On the State of Egypt (21 page)

Third, if Dr. Hamza’s project were successful, this would prove his administrative skills and his well-known engineering talent, which might lead to mention of his name as a strong candidate for a ministerial position in any early cabinet reshuffle. This possibility in particular frightens ministers who are trembling with fear for their positions and who consider Dr. Hamza and anyone of similar competence to be dangerous rivals who might replace them.

Fourth, Mamdouh Hamza’s project depended wholly on private donations and was independent of any governmental or quasi-governmental body. It is a successful model that can be repeated across the country. It would create a popular force that would challenge the government and set up projects that are better than those of the state. The Egyptian regime, like all despotic regimes, is not at all comfortable with the idea of an independent popular force, even on a matter such as housing for the poor, because those who rally today to build houses with their own money and effort will definitely one day rally to demand their political rights.

The story of Dr. Mamdouh Hamza, though frustrating, is useful, and I offer it to all those who still believe that a renaissance can come about in our country without political reform. Some generous people still imagine that if every Egyptian worked hard then Egypt would progress without the need for democratic change. But this well-intentioned idea is in fact extremely naïve because it assumes that the effect of despotism is limited to parliament and the government. The truth is that despotism, like a cancer, starts in the political system and spreads rapidly through all government agencies, crippling and destroying them. Despotism definitely leads to the corruption of the state, which quickly leads to the formation of malignant gangs inside the regime who amass great fortunes through corruption and are prepared to fight viciously and destroy any person, any idea, and any project to preserve their gains. The added fact that a despotic regime gives priority to loyalty over competence, and therefore gives jobs to loyal supporters who usually are not objectively qualified to do the job, makes them dread the appearance of anyone really competent who might take over their position. That’s how a despotic system is transformed into a frightful machine that routinely eliminates people of talent, fighting and persecuting them, while at the same time attracting failures and incompetents as long as they sing and dance for the president and praise his genius and magnificent achievements.

In the end all this leads to a deterioration of the state’s performance in every field until the country reaches rock bottom, as has happened in Egypt. What happened to Dr. Hamza is exactly what happened previously to Dr. Ahmed Zewail and all the talented Egyptians who have tried to do something to help their country. All this proves once again that Egypt cannot be saved from its current nightmare by individual efforts, however sincere and enthusiastic. Any attempt at reform without democratic change is simply a waste of time and effort.

Democracy is the solution.

May 10, 2010

Who is Killing the Poor in Egypt?

M
ohamed Fathy, a brilliant journalist and a talented writer, recently went on holiday to Alexandria with his two children, his wife, and her sister, Nashwa. They all had a wonderful time and then suddenly an unfortunate incident took place. A speeding car hit Nashwa as she was crossing the road and she suffered serious injuries and fractures, her clothes were torn, and she lost consciousness. Because she was alone at the time of the accident some passersby took her to the government hospital in the center of the city. So far the story would appear normal—a woman is injured in a traffic accident and taken to a hospital for treatment—but what happened after that is beyond imagination. Nashwa and dozens of other injured people were dumped into a place called the Awatef al-Naggar Emergency Unit and she stayed there for two hours without any first aid or treatment and without any doctor examining her. Mohamed Fathy arrived at the hospital and found Nashwa at death’s door. He asked for a doctor to examine her but nobody paid any attention. With the passage of time and the apathy of the hospital staff, Fathy lost his temper and started shouting at everyone he met: “We need a doctor, I beg you! The patient is going to die!”

No doctor came up to examine Nashwa, but a policeman came to inform Mohamed Fathy that he was forbidden from staying by her side because she was in a women’s ward and no men were allowed there. Fathy began threatening them by saying he was a journalist and he would write a story about all the crimes they commit against poor patients. Only then did a doctor appear to examine Nashwa, a full three hours after she arrived in pieces at the hospital. The doctor then announced that she needed to have some scans. He left it at that and abandoned her where she was. After much effort Mohamed Fathy managed to get in touch with the director of the hospital, Dr. Mohamed al-Maradny, who seemed extremely upset at the idea that anyone might contact him about patients. Sarcastically the doctor asked Fathy, “And what can I do for you, sir?”

Fathy told him that his wife’s sister was dying and had been dumped in his hospital without any medical attention or scans for more than three hours. At that point Dr. al-Maradny said, “Delays with scans are quite normal. Even if you’re in a private hospital and you pay the doctors’ fees, scans can be delayed.”

The hospital director was trying to remind Fathy that Nashwa was receiving free treatment so her family did not have the right to complain about anything. Fathy spoke to the director at length about humaneness and the doctor’s duty to tend to the sick, and after a long conversation the director (who appears to manage the hospital from afar by telephone) did order immediate scans for Nashwa. At this point a new problem arose. A cleaner came up to Nashwa, whose condition had greatly deteriorated, and was about to carry her in his arms to the scans department. Mohamed Fathy objected, arguing that carrying patients with fractures required a trained medic because moving the patient’s body carelessly could cause death. The hospital staff ridiculed Fathy’s idea, which seemed very strange to them. “What do you mean, medic? We don’t have that kind of thing here. Either this man carries her or we leave her where she is,” they said. The cleaner went up to poor Nashwa and shouted, “Come on, let’s hope for the best. Lift, lift!” He gave her a violent yank and her screams resounded throughout the hospital.

At last Nashwa had a CAT scan, and then it was the turn of the C-scan operator. This man, by the consensus of the hospital staff, was always sullen and morose, treating patients rudely and arrogantly, and if he did not like a patient he announced that the machine was out of order and declined to do the scan, no matter how serious the patient’s condition. On top of that he was bearded and had Salafist ideas. The scan operator was dawdling around in his room and Fathy went to him several times, begging him to come and do the scan for Nashwa. At last the man came and shouted at everyone present, “Women out. I don’t want any women here.” Fathy’s wife tried to explain to him that she was the patient’s sister but the man insisted she get out. He allowed Fathy to stay on the grounds that he was
mahram
, sufficiently closely related to Nashwa under Islamic law. He then grabbed Nashwa’s arm violently and when she screamed he shouted at her angrily, “Keep your voice right down. I don’t want to hear a sound.” Mohamed Fathy found himself in a difficult situation. If he argued with the bearded scan operator Nashwa might lose her chance to have the scan and might die. So he resorted to a trick to win the man’s approval. He starting talking to Nashwa using Salafist expressions: “Don’t forget to put on the headscarf you left outside. Never mind, sister. May God reward you well, sir. Recite the Qur’an. God is the one whose help we seek, sir. May God reward you well, may God reward you well.” The stratagem achieved its purpose. The bearded scan operator gave way, approved of the patient, and carried out the scan.

After all this negligence, which was close to criminal, it would have been natural for Nashwa to die in the government hospital, but God wanted to grant her a new life and, almost miraculously, Mohamed Fathy managed to move her to a private hospital where she underwent an emergency operation that saved her life. This incident, full of details I received from Mohamed Fathy, contains the answer to the question, who is killing the poor in Egypt?

Responsibility for the deaths of poor patients in state-run hospitals goes beyond the minister of health to the president of the republic himself. Egypt’s tragedy begins with President Mubarak, who, despite our respect for his person and his status, was not elected by anyone and is not accountable to anyone and so feels no real need to win the approval of Egyptians or pay much attention to what they think about what he does. He knows he holds power by force and has a massive apparatus of repression that can punish without mercy anyone who tries to remove him. This president, who is above any oversight and immune against change, chooses and dismisses his ministers for reasons he does not feel compelled to explain to the public, and so these ministers are answerable only to him and not to Egyptians. Their only concern is to please the president; they have no interest at all in what happens to people as a result of their policies. We have only to remember how health minister Hatem al-Gabali, who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of patients in his wretched hospitals, abandoned everything and stayed for weeks with the president while he was being treated in Germany. As far as the minister of health is concerned, the health of the president is a thousand times more important than the lives of poor people, because only the president has the power to dismiss him at any moment.

In such complete alienation between power and people, we see a model of the Egyptian government. The hospital director manages to win the approval of his superiors in some way and is then immune to any oversight and does not even take the trouble to go to his hospital, instead running it by telephone. He treats poor patients as annoying creatures who are a burden to him and to society. Then there is the warped behavior of the scan operator, who is just as poor, wretched, and frustrated as the patients but whose sense of wretchedness is transformed into hostility toward the patients. He enjoys controlling and humiliating them and at the same time understands religion as appearance, ways of dress, and acts of worship divorced from human values such as honesty and compassion, which are the most important parts of religion. This vicious cycle, which starts with despotism and leads to negligence and corruption, recurs every day in Egypt and ends in the deaths of more poor people. What happened in the government hospital in Alexandria is exactly what has happened with the dozens of buildings that have collapsed on top of inhabitants, the ferries that have sunk, and the trains that have caught fire. It is saddening that the number of people who have died from corruption and negligence in Egypt is greater than the number who have died in all its wars. In other words the Egyptian regime has killed more Egyptians than Israel. The horrendous crimes committed against the poor every day will not stop because a manager is transferred or a worker punished. When the president and his ministers are elected and accountable and can be removed from office by the people, only then will they care for the health, life, and dignity of Egyptians.

Democracy is the solution.

August 12, 2010

Does Subservience Protect Us from Injustice?

T
he story goes that a peasant laborer acquired a vast fortune and bought a large boat of the kind they call a
dahabiya
in the countryside. He bought smart and expensive clothes and sat in his
dahabiya
as it glided across the water. The man who owned the land he worked on, an arrogant and cruel-hearted man, saw him and ordered his workers to storm the
dahabiya
and arrest the peasant. They brought him before the landowner and the following exchange took place between them:

Landowner: Since when have peasants been sailing new
dahabiyas
?

Peasant: It’s all thanks to your compassion, your justice, and your generosity, sir. This should make you happy because it’s a sign of your grace and goodness.

Landlord: How can peasants be allowed to imitate their masters and sail
dahabiya
s?

Peasant: God forbid that I should imitate my masters. Who am I? I’m just one of your slaves and everything I earn is your property in the end.

Landlord: If you don’t want to imitate us, why did you buy a
dahabiya
and why are you sailing it on the Nile as if you’re one of the masters of the country? Do you want the other peasants to see you and think you’re someone of importance and standing?

Peasant: God forbid, my lord. If you think I’ve done anything wrong then I swear by God and His Prophet that I’ll never sail this
dahabiya
again. I repent right now, sir. I beg you to accept my repentance.

Landlord: I accept but I’ll take steps to make sure you never repeat your mistake.

The landlord gave orders to his servants, who tied the peasant up and dragged him along the ground until his new clothes were covered with mud and ripped to shreds. Then they started to beat him until his knees, his feet, and his back were bleeding. Meanwhile the landlord laughed and said, “That way you’ll never forget your humble place, you peasant.”

This incident did in fact take place in an Egyptian village early in the twentieth century and is told by the great writer, Ahmed Amin, in his excellent book,
Qamus al-‘adat wa-l-taqalid al-misriya
(A Dictionary of Egyptian Customs and Traditions). To my mind it reflects a widespread pattern for the relationship between the despot and his victims. No doubt the peasant knew that he had a right to sail the
dahabiya
because he had bought it with his own money, and that he also had a right to wear whatever clothes he wanted. The peasant knew he had done nothing wrong but he thought it would be wise to apologize to the landowner and repent in public for an offense he had never committed. The peasant was especially servile in order to escape injustice, although if he had stood his ground courageously against the landowner to defend his right to be treated as human being, he would at least have maintained his dignity and the consequences of being courageous would have been no worse than the consequences of being submissive.