The outpouring of energy associated with the Egyptian-Algerian football match scheduled for 14 November would represent an admirable awakening of the collective psyche were such fervour directed towards compelling national priorities. The sad truth is it is not. Football frenzy contrasts sharply with the laxity, confusion and chaos that mark our approach towards political participation, reform, unemployment, the collapse of health and education services, indeed, the failure of public services across the board. The list of Egypt's ills goes on and on. Both the government and citizens are familiar with it. Yet what energy we can muster appears to be directed towards a football game that has absolutely no impact on our daily lives. As the Egyptian team takes to the pitch it will do so against a backdrop in which panic about swine flu is spinning out of control. In some ways the hysteria surrounding the game, and that which greets each new case of swine flu, are flip sides of the same coin. Nothing better demonstrates this than the reported "last wish" of a nine-year-old school pupil who died last week after contracting the flu. One daily newspaper quoted him as saying, "I hope Egypt wins the game", before passing away. The child, it turned out, did not die because of H1N1, but then reporting facts correctly has never been a strongpoint of great swathes of the local press. Far more illuminating was the attempt to contrive a link between swine flu and the match. Tasteless, yes, but it captured perfectly our schizophrenia. It is not overstating the case to say that the past week has been a nightmare for parents across Egypt. Up to 70 school classes have been closed after pupils contracted the H1N1 virus. Ten schools have been shut down completely. The numbers may be small but they have fanned very real fear in households across the land. The truth is that the public does not trust the government to competently handle the threat of a pandemic. And why should it, given the mixed messages and confusion emanating from the concerned ministries? Take the Education Ministry. First it instructed schools to cancel the least important parts of the curricula to reduce the load on both students and schools since more are expected to close down as the weather cools and the number of flu cases increases. Then the ministry denied it had ever reduced the curricula despite schools confirming they had received orders to do so. The same chaos extends to the Eid holiday at the end of the month. Normally five days, it has been extended to 10 amid fears that the return of hajj pilgrims from Saudi Arabia, where they will have rubbed shoulders with millions of others from around the world, will act to boost the number of swine flu cases. So is the holiday to be 10 days? Again, parents and students are given mixed signals: the 10-day holiday could be extended to a month, causing severe disruption to the school year, in which case the state expects students to continue their education online, or else by watching educational TV channels. Such educational solutions, unique to Egypt, have only exasperated parental fears over the future of their children's education. Parents do not trust the Education Ministry, nor does the rest of the population trust the Health Ministry to provide them with a reliable H1N1 vaccine. This distrust is not new. It is entrenched in our collective psyche. Never before, though, has it impacted on our lives as it is now doing. If we believe that the government is incapable of offering us the best protection it can from influenza what kind of future awaits us? But let's not go there. What better distraction than Saturday's football game?
