By Salama A Salama A wave of public indignation has engulfed the nation over the recent incidents of sexual molestation downtown. However, as the story was broken by bloggers, it remains sketchy at best. We now know that a well-known dancer was attending a debut of her film and may have danced in the street in front of the theatre. Presumably, the crowd of male teenagers that congregated on the sidewalk proceeded to harass female pedestrians at random. No independent investigation has yet been conducted in the case. The extent to which this is fact, or fiction, augmented by the imagination of a public known for its mistrust of official stories, is anybody's guess. But as a nation, let's admit that our civic sense has given way to a mob mentality fuelled by the young, the disenchanted and the disenfranchised. What else do you expect? Public order and hygiene don't seem to bother our authorities, unless a senior official is visiting or living in the vicinity. Any active security presence is rare except during demonstrations and elections, and around universities and public offices. Traffic regulations are optional to say the least, and microbus drivers seem to set the mood in our streets. Apathy has turned into the natural state of affairs. Chaos and indifference tarnish not only our streets, but our economy, politics, education, and the press. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens are losing touch with their communal duties. Most are worried solely about how to make a living with the least amount of effort. Nothing brings this nation together except football, for this is the only case in which ordinary citizens are allowed to express their views and sentiments without security interference. Other nations, with modest qualifications, have broken free from the vicious circle of poverty. And yet, in this country, ordinary people still dream of the day they can have their bare necessities. The combination of political repression, social disenchantment, and sexual frustration is a combustible one. And it is the main reason our teenagers exhibited the type of madness seen in downtown Cairo during Eid Al-Fitr. We cannot fully appreciate what happened unless we look into the religious mentality that clouds the judgement of our young people. The Australian imam who recently referred to women's bodies as "uncovered meat," is symptomatic of such a mentality. When top clerics start suggesting that women are the ones to blame for sexual harassment, what else do you expect? In a recent television programme, women, including tourists and students, complained of the endless sexual harassment they encounter in Egyptian streets. Many of those women were foreign, and therefore more outspoken than the locals. So let's admit that we have a problem in this country. Our young men are alternately obsessed with sex and religion. Our young men have more access to sexually suggestive video clips, than to culture and refined art. The mentality they have developed is one that sees women's bodies as the only battlefield between Islam and the West. The more our young men are under pressure, the more they want women to cover up, as if a sheet of fabric is the ultimate shield of Islamic identity. I am not absolving our women of blame. Women should fight back. They should resist a mentality that wants to send them back to the dark ages. They should assert themselves in public life, and refuse to be pushed back into the days of the harem. Unless women do that, the only women we will be left with are women clerics, and women who have retired from public life and artistic endeavours. We need women to stay the course. We need women to remain lawyers and scientists, doctors and teachers.
