Enduring Gov

So Nafeza 3ala El 3alam had one of the lousiest last episodes in the Ramadan TV Series. Somehow the last episode was the usual Egyptian attempt to tie up most loose ends and to clarify the whole message of 29 previous episodes or something. In any case, the one question that it did pose, although it has been answered by the series itself is this:

Are there more honest people in this day and age than there are dishonest?

It's not much of a question, as the obvious answer is that there are more dishonest people in this world and they've become more powerful, but since when has the fight between good and evil very fair? Usually evil seems more powerful than good but in the polished up version of most stories we hear good somehow finds a way to overcome evil. Rashad Ghazal has a theory though, who said that being honest is right? After all it is trendy these days not to say there's wrong or right. The thing is we somehow know that this swindler isn't right, but the thing is that no one can actually prove it, because wrong and right can end up being very subjective these days.

So my real point isn't right and wrong, the point is that I believe that there are more dishonest people than there are honest people today in Egypt and considering this answer I realized something. I realized that the government we have today really does represent its people. The greater majority of Egyptians have become hustlers and swindlers by nature, they would take away what's not theirs and they would put their conscience at ease. They would trick their brothers, sisters, family, relatives and friends for an extra buck. They would lie, protect their interests, try to get ahead no matter what the cost and get away with what they can.

The government is a cross-section of this community, with a few honest faces and many dishonest people who hide and lie and do all there is to do. How can we complain about a government that actually represents its people? How can we argue that the government doesn't represent the majority? It's my opinion that over half of the Egyptian population are living in some sort of denial. It naturally ensues that the government should live in this sort of denial and pass it down to people too.

No wonder there's lots of distrust between people and government, and the reason is that there's lots of distrust amidst people themselves. If one can't trust his neighbor how can he trust the neighbor after he's elected to represent him. I suppose one can't even trust himself to do good for the others around him, so how can he trust another?

I know it's the duty of a government to look out for the best interest of its people, but what if the people don't want to look out for the best interest of one another? The truth is that there's no sense of ownership of this country. If you're not in the government you don't own it and if you are in the government you own it, but in an entirely different way. If you're in the government you own the country as a master owns a slave. A master that does not care for the well being of his slave but rather all he can gain out of that slave. There's no long term investment in the slave, the slave should serve till it drops dead. The slave should be kept oppressed enough so as to become powerful and satisfied enough as not to rebel. The people become the country and the country becomes the slave. This is the sort of ownership if you're in the government.

Walking down the street you can find that it's dirty and depressing, it's easy to throw away that snickers bar wrapper, it ceases to become your problem, it's someone else's. If we don't care about what we burden others with walking down a common street, how will a government care about what they burden us with? I've always drawn a line between government and people here in Egypt due to how the government was so detached from its people and in a certain sense I was right because of how remote the actions of the government are from the good of the people. But lately I've thought about it some more and realized that the government in Egypt may very well be the people. People are so detached from each other in a sense that they don't care for the good of one another in general. The sad truth may be that the government in Egypt is the people. There's just no way we can separate. There's no one we can stand against or fight, it's a civil war and we're fighting the wrong enemy. As long as people's attitudes don’t change, there will be no change in the government no matter how we fight it.

I think that's a form of democracy, but democracy on its own cannot guarantee goodness. Democracy is just a reflection of the will of the majority, stripped of goodness it can by just as tyrannical as dictatorship. If you have a group of terrorists democratically electing their leader what good does that do?

We may as well have been a complete democracy and nothing would have changed, we can't fight for democracy as the source of good. There was an interview on the BBC with a Saudi prince and the lady interviewer was asking him why don't you allow democracy in Saudi Arabia, and he replied, because if we allow democracy the people who are elected are the same ones you want to put behind bars, the same ones who want to obliterate America. Democracy isn't the sole answer to the problem despite its importance, the real fight is with the people from the people.

Would a person who would not fight for his freedom deserve freedom? I haven't thought this question through, but I know it goes past human rights, it's a question regarding the laws of nature. Do people who let others walk all over them deserve it? And most importantly do Egyptians deserve their government?