Friday, February 12, 2010

Cairo : Forever Triumphant

Cairo is for sure a mega city , a mega capital with a character of its own.Cairo suffers also from problem , huge problems resulted from our regime that did not give a damn to correct the mistakes of the successive regimes that preceded it ; no one can deny this either. Now as Egyptians we know that there are certain problems if not in solved in Cairo or any governorate in the countries their results will be very bad especially the increasing gap  between the rich and poor.
The foreign policy research institute published an excerpt from a study called  “ The Rise of the Megacity and Its Threat to Global Security” by By P. H. Liotta & James F. Miskel. The study is about 8 Mega cities in the third world which play an important role in the world/America/west economy, politics and national security. These 8 cities are : Lagos, Cairo, Kinshasa, Dhaka, Karachi, Lahore, Mumbai, and Jakarta. According to the research all these cities suffer from huge problems in the present will produce dark future not for their own countries only but for the whole world.
The excerpt mentioned three cities : Lagos, Cairo and Karachi. Lagos for oil , Karachi for terrorism and Cairo ; our triumphant failure !!

This is what they mentioned about our beloved Capital :
Cairo (in Arabic, al-Qahira or the triumphant) is the capital of the Arab world and, like Lagos, a collection of un-integrated neighborhoods that function independently from each other and from the municipal and national governments—a city of many faces.
To most of its residents, the city is not a city at all. For good reason: most Cairenes regard the municipal government as either non-existent or potentially hostile because virtually no public services exist in most neighborhoods. Yet the national government clearly understands the importance of keeping Cairo under control, if not well cared for. The municipal budget is set by the national government, which also provides broad direction on how funds are to be spent. Indeed, the city was directly administered by the national government until the end of World War II. Even today, the national government appoints the head of the municipal government.
Cairo is a prime example of a national government acting as a megacity’s “Puppet Master”—attempting to prevent urban events from spinning out of control, without actually improving the lives of city dwellers. As with Pakistan, less populated regions of the country are virtually ignored, ironically creating resentment and disaffection in both urban and rural areas. Residents of Sinai, for example, have long felt ignored by the Egyptian government and anti-government violence and domestic terrorism on the peninsula have increased in recent years.
In Egypt today, the government’s failure to provide services evenly throughout Cairo has opened niches for the Muslim Brotherhood (the parent of Hamas). In addition, the focus on maintaining control over the city has caused other parts of Egypt to be overlooked.
Interesting description for Cairo despite the fact as a Cairene I know that most neighborhoods have different levels from public services. I feel that this description was based upon the shanty towns. Things outside Cairo are not this bad , you have Alexandria and Damietta as good examples especially Damietta. Anyhow the creditability of this research should be taken so seriously especially with the reference to the Muslim brotherhood’s Hamas parent !! “The boogie man”
The authors suggested a series of steps to save these cities in order to save the world from their expected evil if not stopped at the right time. I do not know about other cities , but I know mine very well. Egyptian citizens have addressed what those strategists in the States suggested from a long time but no one listens from the Mubarak regime which has been backed by the American administrations since 1981. I do not know whom they are kidding seriously !!
Now regarding the triumphant , the city of thousand faces and minarets have seen lots of bad days and lots of good days from time to time proving that her name was not random choice based on astrology , it was more a destined fate.

3 comments:

  1. Great post. I'm a follower of your intellect since our small conversation regarding the balconies of London "raining" Egyptians.

    Thanks again and greetings from Wisconsin, USA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Zeinobia, You keep leading me to interesting places. Essam has an interesting and well put together blog. I don't understand the reference to the balconies raining Egyptians but I guess it means there are a lot of Egyptians living there. It reminds me that the widow of Judge Jasper Brinton who was a famous and revered figure in Cairo for so many years spent much time in the window of her apartment in London greeting passersby.I have made some comments on the mega city report on my own blog and linked it to yours.

    http://www.octogenarianonline.com/2010/02/almost-8-years-of-my-foreign-service.html

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  3. @Essam, thank you so much dear

    @Dear Mr.Smith, regarding the balconies of Egyptians in London well it has nothing to do with the Egyptians there more about those Egyptians who killed or as officially said "fell off their balconies there after writing their memories like Soad Hosni and Ashraf Marwan
    Second thank you so much for referring to my blog in your post. I have to disagree though we have lots of resources but unfortunately our government does not have the brain even as a dictatorship to use these resources. Our population will continue to be a problem if we continue to live in the valley where as we have got Sinai and we have got the desert to reclaim using ground water.
    My dear sir this lack of resources which may seem to the world now happened due to the corruption in the country. I reclaim that Dr. Mohamed El-Baradei in his famous interview once said that we have resources more than Japan and Malaysia yet look where they are and where we are , of course we had our share from wars but Malaysia in 25 years became a powerful nation where we in 2010 after 28 years of Mubarak we have become on the verge of revolution.

    ReplyDelete

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