Some Egyptians, mainly the younger generation, appeared to gloat over the sight of the Shura Council building ablaze. Is it a sense of social alienation, wonders Gamal Nkrumah Editor-in-Chief of the weekly Sawt Al-Umma Abdel-Halim Qandil lamented the apparent public gloating in the wake of the inferno that engulfed the Shura Council last week Tuesday. "It was as if the blaze was fuelled by the very anger in people's bosoms," Qandil graphically depicted his bewilderment. No MP strode triumphantly from the debris. Not a single MP was in the building at the time -- they were all on summer recess. Reactions by bloggers and on the Internet said it all. "Too bad. I wish they were inside, burning like hell," spluttered an angry young man who sounded ecstatic as he watched the flames sputtering on his computer. "They are liars. They have milked the country dry," he spewed disdainfully. "Youth suffer from a pervasive sense of alienation. No one in his right mind would be ecstatic if his house burns down. But if it is his enemy's house that burnt down, that's another matter altogether," social scientist and activist Shahida El-Baz told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Youths suffer from a sense of alienation. They do not feel they belong. It was different in our day; we graduated from university knowing we would find a job that suited our temperament. Today, students graduate knowing they can only find a job if they have connections. Nepotism works for the wealthy and the well-connected," El-Baz notes. What kind of Egypt does the imagery of gloating youth paint? "In some ways the picture is rather depressing, with a constant recourse to repressed rage," El-Baz contends. "The very notion of the nation as protector and provider is no longer taken for granted. Young people want to immigrate and find better employment opportunities overseas. We live in an age of globalisation, but these angry young men do not benefit from globalisation. What they see all around them is social polarisation, unfairness, injustice and joblessness. Those who have money don't work and those who work do not have money," El-Baz observed. The director of the Al-Ahram Centre of Political and Strategic Studies Abdel-Moneim Said concurs. However, he believes that the implication of the "gloating" must not be exaggerated. "I don't take this gloating terribly seriously," Said told the Weekly. The head of the Shura Council Safwat El-Sherif dismissed rumours of gloating. "It is all the making of the satellite channels that sensationalise the entire. Egyptians cannot fathom how these satellite channels can spew such nonesense. It is all peposterous." Others like the celebrated novelist Alaa Aswani took the opportunity to lambaste the government. And gleefully applauded the inferno. "This is akin to the vengeful outbursts of frustrated children. [Writer] Mohamed El-Kerdousi wrote a somewhat offensive article in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom berating the fact that the building was not set ablaze while MPs were in session. That means that he wished me dead," chuckled Said, a member of the Shura. He notes that in his day "people had an instinctive sense of the historical importance of a place. They had an innate affiliation with historical buildings. Buildings represented ideals and aspirations in the collective national psyche. Perhaps today they do not convey the same meaning to the younger generation." He noted that to a great extent buildings define certain characteristics of a culture. The Shura Council building was built in a specific historical epoch, during the time of the Khedive Ismail in the 1860s, when imaginative activity, creative endeavours, including architecture, was obsessively inspired by the West; Europe to be precise. At this historical distance, not all the symbolism embodied in the epic Shura building can be fully appreciated. "In this context, gloating is an act of rebellion, of passive defiance," Said said. The building, nevertheless, is representative of powerful political personalities in contemporary Egypt. These people hold such sway in the country's turbulent and fast- changing modern era, in economic, social and political spheres, that youth delight in watching the bastion of power ablaze. "These buildings were erected at a particular historical juncture distinguished by the education of girls as a means of emancipating women, the foundation of institutions of higher learning, the construction of railways, and the mushrooming of theatres and newspapers. The relationship between the rulers and the inhabitants of the land was no longer that of ruler and his subjects, but rather between representative legislature and Egyptian citizens." To members of an older generation the gloating of youth is an intolerable insult. There are also echoes of the proverbial generation gap. "Yes, there is a widespread feeling of frustration. There are genuine grievances. There is a despondency that is engendered by the fact that youth realise that they can bring about little or no change. There is a strong sense that the country is suffering from a process of fossilisation. There is a hardening of feelings," Said extrapolates. He cited as an example the sons and daughters of government employees. "There are about six million of them and they have no stake in the system in spite of the fact that their parents are government employees. They have no faith in the future, and inflation is hitting this segment of society the hardest. Moreover, they are acutely conscious of social differentiations, they are aware of the growing gap between rich and poor. They understand that there is little or no chance of social mobility," Said explains. "What exactly is burning in Egypt now?" was the provocative headline of an article by Abdullah El-Sinnawi, writing in the Nasserist paper Al-Arabi. "People are betting on destruction. This is the real interpretation of the general feeling of utter frustration and despondency. The blockage of all social and political channels is calamitous. There is widespread belief that tomorrow can only be worse," El-Sinnawi concluded. The fire has gripped the imagination of Egyptians. For a few days, there was no other talk in town. It was highly symbolic. And, the papers commented on nothing but the repercussions of the fire. Al-Ahram, for instance, reported on Saturday that the archives department was damaged. A long list of archival material was listed in some detail. And yet, speaker Fathi Sorour and the administrative staff of the Shura Council denied such reports, insisting that the bulk of the archival material was intact. Conspiracy theories abounded and rumours flew about the convenient disappearance of certain confidential documents with some insinuating that some files were deliberately set on fire. On this point Said introduces yet another factor. His analysis of what motivated youths as they smugly watched the Shura Council building burning includes an increasingly fashionable trend among journalists that aims at upping the ante. "To raise the credentials of a successful journalist these days, it is a prerequisite to viciously attack the general political condition in the country today. The more malevolent the criticism, the more meritorious the journalist supposedly is," Said remonstrated.
