A dear friend of mine works with a Peace-building NGO in Cairo. I asked him if he’d give us an insider’s look on what Egypt feels like after the revolution. Here’s what he has to say.
It is amazing looking at the differences in Egypt before and after the revolution. I think it can best be summed up by a new-found pride which had been stripped, beaten and corrupted out of the majority of Egyptians before the revolution. The most common thing that I used to hear when meeting new people was, “Why would you leave the U.S. and come live here of all places? That’s so strange. We’re all trying to leave here and go live anywhere else, and you’re moving here to live?” There was this sense that there was no real future possible in Egypt, and if people actually wanted to make something of themselves, or really do anything with their lives then they would have to emigrate.
Upon my return, however, I was hanging out with a few of my Egyptian friends, and one of them said something which really stuck with me, especially because of it’s inverse relationship to the comments I had grown so accustomed to hearing from Egyptians. He said that for him and his friends, the dream had always been to emigrate. They wanted to travel to a different country because there was nothing they could do to make Egypt livable.
He said, “Now, however, I wouldn’t leave Egypt even if I had a great opportunity somewhere else. Now is the chance to truly change our country and to build it up to meet its potential.” My friends then began discussing different ways that they could get involved with development projects around Egypt.
People are taking the initiative all over Egypt since the revolution. They have been truly empowered to take matters into their own hands, even down to minor things like cleaning up the garbage from the streets and repainting roads and sidewalks. As a minor example, there used to be two large garbage containers in front of the apartment where I live; one on either end of the street. These garbage containers were constantly overflowing and spilling garbage onto the street all around them. However, when I returned to my apartment after the revolution neither container was anywhere to be seen and the parts of the street that used to be constantly covered in garbage were repainted with a sign up that said, “Don’t put your garbage here.”
I have also been receiving calls from different friends of mine on ways to get involved in development work, and how to start up NGO’s, how to apply for funding for different projects, etc. I have never had my friends so interested in my work before, and I think the reason is because before the revolution they thought that my job was completely useless and pointless (although they would never say this to me, of course).
It all goes to show, a little empowerment goes a long way.
[ Image by Nick Bygone ]
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