Reader's corner
Done by man
Sir -- First let me thank Al-Ahram Weekly for its reflections on the year 2004. All the columns and reports (pictures and cartoons too) were a pleasure to read.
I want to express my great sadness for the victims and for the survivors of the tidal waves in Asia. We share their great pain. I am so glad we are all responding to helping them get back on their feet. Ironically, this terrible human disaster has brought us all a little closer. That's the great blessing here in the midst of this human tragedy.
I wish to take this opportunity to respond to Mr Ibrahim Nafie's column 'A year of blood' ( Al-Ahram Weekly, 30 December-5 January). Indeed, the year 2004 was a bloody year marked by violence perpetrated by terrorists groups and government forces.
Certainly, it was repugnant to see innocent people being blown to pieces on a bus in Israel, endless car bomb explosions in Iraq; a school under siege in Russia and innocent Sudanese been driven from their home and killed by their callous government.
But we know "terrorists" are not born but are created out of other injustices and evil. Some claim the root causes of terrorism are corrupt and indifferent governments; corporations that take all and leave nothing; oppressive poverty; and foreign occupations.
Today, many people believe the definition of who the "terrorists" are has been twisted. They accuse the US, Israel, and Russia of committing atrocities under the pretext of "self- defence" and "democracy". So the questions arise:
If the US had not bombed and invaded and killed thousands of Iraqis, would Iraqis be attacking and killing Americans?
If the Israelis did not build settlements on Palestinian land, would the Palestinians be attacking Israelis? (The Israeli army looks like the terrorists today, attacking innocent Palestinians with tanks, helicopter gunships and missiles. I agree with Mr Nafie: Days of Repentance and other deadly incursions should be brought before an international tribunal).
If Russia had not bombed Chechnya to ruins, raped, imprisoned and brutalised over 30,000 Chechen men, would Chechen rebels be attacking Russians and taking their children hostage?
If our own government was more responsive to the needs of others and less involved with their own double standards, they could have stood up to the likes of the Sudanese government.
Recently, I heard someone naïvely say we could solve global terror in a jiffy: the US should withdraw from Iraq: the Israelis should give back Palestinians their land and Chechens should be granted their independence.
I recall what JFK told an anxious nation in another time. "Our problems are man-made, therefore, they can be solved by man." How right he was.
Doris Cadigan
Massachusetts
USA
It's time
Sir-- I have just read Mr Hassan Nafaa's wonderful column 'Fallen by the wayside' in your newspaper ( Al-Ahram Weekly, 30 December-5 January). Even though I am quite aware of the past history of unsuccessful attempts in creating peace in the Middle East, I feel the conditions are better now than ever before, and we must look at these new revelations as opportunities to promote peace and friendship in the region. What have we gained so far from the spread of hate and cynicism? What have we gained by hanging on to our rigid and intolerant opinion of others? It is time to try to be hopeful and positive and to realise that all parties involved are taking a risk and potentially have something to lose. There is indeed a rocky road in achieving a true peace, but let us not destroy this road by being pessimistic and hateful.
Farhad Haloossim
Los Angeles
USA
America the good
Sir -- "We are the most hated nation in the world," says William F Pittenger in a message to your 'Readers' corner'. I, as a Muslim, do not hate America as a country or as a people, but I hate its unfair foreign policy. We see that this policy depends mainly on double-standards especially when dealing with our region. We understand that democracy and human rights are just tools that the US has been using wherever and whenever it suits its interest.
But the question is whether everything is bad in America. I don't think so. Good Americans have done great things, like exploring space, adding immeasurably to the store of human knowledge. They have amazed the world with technological advances, cured diseases and eased suffering.
Hence what we need from the world's superpower is to put an end to its arrogance and stand firm in order to achieve justice.
Alaa Abdel-Hakim
Assiut
Egypt
Wrong and wrong
Sir -- Goodness! Two great leaders getting it wrong in one headline. What could I possibly be talking about?
Let's start with Nasser. According to former prime minister Abdel-Aziz Hegazy, in recent statements, Nasser created millions of unnecessary jobs in the government and state-owned companies in order to provide employment for the nation's youth.
"This was an enormous economic burden on the state budget," says Hegazy. But even when he realised his mistake, Nasser was reluctant to reverse his commitment.
"In 1975," says Hegazy, "there were 1.5 million people unemployed. Today this figure has gone up to five million people unemployed."
Thank you, Mr Hegazy. So it is perfectly understandable for the current prime minister, Mr Nazif, to withdraw the state's commitment to find jobs for these five million.
I think Mr Hegazy, in my humble opinion, has taken the right decision. To find employment for that number would probably cripple the economy of a superpower, let alone a bankrupt country like our own.
Egypt has been gradually changing from a command economy to a capitalist one and that means free enterprise. So it would be unrealistic for anyone to expect the government to put jobs in the laps of the unemployed.
And the next right decision for Mr Nazif to take is to abolish free education for all. An impossibility for an impoverished country. This was merely another of Nasser's wrong decisions (there are a great many) with which he merely meant to popularise himself with the masses.
In most civilised countries of the world, the state insists on a free education up to 14 years or so. After that, education is for good hard money -- particularly university.
Now we come to Sadat. What did he get wrong? Well, in moving from a totalitarian state to a multi-party system, no doubt an admirable and much needed move, he nevertheless insisted that half the members of the People's Assembly should be fellahin and workers.
I think I will leave the speaker of the assembly, the learned Fathi Sorour, to express his opinion on the subject.
In a recent statement, Sorour, a man who gained some notoriety in the press as "the master of its own decisions", said that "it was utterly absurd" to have a fixed quota of 50 per cent fellahin and workers in the assembly.
In a different set of statements Sorour said it was possible to make small changes in the constitution "for specific issues".
I think I speak for the Egyptian intelligentsia when I ask: would it greatly disturb the powers that be to make a small change which will allow the cancellation of that 50 per cent condition?
As someone who knows how the West thinks, that 50 per cent condition has had Western European countries with real parliaments having a good laugh at our expense while applauding Israel's parliamentary system.
Very sad, really, wouldn't you agree?
Mamdouh El-Dakhakhni
Alexandria
Egypt
Continue
Sir -- Regarding the 'Brain-wake' article ( Al-Ahram Weekly, 30 December-5 January) by Tarek Atia, I just wanted to tell the writer to keep writing, thinking and posing questions.
Corbett Williams
San Francisco
USA
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