In Focus: A surge of irrationality Is the latest tree-hugging craze an act of desperation, escapism or foolishness, asks Galal Nassar Any individual or organisation who paints a rosy picture of Egyptian society and the economy needs to revise some facts and figures. The reality before us doesn't tally with their claims: with most of the people in this country unable to make ends meet and with basic services and public utilities in a state of disrepair, we need to think again. Worse still, our very capacity for reasoning seems to have disintegrated, while our infatuation with myth and the unseen world seems to be on the rise. The latest example of the increase in irrational thinking in this country is a camphor tree on the Cairo-Ismailia desert road, on which is rumoured to be mysterious writing. So far thousands of Egyptians have flocked to the tree to request a blessing. Women seeking to conceive, patients needing a cure, and poverty-stricken people seeking solace are flocking to this tree as if it were a new place of pilgrimage. This is not the first time such absurd events have taken place. Irrational thinking usually flourishes in times of collapse and defeat, the times when invaders and despots take over. Now let me ask this: are we moving forwards or backwards? The great historian Al-Gabarti, writing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, recounts a story from the late Ottoman era. The janitor of the Sayidah Nafisah Mosque claimed to have found a female goat that could talk, recite religious verses, climb the minaret and chant the call for prayers. The residents of Cairo believed his story and went to the mosque to see the miraculous goat. The janitor told them that the goat ate only almonds and drank only sugared water. Accordingly, he was given bountiful gifts of almonds and sugar which he proceeded to sell for a fortune. Women gave him jewellery for the goat to wear. The scam went on until the governor of the day, Amir Abdel-Rahman Katkhuda, ordered the goat slaughtered and had the janitor paraded in disgrace around the city. One might hope such things belonged in the past. One might expect things to improve after some decades in which men like Rifaah El-Tahtawi, Ali Mubarak, Mohamed Abdu and Taha Hussein brought education and enlightenment. We have so many schools and universities, and yet here we are entering the 21st century with a firm belief in ghosts. We are infatuated with jinn, beholden to the darkness of the irrational, and hungry for fables. It is a fact that myth never completely vanished, even after modernity became the norm, even after we gained independence. In times of public disillusion, such as those following the 1967 War, the yearning for irrationality became so irresistible that crowds gathered at a church in Zeitoun to wait for an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Our long record of mysticism may explain why irrational thinking resurfaces at times of trouble. However, it does not explain the current flood of irrationality, nor why myth and delusion have become so popular just when the country is making its entry into the information revolution. I fail to understand how thousands of Egyptians can flock to hug a tree. How can a nation whose sanctities are under attack, with Israel wreaking havoc on and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, be infatuated with a tree? The public, for some reason, is taking a bizarre interest in a tree supposed to have magical writing. Is this the miracle we've been waiting for? If this is a miracle, then allow me to say that it is the wrong kind. Perhaps we do need a miracle to rid us of the humiliation of Israel's occupation of Palestine. We need another miracle to rid us of the US occupation of Iraq, and another to prevent Lebanon and Sudan from falling apart. We need a miracle to save us from poverty, illiteracy, disease, despotism and backwardness. We could use a little rationality at the moment, instead of hanging on to fortunetellers like the ones who do a brisk business reading palms and coffee leaves. Even Egyptian satellite television stations have got into the action with programmes about horoscopes, magic and jinn. Why is escapism now so popular? It seems charlatanism has triumphed over education -- even over the Ministry of Culture, the more enlightened religious institutions, and the media. Why is this? The only answer that springs to mind is that myth as an institution has not been completely eradicated in this country. In many instances it has been helped along by the very people who were meant to be bringing modernisation. For purely short-term purposes, certain individuals have encouraged myth and charlatanism. They have sided with the irrational against the rational. They knew that rationality was good for democracy just as irrationality suited despotism, and they have made their choices accordingly. So we should not be blaming the surge of irrationality on ignorance and illiteracy alone.
