting for spring to come:

Sexual Harassment

(posted on my German blog on 19 February 2014)

Several times, I wanted to write about this issue. Why I didn’t? Since in Egypt, it’s an omnipresent issue that the media addresses continuously. So why do I finally write about it? Well, because I’ve been affected myself. Many foreign ladies, who live here in Egypt, read my blog and I beg you: don’t be silent anymore when you’ve been harassed! React, contact harassmap or other organisations! In addition, I call on the men to discourage harassers, to rebuke and to lecture them! Set a good example!

Definition of sexual harassment

Change or candies

Why bothering for change when sweets do the same job?

Luxuries in the desert

Luxury is something different for all of us; here in Egypt it might signify that a family gets hold of enough food every day. For others, to allow themselves to eat meat once per week, to send their children to a good school or to wear a new jacket on feast days.

Luxury might connote going on a two-weeks-holiday to Rimini once a year, to own a car or to call a yacht one’s own.

Those managers, housewives and other highly committed citizens, who rush from date to date, quickly do their shopping after work, hurry to the gym in order to be at home just in time for the late  news, set their alarm clock for 6am so that they can continue to hurry next morning… All those might declare “having time” as their luxury.

For me, it means to do something at that moment when I feel like doing it. This has really become a luxury good in our consumption stricken affluent society. It’s kind of a liberty that we hardly grant ourselves.

Yet, there is something even rarer to find in the era of technology:

Utter silence

Where can it still be found? Far away from civilization, i.e. on top of a mountain peak. In the sea. In the desert.

I’ve missed this absolute silence since I lost the mountains in the Alps. Here in the desert, I’ve found it again for a moment. To halt… amidst this infinite vastness… to stay motionlessly… to breathe deeply and listen. To listen and take in the absolute quiet: it was a wonderful experience.

I was surprised about the vastness: I underestimated the distance between the Sea and the first rocks of the Red Sea Mountains. In fact, the sand plain extends up to 40 km into the West, before reaching the black, light grey and pink rocks – far enough from the noise of the civilisation.

The one who thinks he will be ready for the uncertainties of the mountains or the desert, just because he can afford the up-to-the-minute brands and technical achievements, might be deceived. Just remember the numerous avalanche victims of this winter. Owning a Barryvox doesn’t protect you from an avalanche or the avalanche death! Just as little as one doesn’t climb a mountain off-handedly, one doesn’t enter the desert off-handedly. Some experience, reason and prudence are necessary in order to be able to face unwelcomed surprises or life-threatening conditions. It is recommendable to engage a specialist, a mountain guide in the mountains and a desert fox :) in the desert.

My long cycling trips on scarcely used highways bestow me somehow with this silence. Yet I felt happier on a mountain bike on the sand tracks (although it does need some stamina)! Hence, just because I was further away from civilization and because there was no sound at all. Just silence.

My luxury.

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25 January – 3rd anniversary

29 dead so far across Egypt. Nice celebration. People think they are celebrating the 3rd anniversary of the revolution. However in reality, they celebrate something rather different, as I noticed in Hurghada today: they hail their hero El Sisy. The men on the photo told me joyfully “We don’t want the Muslim Brothers, we want El Sisy.”

All those people that I saw in the streets this afternoon, seemed so happy and glad. Whereas I felt like crying.

It makes me sad to see how short and small the memories of the people are; they forget what 25 January was about, they forgot the police brutality, they forgot the thousands who died for a real change in Egypt and they close their eyes before the ongoing crackdown on all that are not WITH the regime. We speak about a period of three years only!

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Bombings for breakfast, lunch and supper

Here I am, having breakfast and reading the news… in addition to coffee and muesli, internet serves bomb attacks. The most serious one probably occurred at the police headquarter in Cairo. Several people got killed and injured. In addition, the Islamic Museum and its (hardly protected) pieces were damaged.

And the day went on the same way: until now, four bombings have been sparked off. Again, innocents have been killed and injured. Again, the police have arrested hundreds… just any who happened to be nearby, who was graspable. Allegedly, Wael Ghonim’s brother has also been arrested. The police and the army have everything, i.e. everybody under control, everybody, except those that are really dangerous.

Of course, the Muslim Brothers are being accused again. Of course, more hate is being spread and herds of blind and brainless people follow the calls: down with the Muslim Brothers, down with the Americans, down with traitors and spies!!!!

A mob, incited and blinded by hatred (against whom?????), attacked a German camera team today. They can boast themselves for their headlines today and for having something exciting to show to their viewers that are longing for disasters and violence. A documentary about Egypt’s beauties that can already be sensed a couple of kilometres outside Cairo would be far too banal! Well, that’s how the media business works.

Police and army are on top of things. Welcome in the police state of Egypt. Violence breeds more violence – why do the rulers not take it in??? And why do they not learn that sooner or later they will succumb to violence as well?

I do admit, I’m down. Let alone the assault on the German journalists and their dramatic coverage will give another blow to tourism…

All this happened today, the day before the third anniversary of January 25, that day, when Egypt rose as one against the police state and the world rubbed its eyes in disbelief…

What will happen tomorrow???? More bombings?

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