In Focus: Sea change at the top Egypt will ricochet from disaster to disaster until it accepts that the poor are not a problem, but part of the solution, writes Galal Nassar "To govern" can be an imprecise term. Government could be a body that neither studies nor plans policies but instead implements decisions taken by a segment of the regime. That segment, in turn, may implement policies that it believes best serve the country in terms of the balances of international forces and the country's own national interests, which may not necessarily overlap with regional interests or its international obligations. The responsibility for the efficacy of policy decisions therefore falls upon the political elite in the regime. But who does the elite represent? In recent years disaster has followed disaster in Egypt. Buildings have collapsed, passenger ferries sunk, trains have burned. The Shura Council building has been gutted by flames. The most recent tragedy was the landslide in Manshiyet Nasser. Wastewater seepage caused enormous boulders to crash down on residential buildings burying hundreds alive. Diverse as they are, these disasters share a single common denominator: the victims are all poor. There are hundreds of studies on urban sprawl and unplanned development, on random construction in the City of the Dead and the slums on the outskirts of major cities. Land and water transportation and the congestion in our streets have been studied to death. There are as many proposed solutions as there are studies. A cement wall should be constructed to prevent landslides in Muqattam, an entirely new network of highways built and an integrated maritime transport system instituted. The sociology and political science departments in Egyptian universities have contributed many of these studies and proposals. But it seems they are fated to collect dust. Meanwhile, there is a call to establish channels of communication and cooperation between the universities and wider society on matters connected to the environment. The people in charge of all this are the political and intellectual elites. They are governed by their perception of themselves, their relationship with the public and their role in society. Some of these elites are blind to anything beyond the business community, the generation of wealth, the movement of the markets and products and services for the rich. They are indifferent to more modest but still profitable enterprises that draw thousands of middle class investors or clients. What moves them are visions of consumer goods for the well-to-do, resort towns on the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts, gated luxury suburbs where villas are equipped with every state-of- the-art appliance and gadget, including closed circuit cameras and burglar alarms, and where the eye is not assaulted with the sight of street vendors, beggars or the poor -- i.e. where ordinary Egyptians are invisible. With a social conscience the size of a pea, this section of the elite cannot conceive that its role is to serve the people as a whole, to provide the basic security, food, housing, health and educational needs of the general public and to alleviate the strains of the poor and underprivileged. Instead, it caters to the concerns of the rich, their clubs, their cultural venues and other accessories. Government is a vision and as long as this vision is confined to the narrow concerns of a privileged class the disasters that afflict the poor will continue. Because there is no one to protect their interests we will see more road accidents, more collapsed houses, more train fires, more sunken ferries. Public services will continue to erode and the victims of natural and man-made catastrophes will increase. Ignorance, neglect and politically motivated denial will become more pervasive. Fire engines will continue to arrive late, alarms to malfunction, electricity circuits to short. Drivers will fall asleep at the wheel, substandard cement or steel will continue to be incorporated in buildings because the inspectors' palms have been greased and in the absence of routine maintenance ferries will sink. And the source of all these problems can be traced to how the ruling class views the people it rules. Since it is impossible to change the outlook of the most pernicious segments of this class the only solution is to replace it with one that keeps the interests and needs of the people close to its heart. In order to serve the people any elite must be free from the domination of big business and its local, regional and international representatives. It needs to exercise an autonomous will, as was the case in the early days of the republic. The regime fought then for national independence, not only politically, as exemplified by the drive to evacuate British forces from the Suez Canal zone, but also economically, as demonstrated by the nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 and of foreign companies in 1957, and by the refusal to accept funding for the High Dam on the condition of joining the Baghdad Pact in 1954 or the "Islamic Pact" in 1965. It is easy to predict more humanitarian catastrophes given the negligence of the past three decades. The short term solution, of course, is to take all possible precautions to forestall the disasters and limit their damage. But the real solution is a long-term one. Until "me first" is replaced by the realisation that "there are others here, too," lining your own pockets gives way to honest dealing and the focus on the pursuit of personal gain is replaced by an emphasis on public welfare, nothing will change. What is needed is a complete overhaul of the culture of governance. Power needs to be thought of as the performance of duty, position as a reward for achievement, dialogue as a many-sided activity. Development is not about changing faces, it is about changing the way the people behind those faces think. The July Revolution may have changed social and economic structures but the culture of the people in power remained unchanged. In revolutionary France cultural transformation preceded political transformation, which is why the revolution's reformist values remained in effect even after a reversion to the monarchy. In the short run the government must tend to the pressing needs of the people. It must return to the early spirit of the Egyptian revolution: a kilo of rice for four piastres and a government reshuffle if it rises to five; a loaf of bread for half a piastre, not 25 piastres or half a pound. The government must return to serving the poor and underprivileged, the bulk of Egypt's population. It must reconstruct villages, pave roads, install appropriate waste disposal systems, provide free education, healthcare and affordable housing. Supporting the poor is a moral obligation and a matter of national security. People who urge this should not be accused of being "leftist" or "Nasserist". They are doing no more than expressing the feelings of the majority of the people and advocating the rights of citizens. To deny such social rights is to ignore the whole for the sake of a few and to play with fire in a country that cannot afford to take such risks. Have the industrial and business elite ever considered setting up training workshops in their factories and businesses? This would contribute to increasing skills in the job market and help solve one of the most important impediments to investment in Egypt -- the lack of sufficient trained labour -- while simultaneously alleviating unemployment and poverty. Have the entrepreneurial class and cabinet ministers even discussed these problems in such a spirit? We cannot turn the clock back. Nor can we move forward while leaving the masses of poor behind, locked out of history. If the wealth accumulated in the past few decades was turned to the service of the poor, without having to resort to nationalisation, expropriation or the people's courts, we might revive the dialogue between the rulers and the ruled that existed in the opening days of the revolutionary era. Half a century is sufficient time to complete a historical cycle. The search for a mechanism to stimulate dialogue again and to recycle Egypt's wealth, both public and private, in favour of the people is, I believe, the ultimate task of any future government.
