What will Saint Valentine bring us all this year? How will you be spending Valentine's Day? Will being single, married, divorced, a widow or in a relationship make a difference? Will Venus, the goddess of love, help Cupid's arrows to spread love again into the hearts of mankind? Whatever the answers to these questions may be, this year, more than most, we are all in need of the elixir of love for our country. Love isn't always synonymous with a life partner. To many, love is a matter of sacrifice, devotion, hard work, persistence, sincerity, honesty, integrity, reliability, responsibility, freedom and many other things. With such ideas there comes the notion of love in a more physical sense, a deep sense of admiration perhaps, or even a shudder running up and down the spine. There is the heat of love, the flush upon the face, and the redness of the cheeks. All these things are part of love, though in different forms. Such questions lead us back to larger ones, such as those hanging over the two revolutions the country has experienced and the sacrifices made by those who martyred themselves for the cause of a better future. What about, too, the love we feel for our parents, the members of our family, our children? The circle grows. It is love that brings us together, bonds us, even separates us. It is love that keeps us surviving, talking, ringing to ask after each other, even socialising, visiting, calling, chatting, whatsapping, tweeting and Facebooking. It is love that powers the social networks. It is love that makes us go shopping to buy presents and gifts for our beloveds on their birthdays. It is love that bonds, connects, agitates and stirs you up late at night. But at the end of the day, there is always a deeper sense that the greatest kind of love is the love you feel for your country. Over the past two years, and even as more and more things have happened, our hearts have grown fonder towards our country. Even if some people are now identifying happiness with emigration, written by many as a slogan on the walls of the social networks, behind all this there is a sense of profound frustration at the sacrifices made by the martyrs who have left us. Sure enough, people love their country but in quite different ways. Love for Egypt is not only manifested in demonstrations, strikes or being engaged in the political arena, but also in hard work, education, self-development and devoting oneself to loving the country in other ways. Mireille Banoub, a famous Alexandrian musician, vocal coach and soprano says, “I love Egypt as a musician, a vocal coach and a music teacher. I do my best to increase the level of my students. I help them to become better people in order to be more useful to this country and to be able to raise their own children someday by teaching them better manners and pushing them to seek culture and education and to discover their potential in the arts and music. I try to present beautiful music as much as I can at my concerts, bringing back the songs of the 50s and 60s in addition to light classics and modern pop songs in an educational way. I try to explain what I sing so that the audience understands what we are doing, hence increasing their cultural level.” “When you love somebody or something, you want to help it become better. So, I think the simplest thing we can do is to stay in the country and work on the small things that will make the country better, such as respecting the traffic rules, keeping the streets clean, following the simplest rules of politeness and respect, instead of just complaining all the time about how bad things are. This would be a way of expressing love for Egypt,” she said. The idea of respecting the rules in Egypt was shared by many others, who summarised their love for Egypt by simply abiding by those conceptions. Amr Mohamed, 35, said that “when I close the water tap firmly, when I switch off the electricity, when I put the garbage in its place in the rubbish bin, when I do not go to demonstrations for no reason except to feed the spiraling disturbances, all these things, for me, are part of loving my country.” “When I dedicate myself to my work even if I have a junior post in an office and only get LE700 a month, but make sure that all my tasks are done properly, these are ways of expressing my love for my country. When I do my best to teach my children properly and coach them in the value of education, of true faith and of a true understanding of culture, life and identity, that to me is loving my country. When I wake up one day and I find out that my six-year-old child Hassan is wearing my kaki cap and my old army boots because he wants to join the army, this means that I have transmitted to him the proper values of how to be Egyptian and to love his country.” Love for one's country can be motivational, but it can also instil a powerful sense of duty that may become oppressive. According to Shahinaz Al-Hennawi, founder of the Shams Women Project and a co-active coach from the Coaches Training Institute in the US, “I live these dilemmas every single day of my life. I travel a lot, and I am always sorry to see Egypt fall behind other countries. I have been dreaming about doing something to serve and to convey my love for my country. Yet, my husband and I are still thinking of leaving and going abroad. The love is there and it is strong, but it needs understanding of all that Egypt has been through and mainly of the people who are the essence of Egypt. I could say that working on love with and between the people is the most important issue because it is not really buildings and history that are important. The important thing is people.” Hatem Mohammed Kenawi, a reporter at the CBC Extra Channel, said that “I believe love is about doing everything you can to make your life happier and more successful. That's how I love Egypt, by doing my best to be something good so one day I can change the bad things in my country and change its people through the media, which is my work and my passion.” Similarly, Carmen Carmencita, a prominent photographer, said that “Egypt is like no other country. I am not speaking nonsense — Egypt really has no other. However, I really don't know what has happened to the Egyptians. Revolutions don't change a country except when the people want to change themselves. If one succeeds in one's own tiny circle, the circle will become bigger and that success will reach larger circles. Did you know that 50 per cent of the Chinese economy is based upon small projects? What we need to do as Egyptians is to work on self-development, self-education and self-culture. I don't like to see Egyptians seem so passive. That's how Egypt will be changed — by people being motivated and positive and working hard.” The citizens of Arab countries do not differ in their dreams from those of other countries. Most Arabs have profound love for their countries. Raya Al-Jadir, an Iraqi writer, commented that “as an Iraqi who grew up under the Baath regime and Saddam's leadership, we were brought up with the perception of Arab unity and Arab nationalism as part and parcel of our identity. In my bedroom, I had three flags when I was young, those of Syria, Iraq and Egypt. But when I was nine, I left Iraq. Later, in my twenties, I decided that all these childhood concepts were myths. However, even then I could not stop myself loving something that was engraved in my heart. Now, as much as I complain and criticise the Arab region, I would never choose to live anywhere else,” she said. Cupids have wings because lovers are flighty and change their minds. Egyptian minds are similar — even though all Egyptians love their country, they do so differently, each in his or her own way. Even if they are poles apart, they share the cupid of love for the country. What differs is simply how best to use his arrow and his bow. An arrow of love could help spur on the country, sending it on a path towards development with a cadence of love like that of Saint Valentine.
