The flames that engulfed the Shura Council building lit up the journalistic sky, write Gamal Nkrumah and Mohamed El-Sayed The Shura Council fire was the main concern of pundits. The symbolism of the inferno conjured up images of hellfire and brimstone. Commentators drew parallels between the Shura blaze and the October 1971 burning down of the old Opera House in Ataba, in downtown Cairo. In a touching and personal account of the two fires, Abdel-Moneim Said, director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, stated in his column in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom that, "a building can be razed to the ground, but the ideas it embodies cannot be obliterated." Said sang the praises of the Shura Council, stressing that it symbolised the democratic ideals that Egyptians have come to hold dear. The building itself was the embodiment of a venerated tradition dating back to 1866. Like the Opera House before it, the Shura Council building exteriorised very special sentiments and objectives. "I was much younger when the Opera caught fire and was burnt down. I had never set foot in the old Opera House, but I remember how it had a special place in my heart because of the old films that depicted it and the moving scenes that were set in it, or with it as dramatic backdrop. It was part of my conscience and my very being. It symbolised the Cairo of a certain historical epoch," mused Said nostalgically. Other commentators compared the fire of the Shura Council with the combustible state of the country. Writing in Al-Masry Al-Yom, Sahar El-Mogui saw the burning of the Shura Council as "a collapse of the infrastructure of this country, as how come a building with such historical and political importance was left without a fire system or a facility capable of extinguishing fire?" It exposed a certain criminal negligence and unforgivable indifference. The writer also warned that public reaction to the fire betrayed an uncanny sense of revenge. She hinted that some people were happy to see parliament being burned down. "The policies the government have adopted have prompted people to hate it and wish the worst for [its institutions]. Did you in power ask yourself why the people's wave of hatred [to you] has reached an extent that they forgot that what was being burned is their heritage? All what those people thought about was that fire has approached you and they wished it could burn the People's Assembly, too -- with its members inside." In other words, the building was a symbol of power, the government and its much hated institutions. In much the same vein, in the daily official Al-Ahram, head of the Press Syndicate Makram Mohamed Ahmed was surprised that many young people were upbeat when they saw the building of the Shura Council ablaze. "Their reaction raised many questions about the reasons behind the disappearance of any sense of loyalty to the country among young people, and about the widening gap between the aspirations and needs of those young people and the vision of the government [and its institutions]. Was this reaction due to lack in job opportunities or because of a prevailing sense of carelessness in this early age?" Mohamed Ahmed called for "a pause for thought and revision to diagnose the reasons behind this widening gap [between generations] before it's too late. [The government] should produce a new discourse devoid of empty promises to address these new generations." In Al-Masry Al-Yom, political scientist Hassan Nafaa harshly criticised key government officials in the wake of the fire. "I was surprised to hear the comments of government officials about the burning of the Shura Council, the naively expressed gratitude that the accident was [an act of God] and not due to a [terrorist] action. Are those exhilarated officials aware of the fact that the carelessness that plagues the pillars of the regime in Egypt is even more dangerous than terrorist actions?" On a different note, but in much the same spirit of apathetic inaction, the daily opposition Al-Wafd tackled the protests staged by teachers because of the new exams they must sit for which was conducted by the Ministry of Education to measure their level of competence before giving them a salary increase. "Teachers boiling with rage", ran the headline of the liberal newspaper. Teachers tests are considered an insult to us and tarnish our image, many a teacher was quoted as saying. The ruling party has talked a lot about upgrading education, but it did not put it among its priorities as it did the state's budget, other teachers were quoted. In much the same vein, in his weekly column in the daily official Al-Ahram Gamal Zayda tried to diagnose yet another widening gap between the government and people. "People are complaining about everything: skyrocketing commodity prices, deteriorating education standards, ailing healthcare in useless hospitals, and a severe lack of efficiency in public transportation not suitable for human use. Meanwhile, the government talks about Egypt in 2030, our country joining the exclusive club of developed countries, increase in [economic] growth rates, and the launching of mega- projects. The people are speaking in a language incomprehensible to the rulers. While the government speaks in a completely different language which the people do not understand. None of them understands the other," Zayda continued unabated. "Frankly speaking we have a real crisis: neither the government is able to explain to the people what it is doing, nor do the people understand what is happening. "This is an evident case of failure in mobilising people behind the development cause. The government and some of its mentors see that Egypt's dreams will be realised by 20 or 30 businessmen who have taken the responsibility of all business fields in Egypt, while the people can smell corruption everywhere." On a somewhat different subject, the excesses of the illegal trade in antiquities has reached alarming levels. In an interview with the daily liberal-leaning Nahdet Masr, famous archaeologist Abdel-Halim Noureddin was quoted as saying: "Smuggling [Egyptian] antiquities will never be stopped, for trading in antiquities is more beneficial than dealing in drugs." Confronted with a barrage of accusations that the Israelis and Jews control the illicit trade in antiquities, Noureddin hotly denied the charge. He angrily added, "the Jews do not have the right to build a museum on our territory," stressing that, "there is no Israeli excavation mission working in Egypt." I suppose we shall have to take his word for it.
