I write when I have something to say, my thoughts are not necessarily connected
Playing around with poetry with a friend, this came up. The third line is hers.
Always look forward and never behind
For there nothing useful you will ever find
The past is dust, again you remind
Again and again until you forget
That the past has had your future set
Accept the past without a single regret
And then you and your destiny would have met
And I know you will do this, I am willing to bet
So stay still young one, there is no reason to fret
A man wanted to travel the world. He thought, the best way to see it would be to drive all around it, and if he was going to drive around the whole world, he needed a good car, the best there ever was.
So he worked and toiled for years and years, saving up everything he can. Decades later, he had the money he needed to buy his car.
On the day, he had arranged everything, went to the car dealer and drove off never having felt more pleasure in his life.
He stocked up his car, bid his home farewell and drove off.
Weeks later, he came to an endless river. It wasn’t on any of the maps, he didn’t know he would face such a difficult obstacle. He drove along-side it for weeks and weeks, but no bridges were to be found.
The rest of the world he wanted to see was on the other side. His car cannot cross a river, but he knew that if he swam across he would make it. He can put some of the things he need in a large plastic bag, tie a knot trapping air inside it and it would float with him.
But this car made touring the world easy, and he had put in it all his life’s work. He can’t just abandon it. Maybe if he drove further along the river he would eventually find a bridge, but there is no telling how far he’d have to go, or if a bridge does exist. What would he do?
The liberal movement currently has a really bad name on the street. Liberal is associated with secular, which is associated with infidel, foreign interference and unaccepted practices of a western lifestyle .
The Islamists are playing on this and causing us to react. No bikini and we’re screaming yes bikini. No alcohol and we’re screaming yes alcohol. We’ve fallen into the trap of being reactionary, defending things that are indefensible in this country.
Liberals are also associated with Tahrir, which has become the ultimate symbol of saying No. The MB and the Salafis had little to do with Tahrir and even tried to stop some of the protests there and divert away from them. While we see this as treason of the revolution, and self-serving in its ugliest forms, people see this as a call for stability, old regime style. So again the liberals are associated with saying No while the Islamists are associated with saying Yes.
We must stop saying No and start saying Yes.
Freedom is responsibility. Now that we have our freedom we are the ones responsible to take care of our society, we cannot just throw it on the shoulders of government. And it is a perfect time, before government start reestablishing itself, to make many of the government functions obsolete. If we offer health services, if we take care of the poor, offer education and sports centres, the government will have nothing to do and these aspects of it will die out.
The Islamists understand this and they have used it very well to their advantage. Now if we start doing this as well, Islamists will no longer be the only option available to some. We must give everyone a second option.
But charity and social work are not goals in and of themselves.
In a farm far away from any village lived an old woman who grew tomatoes. Friday of every week was market day and she would walk for six hours to go to the market at the nearest village in order to sell her tomatoes and buy the things that she needs. Now there are many farmers in the market who also sell tomatoes and their price is more or less known. Nevertheless she would give a higher price in order for the customer to start haggling. And it would take them five or ten minutes to reach the price that both parties know are fair, and the middle of the haggling they’d start random conversations when the tension gets high or to try to divert away from reaching a lower price.
Why did the woman do this? Why doesn’t she just say the price everyone knows? Why doesn’t she just write a sign and avoid all this haggling? Because humans crave human interaction, and when you live alone in a far away place, you miss other people and the wonders of a conversation, a smile and just the presence of a stranger.
Charity and social work should not be just dropped at the communities that need them, they should be a pretext to integrate our societies.
If you are going to go there, give out food and run away then you’re missing 90% of the point. Go visit people in their homes, know their names, know their address, get their mobile phone number, give them yours. Talk to them about life in general, understand them and love them.
And it will not stop there, because they also want to understand you, your thoughts, your ideals, your lifestyle. But they have no pretext to knock at your door, except maybe ask for charity which is a bit demeaning, and why would they when they have someone else showing up to their door. You have a pretext so use it.
Mixing with other groups in society not only helps you understand them, but helps them understand you and dispels a lot of the myths being propagated.
And in the end the most important thing is to show up, show up and show up. The MB posters are everywhere, they show up in places we’ve never even heard of. When people don’t know where to go to vote, they show up, on election day, they show up, when there is someone who needs something, they show up.
And we must show up too, when we show up we give people options, We force people to think for themselves because they have two people they trust who are telling them different things, and they will have to chose one for themselves. This will be liberalism at work, choice. And in order to give people a choice we must show up.
In an informal meeting with the liberal candidate in my constituency, he made a very interesting small point about the liberal performance in the elections and it stuck with me. He said that in some of the constituencies who have already had their elections when the time came for vote counting, some of the liberal monitors didn’t wake up early and some didn’t show up at all leaving ballot boxes unattended.
Something so simple, like waking up early, could jeopardize the results of a whole election. If this happens in all constituencies, the whole parliament could be at stake.
So we come back to the topic of discipline. The Islamists are renowned for their organization skills, and the liberals need to catch up.
So what values should liberals embrace? Here is my view.
1. Responsible independence: Independence and freedom do not mean a bohemian lifestyle. A liberal is independent, making his or her own conscious responsible decisions.
2. Discipline: Just because you have freedom, this does not imply you are unable to make commitments. Discipline is committing yourself to something and pulling through, doing what you said you will do.
3. Acceptance: A liberal is non-judgmental, accepting of all people and integrative. Everyone is welcome.
4. Morality: A liberal has a basic set of morals, in Egypt these could be derived from religion. Both major religions here share a lot of common morals, but a reference to where these morals are coming from is not important. Simple morals like no cheating, no lying, and doing good. This needs to be developed more to arrive at something more substantial but you can see where this is going.
What other values do you think liberals should embrace? These core values will be a major part of the branding for the Egyptian Liberal Movement.
Although I had ended my last Egyptian Flavoured Liberalism post saying that my next topic to explore would be security, I find more important points to make before that.
Sheep. We are all to some extent sheep. We try to liberate ourselves from the conditioning of others, we try to think for ourselves and make our own judgements, but only a few ever reach such states. For the rest of us, we are still biased by what we have been told.
There is a misconception that Islamists are all sheep who follow their leaders while Liberals are the enlightened souls. I have personally seen many liberals who are the epitome of what it is to be a sheep. They take after their parents, saying the same phrases and having a blind belief that they are right and everyone else is an idiot. They grew up in the middle of a certain lifestyle and they decided that that is what it means to be liberal, and everyone else just doesn’t get it. They are the Salafis of Liberalism.
Now trying to sell Liberalsim to the population by asking them to think for themselves will not work. Asking someone to think for themselves is like asking someone to stop being ill, or stop being unhappy. You feel bad? Don’t. It never works. It is each and every person’s experience that leads them to think for themselves or trap themselves into the cage of the known, and the process takes a lifetime, so don’t expect it to work before the next elections.
Liberalism is having a choice. Under a liberal system I can be an atheist or I can be a salafi and it’s no one’s business what I believe in. Women can wear a bikini or women can go swimming in a full niqab. Liberalism means the freedom to make your own choices.
But for some reason, Liberalsim has become associated with a certain lifestyle and certain values. And the Islamists have taken this association and blew it out of proportion, to their own benefit. But the liberals aren’t helping.
Their first immediate reaction was to fear for their own day to day activities and personal lifestyles. And they projected their fears upon the whole of society. I would venture and say that most women in Egypt do not think that wearing a bikini in public is acceptable. So what did the Islamists do? They said that bikinis are not good. Are they going to lose any votes because of it? I highly doubt it.
Now the liberals started defending their bikinis falling straight into the trap and losing the majority of voters.
When trying to sell liberalism to any part of society, we must look at what liberalism means to them and not to us. A woman in a farmer family couldn’t care less what she can or cannot wear sitting by the beach. In fact some have never seen a beach.
I hear no one saying that Liberalism means that this woman can help her family in the field if they need it, and no one can ever force her to stay at home. I hear no one saying that Liberalsim means the mosques will finally be open 24h/day so all those who want to pray can pray at any time and those who want to spend the night with God can do so. I hear no one saying that Liberalism means that you can keep your hijab (headscarf) and no one can force you to be a niqabi. I hear no one saying that Liberalism means you can stay out late with your husband without a million government employees asking you if you are married.
So how do we sell it to the people?
Even in my educated, arguably liberal family, relatives call me to ask who they should vote for. We cannot expect everyone to do their own research. Instead they will just find someone they identify with and trust, and will ask them what to do. Liberals who insist on telling people that there is no right answer and that they should think for themselves will not get anywhere, while the Islamists offer an easy answer, vote for us. This is the right thing to do. We will do what is best for the country and religion. Everyone loves their country and their religion so they will just follow these instructions.
Liberals must provide an easy answer for what is best to be done.
But why would I follow the Liberal easy answer? I have to start trusting them, and how can I trust them? Because I see that they understand the reality of the life that I am living and that they share some values with me. And here is where the Liberal brand building comes into play.
Liberalism must become a lovable brand for people to accept it en masse.
The Islamists understand this concept very well and the MB in particular have a very strong brand. They have become a fraternity and joining it gives you purpose and status. Liberalism has to become another fraternity in town.
Liberalsim also has to stop being the opposite of Islamism. We must start thinking of ourselves not as two teams competing in a head to head game, but rather as two athletes running side to side on the racetrack. The one who runs faster gets to form the largest part of parliament and has more control on issuing laws.
And as a consequence of shifting our view from opposing the Islamists to running side by side, the attacks on Islamism will be toned down, and they need to be. Even if you see clearly how whatever they are preaching is a huge danger to society, if you focus on attacking them you immediately create a defensive reaction, and you push them towards more of an extreme. Attacking someone’s idol no matter how right you are almost never creates the desired effect.
So allow me to summarise
1. Let us stop being philosophical about liberalsim, stay pragmatic. Asking people to think for themselves will not work.
2. Liberalism is having a choice in lifestyle, not following a specific lifestyle.
3. For each part of society we must make it clear what liberalism means to them and their values, not to us.
4. The liberal movement must provide an easy answer for what to do.
5. The liberal movement has to become a lovable brand associated with values most of society see as positive.
6. The liberal movement must not present itself as the opposite to Islamism. Liberalism is a stand-alone belief whether Islamism is there or not.
Getting an international driving license in Cairo is fairly simple and straightforward. All you need is a driving license valid for more than one year, your national ID, two passport-sized photos and 100LE.
Step 1: Go to the General Traffic Administration in Nasr City. You can find the building compound on Nasr Street right after you pass Rabaa El Adawiyya as you make your way down from 6th October bridge. Take the right right before it and this is your best bet at finding a parking spot.
Once you go in, go to the second foor of the main building, take a left, then take another left, keep walking till the end of the corridor and you will find an office with a signpost saying International Driving License. Give them your license and your National ID and they will give you a small paper slip. Take this slip and stamp in from the man sitting on the large desk in the room next door.
You’re done here.
Step 2: Now go to Automobiles Club in downtown Cairo. I don’t remember the street name but it is close to Tahrir. If you’re doing this on a crowded weekday, I suggest you park in El Bostan, otherwise you’ll find a spot in the side streets. The office you are looking for is in a building down one of these pedestrain walkways. Your best bet to find it is to ask passers-by.
Once you go up the two floors, the office is in on your right. Walk-in to the counter, pay the 100LE and get your form. Fill-in your form, preferably in English and give it in with your two photos, and the paper slip you got from Nasr City.
Step 3: Now find something to do for two hours and return to pick your International Drivers License up.
One weekend I was on a train somewhere in the UK, I don’t remember where in particular.
An old man, who looks like he didn’t have a shower for a long time, with long uncombed hair and dirty old clothes was on the train. I didn’t notice what happened but somehow he was in an argument with a man in a suit, your typical corporate executive, middle aged, white, bold, and wearing glasses.
At the point I noticed the argument, the executive was scolding the other man in a condescending way. He was berating him and talked down to him criticising his lifestyle.
The man in the old clothes answered him with one sentence that ended it all. I looked around the train after this sentence and suddenly I realised that I’m probably the only person who thought the old man owned the executive completely putting him in his place. The others seemed to just dismiss what he said, and the executive having no answer for it, just gave him a look and then started reading his paper.
The old man said “You just wait till Monday and go to your office.”
Being modest is generally seen as a positive thing. People talk highly of those who are modest. Funnily enough it is possible that your ego becomes inflated because you are modest. Just like any other positive quality, if you have a lot of it, or if people keep telling you how great you are because of it, your ego grows.
There is false security in modesty. I could be driving an expensive car but I chose to drive a normal one. I could be wearing expensive clothes but I chose not to, or I chose to wear expensive clothes but will not show it. I can go to this expensive restaurant but I’ll get food from the street cart. If you are taking security in what you could have done then you’re using modesty to feel better about yourself, to protect your vulnerabilities.
Watch out because modesty might be the wrong path if you are looking to detach from your ego.
We need to come up with an Egyptian flavoured Liberalism. The current flavour is too western for wide-scale adoption.
The direct importation of liberalism will not work in Egypt. The Egyptian mind and culture will not accept it, at least not now. It has to be introduced in a different way. You cannot just take the same arguments liberalism used to convert Europe and start throwing them about in Egypt. It will not work.
This is hopefully one of a series of posts where I try to think out loud about how to go about developing this flavour. You are very welcome to add your contribution and we can all think aloud together.
One of the issues of Western Liberalism is its emphasis on Freedom. It’s a magical word, freedom. It’s a given that freedom is a valueable goal to be pursued and protected.
I doubt this assumption holds true in Egypt. Ask people what they think of freedom and I expect most to tell you it is good, but with limits. Just look at the Egyptian family they really like to stick together and are involved in each other’s business. Society helps this because people start being judged, appreciated or humiliated by the doings of other family members. You are not treated as an individual, you are treated as an individual with extra parts that are not under your control.
You are free as long as you are within the framework set by society, religion and your social standing. Take the example of drinking alcohol. If you are a muslim who drinks, you are looked down upon, but if you are Christian then it’s ok. In other parts of the country, if you are a guy and you drink, that’s ok but a girl that’s a no-no. The rules differ but the commonality is that in one case the same action is outside what is expected of you and in the other it is not, and so it’s OK.
Tell people that freedom means we don’t care about what the religion of the drinker is and I suspect many will stop listening to you then and there.
So since we don’t look at each other as individuals, but rather as a group of interrelated networks, what others are doing becomes important to us. And when what others are doing becomes important to us, then their freedom has to have limits.
Bottom line is, telling people that liberalism = freedom will scare them away.
So what are people so willing to give up their freedom for? Security. And this will probably be what I will explore next.
I highly recommend you read this book, to give you a taste here is a little story from it.
There were two temples, rivals. Both the masters – they must have been only so-called masters, must have really been priests – were so much against each other that they told their followers never to look at the other temple.
Each of the priest had a boy to seve him, to go fetch things for him, to go on errands. The priest of the pfirst temple told his boy servant, “Never talk to the other boy. Those people are dangerous.”
But boys are boys. One day they met on the road, and the boy from the first temple asked the other, “Where are you going?”
The other said, “Wherever the wind takes me.” He must have been listening to great Zen things in the temple; he said, “Wherever the wind takes me.” A great statement, pure Tao.
But the first boy was very much embarrassed, offended, and he could not find how to answer him. Frustrated, angry, and also feeling guilty… “My master said not to talk with these people. These people really are dangerous. Now, what kind of answer is this? He has humiliated me.”
He went to his master and told him what had happened: “I am sorry that I talked to him. You were right, those people are strange. What kind of answer is this? I asked him, ‘Where are you going?’ – a simple, formal question – and I knew he was going to the market, just as I was going to the market. But he said, ‘Wherever the wind takes me.’”
The master said, “I warned you but you didn’t listen. Now look, tomorrow you stand at the same place again. When he comes ask him, ‘Where are you going?’ and he will say ‘Wherever the wind takes me.’ Then you also be a little more philosophical. Say, ‘If you don’t have any legs then?’– because the soul is bodiless and the wind cannot take the soul anywhere–’What about that?’”
The boy wanted to be absolutely ready; the whole night he repeated it again and again and again. And next morning very early he he went there, stood on the right spot, and at the exact time the other boy came. He was very happy, now he was going to show him what real philosophy is. So he asked, “Where are you going?” And he was waiting…
But the boy said, “I am going to fetch some vegetables fromt he market.”
Now, what to do with the philosophy he has learned?
Life is like that. You cannot prepare for it, you cannot be ready for it. That’s its beauty, that’s its wonder, that it always takes you unawares, it always comes as surprise. If you have eyes you will see that each moment is a surprise and no ready-made answer is ever applicable.