Impact of Constitutional Amendments

There’s a question going on in some heads as to the impacts of the constitutional amendments. Some people have already made up their minds as to what the impact will be. Those in the National (un)Democratic Party have a very accurate idea as to what the impacts in the future will be, other thinkers have a close to accurate imagination of how things will be like in the future. The question that concerns me now is the immediate impact of these changes, say within the next month or so.

The truth be told, these constitutional changes have a very positive immediate impact. No I’m not someone from the National Democratic Party, nor am I insane, I’m just an observer. These changes that will cause the Egyptians misery for at least a half a century or more in the future will buy them one or two months of joy. After the complete forgery of the referendum and the government’s “To hell with the people, we can do whatever we want,” the people feel that they’ve been the victim of a bitter oppression and an all round scam. There is a great force of hatred and rebellion instilled into the hearts of Egyptians for being enslaved in their own country and treated with disrespect. Not only that, but they feel that the little hope of democracy that was preached before the amendments to the constitution was just that false remission of a dying man before he parts with life. All reforms from now on will be close to meaningless.

This feeling of hatred and rebellion and general disdain is felt by the government who has forcefully had its way. It is like the biggest slap in the face to the public, and an angry public it is. So, in light of all this the government has no choice but to contain the people’s anger. The general methodology used to achieve this containment is by use of distraction. I must say that this method is highly successful with Egyptians whose lives are so cluttered with venoms that one small breath of fresh air can act like a sedative to dress their many open wounds. This happened before with the African Cup when people turned their attention to the national team and forgot everything else. Notice that every time a political disaster happens, an unairable football match is aired.

This sort of distraction may seem naive but it works. It really does. But since the constitutional amendments are bigger than anything else, there are supplementary distractions. These other distractions are in the form of easing the oppression inflicted upon us by government institutions. For example they’ve decreased the amounts payable to traffic tickets to the minimum amount, such that 4 tickets cost me only 40 L.E instead of the usual 600 L.E that may have been forced upon me. Of course one ticket is at a place I’ve never been before in my life, nor do I know where it is exactly but that’s beside the point, some things just can’t change no matter what the big heads say. So this has been in effect since the start of March, in an attempt to absorb their anger, so that not everything they deal with is complete and utter crap.

In light of that I expect that traffic officers will be a bit more lenient, that the new telephone billing rates will be slightly postponed and that more UEFA matches will be aired on television. I write this as they’re airing Liverpool vs. Einderlacht. In any case this next month might be great for Egyptians. It’s the ice they will be pouring after the big slap, ease the pain a little till they can legitimately screw us over. I always thought of myself as a realist, but it seems to me that this outlook is rather optimistic. You can expect them to go a little easy on these thousand and one annoying things so that people just don’t explode.

If I were the government what else would I do? Well I’d certainly go easy on arrests, go easy on angry bloggers, go easy on freedom of expression. I’d try to control the prices better, tell the government officials to take it slow on the corruptions and bribes. Give those poor people who work day and night a raise. Offer better services to people, control the scandals that take place in hospitals, make life easier for the people. But wait!! That’s actually making this country a better place, that totally conflicts with government objectives, it’s pushing it a little too far. I mean that’s something they can do, but it would be political suicide. It would give Egyptians some fresh air and make them feel they’re humans and that they have rights. I know I pushed it a little too far. I honestly don’t know what I would do if I were the government, they have a tough job at keeping people neither too well off to live a happy life nor too oppressed to start a revolution.