Obama came to Cairo and Amr Khaled, an Islamic preacher, left for London because the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) has no mercy! The reason behind forcing the well-known preacher to leave Egypt, as Al-Masry Al-Youm put it yesterday, was that his program to combat poverty came into conflict with the NDP's program to combat the "same" poverty amongst the poorest 1000 Egyptian villages, out of 4400 poor villages in the country. For this reason Khaled has been expelled. So, is the NDP really serious about alleviating the misery of the 1000 poorest villages?
It is clear that this immense number of poor villages is in need of a budget that be used to improve living conditions. However, a decent budget cannot be afforded by the ruling party or the government, which are, in fact, in need of a civil action to alleviate the misery of the poor villages nationwide. Indeed, Khaled's program was a voluntary civil action that was supposed to be welcomed and encouraged by the NDP. Instead, the ruling party combated the program and expelled the volunteers! I had earlier called on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Group to abandon political action, and to devote its energy to the social work. The same call was backed by Farid Abdel Khaliq, a leading MB figure, in his interview with Al-Wafd daily and Ayman el-Gindi in his interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm. The MB actions, at least until now, indicated that this is improbable for the time being. However, if the MB abandoned the political action, which has cost the country dearly at all levels, and adopted the social work alone, the NDP would not accept this course of action nor would the government, as evidenced by their stance towards Khaled and probably towards others in the future!
We have once imagined that the government and the ruling party would create incentives to encourage businessmen and the rich to offer their assistance in trying to eliminate the misery of the 1000 poorest villages. Such incentives were supposed to allure businessmen to be partners in a work that could not be achieved by the NDP alone even after 100 years! Canceling such a great project is, in fact, a huge mistake that must immediately be reconsidered. Otherwise, one day we may see the NDP and no other party getting out of this country, and we may also find out that life as a whole and not only poverty has deserted those 1000 poorest villages!
