Egypt: The Past And The Present
There's no doubt that Egypt is one of the oldest countries in the world, Beside the chinese and the iraqis. Egypt witnessed booms and slumps through it's 7,000 year age, and has also affected the entire world with its civilization in the past, yet what's happening now is that it's standing forceless against what's being changed inside it, and many negatives are growing inside it like a cancer. Myself, being proud of the countrie's past doesn't mean i'm proud of its present, it's dramatically falling right here which makes any person feel pessimistic instead of hopeful.
During the pharaonic age, egypt was the cultural center for the world, and it was like america nowadays, with huge potentials that pushed everybody to exert the best effort for it. Maybe some of the current measures and tools were used since the pharaohs
In the field of asrology; measuring the days and movements of stars and determining many facts about the sun and the moon, like in abu simbel temple when the sun gets into a small hole to lit the king's hall twice a year in two specific days: his birth and his crowning anniversary.
Moreover, in the field of knowledge and information, they invented writing, and used papyrus to record their daily life or activites and accordingly, their entire history, we still write to denote our daily transactions and thoughts. Their writings also reflected different aspects of life we still discuss till this very monent.
One of these aspects is belief, they believed in many gods, each god responsible of some aspect, like the god of wealth, the god of the good, the god of evil... etc, yet they believed there's one god who's in charge of all of this, but they couldn't name him yet. They just referred to him as the Sole God, and in my own opinion, all the Abrahamic religions are just the evolution of such a belief. Considering the difference we realize that the three religions are talking about a single god like what the pharaohs believed in, and that god's in charge of the entire globe! Also, reading the pharaonic notes, i noticed that they're not that different from the old testament, especially the psalms. Some ancianet egyptian king wrote almost typically psalm for his son as a lifetime guide... it's just my memory that betrays me remembering where exactly it was.
By the end of the pharaonic era, egypt started drowning into lakes of civil wars and external pressures, the war between the romans and the egyptians, then the war between the christians and those who still embraced the pharanic beliefs, later between the eastern and the western christians, the external war of muslims against the christians since they invaded egypt, and after the majority of egypt became muslims we also read about wars between the different islamic forms and of course egypt was a strategic war zone for each form, therefore we found egypt swinging from mamalik to ottomans to the french and ending with the british invasion.
All of thses factors created a segmented country divided into two categories, the christians and the moslims, yet apart from the un-announced civil war between both sides, there're also unrevealed struggles inside each category. We find the christians divided into many groups, yet each group is claiming superiority over the other, and also we find the extreemist who looks at the others as "sinners" or "nonbelievers", the moderate who try to be interactive in the society and work positively to improve the image (and that's not the majority) and finally those who don't even care, which's the majority nowadays. On the other side, the same rule applies to the muslims except for the fact that the majory can be listed under the category of the fanatics, with a small amout of moderates and non-caring together.
As a christian, it became very common to me to be asked about my religion, hearing anti-christian preeches on the way to university or coming back, or going anywhere generally, and sometimes it's even on TV! But i also noticed that it's not a unidirectional traffic! At church you have to show your ID so that they let you in only of you're christian, and inside the churches the fanatic accent is increasing just like in mosques. I hear people from both sides exchanging slandering and insults, accusing each other that they're not civilized, and committing the same mistakes they blame each other for... which's definitely hypocritic.
Moving to the Economic field, it's even more depressing when compared to its performance 50 years ago... before the revolution, which i believe was a religious one rather than a civil one, egypt was the second country in the world to have railways, the first in the middle east to have an opera house, which was the largest in the world by then, the sixth to have an airport and was one of the best ten economies worldwide, nowadays it's so shameful to even think about numbers, enough saying our economy is the 154th worldwide!! That falling economy has lead to worse results, resulting in fraud, bribery, theft, poverty, lack of education, and many other negativities that push us back from civilization or development. The lack of education led to less awareness of rights and duties, greed, and ethnical prejudice without being aware of it. The absence of civilized discussions at school has led people to believe in the sentence "survival for the fAttest" not regarding other people's right to enjoy the same life, and being easily led by religious figures without even thinking of it. Bribery and unwillness for work due to weak salaries led to a different kind of work! the dirty business is more profitable and even more common than other kinds of work because people are hit with that fact: steal or die starving.
i think respecting the other is one of the milestones for development, if we consider each other equal, and have the will to work together for a bigger goal; our country, we'd make a big step for development, another step that i consider crucial is emplanting the spirit of civilized discussions and equality so that people could exert their best for the development, not only loving themselves, but loving where they live and who they live with. Egypt is one of the richest countries, if managed the right way, without a leader who gets the money abroad or a minister who steals more than he builds.
During the pharaonic age, egypt was the cultural center for the world, and it was like america nowadays, with huge potentials that pushed everybody to exert the best effort for it. Maybe some of the current measures and tools were used since the pharaohs
In the field of asrology; measuring the days and movements of stars and determining many facts about the sun and the moon, like in abu simbel temple when the sun gets into a small hole to lit the king's hall twice a year in two specific days: his birth and his crowning anniversary.
Moreover, in the field of knowledge and information, they invented writing, and used papyrus to record their daily life or activites and accordingly, their entire history, we still write to denote our daily transactions and thoughts. Their writings also reflected different aspects of life we still discuss till this very monent.
One of these aspects is belief, they believed in many gods, each god responsible of some aspect, like the god of wealth, the god of the good, the god of evil... etc, yet they believed there's one god who's in charge of all of this, but they couldn't name him yet. They just referred to him as the Sole God, and in my own opinion, all the Abrahamic religions are just the evolution of such a belief. Considering the difference we realize that the three religions are talking about a single god like what the pharaohs believed in, and that god's in charge of the entire globe! Also, reading the pharaonic notes, i noticed that they're not that different from the old testament, especially the psalms. Some ancianet egyptian king wrote almost typically psalm for his son as a lifetime guide... it's just my memory that betrays me remembering where exactly it was.
By the end of the pharaonic era, egypt started drowning into lakes of civil wars and external pressures, the war between the romans and the egyptians, then the war between the christians and those who still embraced the pharanic beliefs, later between the eastern and the western christians, the external war of muslims against the christians since they invaded egypt, and after the majority of egypt became muslims we also read about wars between the different islamic forms and of course egypt was a strategic war zone for each form, therefore we found egypt swinging from mamalik to ottomans to the french and ending with the british invasion.
All of thses factors created a segmented country divided into two categories, the christians and the moslims, yet apart from the un-announced civil war between both sides, there're also unrevealed struggles inside each category. We find the christians divided into many groups, yet each group is claiming superiority over the other, and also we find the extreemist who looks at the others as "sinners" or "nonbelievers", the moderate who try to be interactive in the society and work positively to improve the image (and that's not the majority) and finally those who don't even care, which's the majority nowadays. On the other side, the same rule applies to the muslims except for the fact that the majory can be listed under the category of the fanatics, with a small amout of moderates and non-caring together.
As a christian, it became very common to me to be asked about my religion, hearing anti-christian preeches on the way to university or coming back, or going anywhere generally, and sometimes it's even on TV! But i also noticed that it's not a unidirectional traffic! At church you have to show your ID so that they let you in only of you're christian, and inside the churches the fanatic accent is increasing just like in mosques. I hear people from both sides exchanging slandering and insults, accusing each other that they're not civilized, and committing the same mistakes they blame each other for... which's definitely hypocritic.
Moving to the Economic field, it's even more depressing when compared to its performance 50 years ago... before the revolution, which i believe was a religious one rather than a civil one, egypt was the second country in the world to have railways, the first in the middle east to have an opera house, which was the largest in the world by then, the sixth to have an airport and was one of the best ten economies worldwide, nowadays it's so shameful to even think about numbers, enough saying our economy is the 154th worldwide!! That falling economy has lead to worse results, resulting in fraud, bribery, theft, poverty, lack of education, and many other negativities that push us back from civilization or development. The lack of education led to less awareness of rights and duties, greed, and ethnical prejudice without being aware of it. The absence of civilized discussions at school has led people to believe in the sentence "survival for the fAttest" not regarding other people's right to enjoy the same life, and being easily led by religious figures without even thinking of it. Bribery and unwillness for work due to weak salaries led to a different kind of work! the dirty business is more profitable and even more common than other kinds of work because people are hit with that fact: steal or die starving.
i think respecting the other is one of the milestones for development, if we consider each other equal, and have the will to work together for a bigger goal; our country, we'd make a big step for development, another step that i consider crucial is emplanting the spirit of civilized discussions and equality so that people could exert their best for the development, not only loving themselves, but loving where they live and who they live with. Egypt is one of the richest countries, if managed the right way, without a leader who gets the money abroad or a minister who steals more than he builds.
posted by Unknown at 9/19/2006 09:31:00 PM
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