SCHOOLCHILDREN who salute the flag every morning in the playground grow up realising that standing in disciplined queues is the best way to maintain order. In most countries, queues in supermarkets, ticket outlets, banks, etc mean that citizens get attended to in an organised manner, on a first come, first served basis. However, this isn't necessarily the case in Egypt, where children also grow up realising that queueing is indicative of things such as a scarcity of a certain commodity and laxity shown by a civil servant in a governmental office. Humble Egyptians have to queue for subsidised baladi bread, which, due to malpractices on the part of bakery workers and middlemen, is not always available in abundance. In many governorates nationwide, citizens now have to wait for hours for the butane gas cylinders sold at the distribution depots. Low production and the high consumption of brick kilns and poultry farms have had their effect on householders' share of butane gas. Those who can afford it buy cylinders from the black market dealers, but those who earn very little have to queue for hours. But the queues are not always respected and nasty quarrels and fistfights often erupt. Queuing in this part of the world, according to sociologists, usually leads to humiliation, anger and disappointment. The fact that access to basic commodities is not as easy as it should be has given rise to protests, creating a gap between citizens and their governments. Meanwhile, the metaphorical queues of the unemployed are getting longer every day. According to the State-run Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), unemployment in Egypt reached 9.4 per cent in the last quarter of 2009, up from 8.8 per cent in the same period in 2008. CAPMAS also revealed that university graduates account for 90 per cent of the unemployed. Economists say that the phenomenal spread of queues in this country is related to poor administration and a poor economy. As professor of economics at the American University in Cairo Samir Morqos told Al-Gamaheer independent Arabic-language daily, queues imply either low production or poor distribution. They also indicate that profiteers are manipulating supply. Queues as found in Egypt pave the way for monopolies, profiteering and corruption, which all harm the country's economy. The anarchy in Egyptian queues, as sociologists say, underlines the individual's lack of confidence in the system and the regime as a whole. “Why should we show discipline in a society governed by chaos in all walks of life?” everyone seems to be asking. From a psychological viewpoint, the time wasted in such queues and the fact that the people queueing don't know whether they'll even get the service or commodity they want put a lot of pressure on citizens. Samira Ibrahim, a consultant psychiatrist at Abbasia Hospital, warns that daily stress coupled with frustration may lead to psychological breakdown. She believes that people need to be taught how to cope with the sufferings and pressures of daily life in Egypt.
