Dina Ezzat discovers that watermelons, Zamalek club and Jacuzzis have much in common On the front as well as the opinion pages, the press revealed syndromes of many a social ailment. To judge by the news and reviews this week, Egyptian society is in deep trouble. Foregoing news of intensified political rivalry during the presidential election season, other news reflected a high sense of intolerance and many signs of fraud. The weekend bloody battle between the president and vice president of the Zamalek sports club over administrative matters was so violent and disturbing that it moved from the sports to the front pages. The dispute between Mortada Mansour, president of Zamalek, and his deputy Ismail Selim was not reported as a sports story as such but rather as a socially revealing incident reflecting declining values in society even in the supposedly privileged quarters. Day in and day out the press provided readers details of the two men who were at each other's throats in order to settle a power struggle that had included thuggery and assault. For many commentators the Zamalek episode was an indication of a growing trend in society to settle differences violently. The feud was akin to the bloody confrontation between the ruling National Democratic Party and its political opposition on 25 May, the day of the national referendum over the amendment of article 76 of the constitution. "I was not surprised much by the Zamalek story. I will not be at all surprised if professional syndicates, government offices and ministers opt for the same approach to settle differences," wrote Sayed Abdel-Aati in his back-page column in Sunday's Al-Wafd, the daily mouthpiece of the right-wing Al-Wafd Party. "What is going on in Egypt now is an indication of a state of tension that the entire society is going through. Thuggery has become the name of the game and dialogue is receding. There is hardly anybody who is able to communicate with anybody else," Abdel-Aati added. On the same day, Al-Wafd ran another column that also lamented the decline of values in Egyptian society. "The code of ethics has been dramatically devaluated in our country. Chaos has become the rule of the day. There are so many indications, including the Zamalek episode, that the rule of law is losing to the rule of thuggery. This is a very serious issue," wrote Abdel-Aziz El-Nahhas. Evidence in favour of the arguments of Abdel-Aati and El-Nahhas were all over the press. "An environment monitoring officer was knocked down by a truck unloading trash in a public garden," reported the daily Al-Akhbar on its front page on Tuesday. "A civil engineer in the municipal office of Mansoura governorate is shot dead by three men he had reported for construction violations," wrote the independent Al-Masri Al-Youm on Tuesday. Throughout the week there were these stories: a street vendor raping under- aged and handicapped homeless girls, parents killing their children and children assaulting their parents over trivial issues, university students killing a house owner to steal a few hundred pounds for their summer holiday and a pharmacist, in financial straits, stealing a car of a visiting Arab businessman. The rise of violence seems phenomenal, reported the independent daily Nahdet Misr in Saturday's issue. Quoting a report issued by a non- governmental organisation that monitors levels of violence and human rights violations in society, Nahdet Misr informed its readers that according to the report, many of the crimes that have been increasingly featured in the daily press stem from the deadly combination of poverty and frustration. However, as the story in Nahdet Misr read, the shocking news is that many of the men and women involved in these crimes are university graduates. According to the same story over 13 per cent of the Egyptian population are unable to satisfy their basic nutritional needs and over 25 per cent have a monthly income of only $120. "The problem of many Arab countries, especially Egypt, is the suffering resultant from social injustice. It is an injustice that results from weak economies and that leads to many weaknesses," wrote prominent sociologist Nader Fergani in Al-Arabi, the Sunday weekly mouthpiece of the Nasserist Party. The letters to the editor in most papers, semi-official, independent and opposition alike, carried the complaints or rather SOS calls of citizens who are appealing to the ministers of health and social affairs to help them cope with doctors' bills, pensions and unemployment problems. Unfortunately, according to a story in the weekly Al-Qahira, a culturally- oriented paper produced by the Ministry of Culture, most of these complaints seemed to fall on deaf ears. According to an analysis that covered the letters to the editors column of seven papers during the past four months, most complaints reported to the press concerned the inefficiency of the health care and social security systems "and not political participation or representation". The study, Al-Qahira added, failed to find prompt responses by the officials concerned. Neither did the press report reaction from concerned officials on increasing reports of havoc in the underground metro, the leak of Thanawiya Amma results compiled on a floppy disk and, according to Monday's Al-Masri Al-Youm, sold for LE500, advertisements for phony educational institutes and the inundation of the Egyptian market with tonnes of poisoned watermelons, the favourite and only affordable summer fruit in Egypt. Also ignored were complaints by businessmen about the failure of the Ministry of Trade to provide required assistance for them to consume their full quotas of exports to the European Union markets, the smuggling of tonnes of made in Israel products sold under misleading roots of origin, or the failure of the Egyptian government to meet the deadline for land reclamation around the Toshka artificial lake that consumed millions of dollars from state coffers. There was no response by the outgoing chairmen of the semi-official Egyptian papers about huge allegations of financial corruption. Former chairman of the board and editor of Al-Gomhuriya, Samir Ragab, shrugged off all rumoured allegations of his financial improprieties which, according to many opposition and independent dailies, included spending over LE1 million of his paper's budget to build three ultra-luxurious bathrooms with Jacuzzis in the newspaper's building overlooking Ramsis Street. For some commentators what mattered most was that these problems were exposed. "I think that the only benefit that could come out of the current [media attack on the wrong-doings of] Samir Ragab and [other outgoing chairmen of press establishments] is that the new chairmen and editors will always be aware that misdeeds are eventually exposed and that if they wish to avoid being in the shoes of the out-going editors then they need to pursue another course of administration," wrote Magdi Mehana in his daily back- page column of Al-Masri Al-Youm on Monday. Along with the many stories on the decline of social values, there was the equally disturbing reports of the political scene in Egypt on the eve of presidential and parliamentary elections that are due in the first week of September and the second week of October respectively. "Egypt's pulse is high" was the banner of the independent weekly Al-Osbou' this Sunday. The paper had endless stories about the many, and still growing, political groupings that are calling for political reforms and warn that maintaining the status quo is harmful to the nation's interests. As Mahmoud Bakri, deputy editor of Al-Osbou ', wrote in his weekly article, the problem is not just about the many social and political problems faced by the nation. "The problem is also about the fact that Egypt seems to be trapped by so many regional and international crises at this crucial moment of choice for the nation." With so many signs of societal malaise, it was not particularly surprising to read that Sayed El-Qameni, a leading Egyptian scholar, declared that he would quit writing for fear for his life after having received death threats from militant groups for his secular stories. The report was disturbing but as writers and commentators argued, it did not herald the nation's fall. Neither were the many economic and political violations a sign of the total collapse of the Egyptian society. "The nation is undergoing a gradual -- albeit slow -- change. But it is a radical change that is bound to bring about democracy despite the efforts of some to block it," wrote none other than Al-Arabi 's editor Abdallah El-Sinawi in his regular back-page column. And, according to Ossama Anwar Okasha's regular Sunday back-page article in Al-Wafd, it is only a matter of time before the sandstorm ends the rain starts to fall.
