The train crash of Badrashin in Giza Governorate has, by association, put the entire railway service in the spotlight in terms of the need to have infrastructure overhauled and human resources promoted, but this accident in particular has put the condition of conscripts in the limelight. The passengers on that train, roughly estimated at more than l300, were basically conscripts transferring from Assiut Governorate to training units of the Central Security Forces (CSF) in Cairo. According to the Health Ministry reports l9 died and ll7 were injured. The problem, however, is that these conscripts were crammed like sardines in the train, as the whole lot of l328 were herded into eleven carriages and although the seating capacity of a carriage is 88, l40 conscripts were nevertheless accommodated in each one. Such is not a case of its own, as the inhumane, rather than harsh, treatment of conscripts, especially those who are illiterate, is not a secret in this country. Back in l986, some 20,000 CSF members revolted in protest of their bad conditions. The revolt was aborted but very little was done to upgrade their education or social skills and their conditions have remained more or less the same. These conscripts mainly come from remote rural areas of poor social and cultural backgrounds, which makes easy the process of their taming in training camps. Noticeably, these conscripts are trained to blindly obey their superiors and within the process seem to lose their sense of integrity. The January revolution, which was primarily led by an enlightened strata of young people that had received relatively good quality education and whose minds were wide open to world developments, was geared towards claiming the rights of the impoverished. If genuine change then is a target, education springs to mind as a clue, the kind of education that builds characters and minds. Change will not be possible if the CSF conscripts and their peers continue to be marginalised and their dignity trespassed upon.
