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Friday, August 21, 2009

Mehtageen 2alameen yefawa2ookom!!!

I have officially become the first and only opponent of the idea of "charity" in Egypt!!!

I have the vision, the philosophy and the drive necessary to conduct my own campaign against charity in Egypt, my own fight!

What I mean by charity, is when "good people" want to "benefit their community" by "donating" money, cloth, food or products to people who are in need.

It is a generous act of support to the community that surrounds us and, should be encouraged by everyone.... Well, except me. As far as I'm concerned, "charity" is a good act in other countries, but not in Egypt. Why? simply because I believe Egypt does not deserve charity. And specially not Egyptians.

To give charity, is to "help someone in need". I say it loud and crystal clear: NO ONE is currently "in need" in Egypt. And yes, I mean NO ONE:

Neither the homeless, nor the widow or divorcé with her children, nor the sick family, nor the poor who only earn 1 EP per month. They all don't deserve it.

We are a country where even the simplest equations don't work. A country where 1 + 1 doesn't necessarily equal 2, unless there's a policeman standing next to the "=".

Let me prove it:
1: We're a country where everything is missing: from infrastructure, to development, to education to healthcare..etc. We're a country that needs A LOT of work to be done. Agree?

2: We're a country that has over 80 million citizen, huge land, water sources, energy sources and yes, our ancestors gave us the biggest "charity" anyone can give: "history, culture and bedazzling civilization". Good resources. Huge number of people.

In the following equation:
Progress = welfare of the people = happy lives = shining economy = an A class country.

Yet, the equation is very simple:

Work + Resources + Manpower = an A country.

We have the work to do.
We have the resources needed
and we have the manpower to do it.
Are we an A country? "no" is an understatement!

But why? how?
We do have 80 million people: A HUGE manpower that can build bridges to the moon.
We do have very generous and renewable resources that all countries envy us for...
Then what's the problem?

The problem is this: we don't Work.
Thus disrupting the entire balance of the equation.
We don't do anything. We have become a lazy community, that wants everything without doing anything.

Today, in the EXTREMELY dirty, smelly, chaotic, loud and ugly streets of the "Ramsis" area, and among the incredible noise and anarchy there. I was "trying" to find a sidewalk where I can walk to reach my destination without being crushed by the cars. On the used-to-be-sidewalk I found, and almost tripped on an apparently homeless man, sleeping on the floor.

Of course, this isn't really an uncommon sight, and, for sure, wasn't a shock for me.
But, let's take a closer look at this, shall we?
That's one homeless person, no roof, no money, no food, no future, no work, NOTHING. A miserable creature that the universe has, as some might say, "been unfair" to.
3ala 3eenee we rasee.
My question: What On Earth, is he doing, at 11:30 am, SLEEPING in the street!!!! I really sympathize with his condition and everything, and the fact that he is managing to sleep in the middle of this chaos is a miracle by itself. BUT, why is he sleeping? I'm not asking him to wake up and go find a job, or do something in his life, or stop being a burdon to society and begin adding to it. I'm not even daring to say any of this, but, AT LEAST, AT LEAST, get up and do the minute effort of begging for money... Do this "work", do this little tiny thing. Just sit there and open your hands, don't even talk, but DO SOMETHING!!!! Are we too lazy to even ask for money? Is this what we have become???

In Egypt, who does his job right? who really adds to the society? who really "perfects" his work?
As an individual who is working in the civil society and who is supposed to be delivering impact to the community, I'm not asking government employees to help. That would be too much asking, I'm only asking them to DO THEIR JOB and just Let me do mine. Is this too much to ask for?

As a classic driver who still believes in red lights, I'm not asking the policemen to follow them, or not to abuse their job, I'm only asking them to AT LEAST, make a clearer hand sign when they want me to stop or go, to wave their hands, or dare I? to use a whistle...!!! THEY DON'T EVEN use their whistles anymore.. They're too lazy to blow!!!!

I'm not asking pedestrians to walk till the crossing area, or to wait for the green light or to even look when they're crossing the street. Just, when you do all of that, PLEASE be a little bit quicker, don't be too lazy to "just" take the normal walking speed.

I'm not asking electricians or plumbers to be quick, come on time, take less money, or even, hasha lellah, fix what they are supposed to fix, just PLEASE, don't leave it worse than it was before your intervention.

I'm not asking doctors, or eminent figures in the society, or society leaders to treat patients, go for the common goods or even benefit the community. I'm not asking any of them to actually attend a meeting or conference to learn or teach something, just PLEASE, don't push each others in open buffets of these events and make an additional "mini-open buffet" on your own table. Don't build a time-machine, just PUT YOUR MOBILES ON SILENT when in a session!!!


The moment Egyptians will work, they will have the greatest country in the world, it's that simple, it has always been this way. The moment they will stop being lazy, they won't be poor, they won't get sick and they won't live in misery. The moment people would, understand that it's all because of them and not "a conspiracy against this "good" people" they will realize it's all in their hands.

We are living in a gold rush. EVERYTHING needs to be done, and whoever will do it, will grow into society in a second. And so, I declare that whoever doesn't have a decent life, doesn't WANT to live a decent life, and, therefore, is not worthy of any charity.

I KNOW that if ANYONE wants anything really hard and WORKS for it, he will UNDENIABLY get it. But just praying for god's help without doing anything, this is just the furthest anyone could be from becoming something.

And, just as we are heading for THE laziest month in the year. The month where "the best" people, pray for things to happen, but don't do a thing in return (not even mentioning those who are even to lazy to pray for that, and just repeat a rhyming series of words they don't even understand). The month where people go to work at 10 and leave at 1, all without really doing anything in these 3 hours. The month where half of Egypt gives the other half of Egypt the money, food and cloth they are waiting for; I want to remind all of those who think there are poor people in this country. Unless the recipient of your act of charity has mental (and only mental) defects that doesn't enable him to reason: You aren't helping your people, you're just spoiling them!!!!

Don't fight poverty, fight laziness.... and everything will work from there.

4 comments:

Islam el-shazly said...

Wow, ana makontsh a3raf enk betektb kalam gamed awy keda,,, Bagad kalamk aksr mn raaaaaa23 ya ayman.

Really ya fandm, u have a great opinion and i think you are right in "the problem that we don't work properly in this country and we don't have insight about that" on the other hand every one is waiting for the others to start working first and says WHY ME!

that's our problem ya ayman..

Great article.. from Great Man...

Keep it on my friend :)

HebatALLAH said...

The first time I read this article (before Ramadan), I was like "wow, why is he so confident that the sleeping man, was asleep?"
Ya3ni, can't he dead? Possible? Perhaps he is sick and can't do the job of begging? Likely?

:-) There is ALWAYS another side for the coin. The thing is in our society we tend to loose sight of the full picture.
We blame the lazy for being so bad. You chose to fight charity. Others find that all there responsibility is to feed the hungry.

I can't agree with all the scenarios.

I don't blame the lazy because am not in his/her shoes. I don't know why he/she is not dedicated and committed.

I don't see charity as harmful. One of my best experiences was working in a charity organisation and learnt that charity is not only noble or kind...at the British Council, people create every lasting impact :-) Because charity is a system of taking responsibility of welfare for the other...and not just giving him/her a fish to eat :-) Charity should actually go further to "teaching the needy to fish" :-)

It doesn't go so much like this in Egypt, I understand...it's more symptomatic here in Egypt, but we shouldn't campaign against using analgesics, whether or not the medicine is known!

Rather than campaign against charity, I do believe, "channeling" the excessive use of analgesics to spending more at the real medicine. We need to create amongst people the culture of sustainable charity i.e "provision of help or relief" in the form of education and empowerment, retrieving lost skills in Egypt...etc. :D

Meanwhile...we can't stop using analgesics :-) Cause we can argue on how ethical would it be.

Don't fight laziness also :-) BUT create the reasons of activity. In Egypt we need a unified goal to work for, a passion rekindled; creating interdependence rather than the abused dependence :D Investing in that is Charity :-)

Ah...by the way...I can't agree with concluding Ramadan is the laziest month :-) That was too harsh a label. I do agree with how some people use their "fasting" as an excuse for their already low performance. In fact, if we follow the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and fast "right", we would have increased metabolism and activity :-)

Nevertheless :-) thumps up! Great article... though it does enjoy a great deal of conclusions...and although I enjoyed the ideas presented, I do feel that these conclusions are based on personal experiences, which unfortunately usually falls short of the whole picture.

If you really are serious about your campaign, allow me to suggest researching into the real situation in Egypt...the forms of charity, the approximate amount spent on charity, the alleviated misfortune, or the increased dependence :D

Am really glad for this article...I do hope it creates a ripple effect :D

Lamiza said...

I love the title, I love you :D

Ahmad Belal said...

I quoted you in my facebook status :)