By Gamal Nkrumah The street, so the adage goes, is the first taste of the city. The streets of Cairo are teaming with life, yet they are also clogged with inanimate objects, man-made junk and luxuries that the impoverished millions can ill-afford. Yet, it is precisely from these very streets that solutions to the myriad challenges that dog the city are bound to emerge. The streets of the city are akin to the veins and arteries of the body, a cleansing and rejuvenating procedure is long overdue. Is Egypt ready to take the giant leap towards the realisation of the dream of a pollution-free capital city with lower rates of crime and unemployment? The road to the fulfillment of these aspirations is still a hard one. Yet, there is hope as expressed in the articles in this issue of Beyond. And, hope matters a great deal. In spite of the global financial meltdown there is a great yearning for change throughout the world. Across the globe there is an unappeasable hope that people can fare better than ever before. The youth, often frustrated as they are, are determined to initiate radical change. And, the wilder fringes invariably extend into zealotry, intolerance and armed extremism. The road to the White House was a hard one for a black man. Yet, the impossible was achieved. The 44 th President of the United States of America is an African-American. This is an unprecedented occurrence in the Western world. Egypt stands poised for change. Not necessarily in the American manner, but according to its own fashion. America is neither a role model nor a trendsetter, yet groundbreaking changes there can, however, act as important pointers. And, change needs not be confined to a rigid timetable. The critically important signpost is that we, in Egypt, are moving in the right direction, that we are not trudging on the wrong track. Policymakers have a Gargantuan task ahead. They are obliged to note that economic and social pressures should not be pushed to the point that drives the youth into the sort of sulk that will make their behavior worse. Street children deserve better. They, too, have dreams -- hitherto overwhelmingly unfulfilled. Pressure is mounting on policymakers and decision-makers to deliver. The country's youth in a fair world would have their dreams realised. In truth, it is devilish hard to judge how much ground it would be wise for decision-makers to give in the hope of realising the aspirations of the masses. What they must never be is to go down in history as a busted flush.
