Hussam El-Hamalawy, a friend and a “The Arabist” Contributor, has this link to a video on “street activism“. I hadn’t seen it before and found it quite interesting.

What interested me most was the bit near the end. The group of young people that the Journalist/Reporter talked to were, as far as I could tell, AUC Undergraduates. I do not know except two of them personally.

Since I’m a judgemental SOB, let me just say that these people (as AUC students) do represent young people that the NDP would recruit. Those of the NDP target-market are people who see the benefits of being a part of the system, yet at the same time they want reform (or so they say). I had discussed something similar, on this blog, a number of days ago about two of my friends.

What do I think? I think the idea is despicable. Understandably, some of these people I refer to are not like my friends in the fact that some of them are members of the NDP already, and others are well-known for their NDP-sympathies.

The way I see it, they can be categorized into these groups of people (Keep in mind that most of their parents are rich businessmen or “industrialists” or what have you):

1. Those that are are ignorant of all the political, economic and social atrocities committed by the NDP. They probably think its confined to not allowing people to protest and arresting dissenters and throwing them in jail. They probably think that removing those specific conditions, and not having the road blocked for a couple of hours when Mubarak passes by, will probably mean more democracy in Egypt. They have no knowledge that there are poor people in Egypt beyond the few beggers they see in Cairo. Charity, and not development, does wonders to alleviate any kind of guilty feelings they have (and many of them do, as I’ve seen and heard) towards the current social and economic class distinctions.
2. Those that know that real power lies within joining the NDP. The current Patron-Client system (Shokran ya Menza!) is something they are willing to be a part of in excahnge for a carte blanche that allows them to go about their business successfully without any of the other NDP or NDP-affiliated businessmen enchroaching on their turf. They usually are willing to comprimise their moral beliefs, if they had any to being with, to this effect.
3. People that cannot be placed in groups 1 or 2. Some think that the way the country is run right now is good. Some believe in reform from “within”. Others believe in other stuff that I, personally, am not privy to.

Those AUC-ians? The boys are mostly of the Group 2 Variety and the girls are mostly of the Group 1 variety. Of course, I say mostly and not completely. There are those that would attend any meeting that they believe to be more constructive because it is carried out in a nice, air-conditioned place where the attendees all speak English and look like they belong to the same social class.

That’s about it.

Please keep in mind that I was not trying to be mean, in the least. I am disgusted sometimes, frustrated at other times, but mainly… I just ignore them. Oh! One last thing, did you hear that remark about “future leaders”? More AUC-implanted class distinction bullshit which, by the way things are going, is highly likely to occur.

This may seem like a weird post as you, if you, read along so let me just warn you that all that follows is merely my twisted view of things I see.

Whilst I would have normally placed this post on my “Too-sensitive-for-everyone-to-read-blog-which-I-post-on-and-is-different-from-this-blog” I’ve decided I didn’t care enough if people get annoyed or pissed off and to just put it down here”. SO, here goes:

I’ve noticed recently that a couple of my university friends’ behavior is a bit… screwy. Why screwy? Well, mainly because they fashioned themselves as the anti-government types although their parents were strongly tied to the government (One had an ambassador for a father, the other’s father was an officer in the Egyptian Armed Forces).

Now, before you start pointing out the obvious flaw in that argument, please read on. I’m not saying that since your parent(s) are affiliated, in any way, to the government you will automatically be as well, not at all. It’s just more likely to occur that, well, you’re neutral or “understanding” of certain actions that the government (of Egypt) might take.

But, these friends of mine (I’m actually going to talk about two in particular) were not like that. As a matter of fact, I was genuinely surprised when I discovered their parent(s)’ sources of income. Come to think of it, I only found out about two years after I got to know each of them.

Both of my friends were contributors to the more political of publications on our university campus; namely MUN and MAL’s publications (Vanguard and Al-Waqe’). Both were, relatively, critical of the situation in the Middle East and wrote quite well-written articles about different topics. What struck me as weird a couple of days ago when, for some inexplicable reason, I started thinking of them (we have been out of frequent contact for sometime now – what with work and all) was the language and choice of arguments and even subjects they both discussed in their articles.

You see, when it was merely oral conversation or discussion, the two of them would be easily labelled as people who generally opposed government policy. Quite vehemently as a matter of fact. But, when it came to their articles, matters were different; they would call for free speech (mostly indirectly) but in such a manner as to make it seem like they are criticizing the government for its own good or so that it would carry out “reform measures”. Hmmm. That doesn’t sound so bad… well, they sounded like Rosa Al-Youssef and Al-Ahram editorials. Blinded as I was by the fact that they were my friends, I did not notice this at the time.

The reason I criticize this (and I feel I must explain) is that I do not believe this government, deserves to continue in any way or form… irregardless of whatever reform they might genuinely strive to achieve. (I’m not saying they’re striving to achieve anything. But, even if they wake up one day and just decided to become benevelont philanthropists, donating all the money they stole to the people and worked for nothing else but the people’s benefit, they have committed enough crimes – Every single member - that they should be given no quarter and offered no pardon for their crimes against the people of this country and the country itself. Bear in mind that I am not saying they should be killed.)

Moving on.

The three of us now hold jobs. I can’t delve into the nature of their jobs (can’t quite go that far in revealing who they are) but suffice to say that they are both aspirants to government or government-financed jobs. Basically, they actually want to work for the government and/or institutions that are known to either support the government or are of the “shut-up-and-make-as-if-we-haven’t-noticed-this-goverment-is-made-up-of-thieves” type.

They have both, in my opinion succeeded.

This state of affairs greatly upsets me. Both these University friends have illustrated, whilst we were all undergraduates, their capacity for ignoring or bending certain moral and ethical values in the drive for success at what they’re doing. I don’t mean to call them thieves, or liars, or cheats… far from it. What they have done is much more despicable to me, because it is not something which is clear and obvious such as theft or cheating. It goes much deeper. It involves pride, the definition of being a human being and… ultimately (to my thinking) the will to change the way things are by starting with yourself.

Basically, they are guilty of being cop-outs. People who don’t practice what they preach. People who, in recognition of the fact that bending your head in the classical arab visualization of subservience, will do almost (I say that because I don’t know how far they’d go – which isn’t good) anything to get what they want or where they want to get.

As I write this, powerful feelings well up inside me and make me (I’m not making this up) shiver; I would have never thought that two people that I would choose to be friends with would be that way. It’s different when you read about corruption and all that in the news… and when you experience it first-hand through a friend’s actions.

I guess I thought my friends would always be perfect… even if I wasn’t.

That’s about it.

P.S. A talkative person by nature who has a tendency to get carried away by the details, I apologize for the number of words it took me to actually start discussing the topic that this post was meant to discuss.