Little terrorists
Firecrackers please children, Nahed Nassr contends, but they also endanger lives
The sound of firecrackers has been echoing since the start of Ramadan, earlier than when they are traditionally supposed to start exploding, which is on Eid day. Children love their bumbb and sawarikh, the two most popular varieties, the latter being the more recent invention, but it is well to remember that neither their manufacture nor their use is legal. They are not as safe as they should be when they go off, but it is in the process of their manufacture that they take lives. For one widow speaking on condition of anonymity, death by firecracker has been the central tragedy of her life.
Her husband used to make them: after transporting goods from Libya to the Moski market, where he sold them to wholesalers at a profit, her husband decided to rejoin his family on their firecracker-making business: like many illegal activities, a family network-based profession. One day five years ago when the heat threatened to blow up the workshop he eventually managed to set up in their home -- in Mansheyet Nasser, with 600,000 residents one of the largest shanty towns in Cairo -- because he had too much gunpowder in there, she was pleading with him to flood the space with water to prevent the possibility of an explosion. "But he had spent too much on the stuff that was in there. A few minutes after I told him to pour water onto it, the whole building went up in flames." Together with seven others, her husband died. She was one of 12 people to sustain serious injuries. And those who were unharmed lost their homes, complete with their possessions, because the whole building disappeared. Among the victims were a five year-old-child and a baby. The incident got media attention, revealing the fact that firecracker manufacture was one of the more popular illegal income generators in Mansheyet Nasser. "They are required all year round, not only for Ramadan but for all the religious occasions, Muslim and Christian," the widow said, explaining why so many people were happy to put up with the risks for a relatively high income. Her husband had employed several family members with him. "The workshop was not only a source of income for all the family members, but for other families as well." The workshop was a complete production line, with men putting together the components, women wrapping them up and decorating them and the widow herself handling distribution and payments. Nor does it end there. For his part her son, 15, speaks of accompanying one of his uncles on the hazardous journey to buy gunpowder (from "Bedouins" in a near-by shanty town). A string of legal and physical risks that never ends...
But working at the workshop was a life buoy for many who had practically no options, and only those older than 15 who could be trusted and had "a brave heart" were offered jobs: "It's no easy task. Death waves at you day and night, so does the police. One mistake and you blow it all up." Nor were they all illiterate: "we had university students too." Still, the tragic potential is considerable. Though evidently still in business, this widow can't get over the fact that she wasn't even allowed to have a last look at her husband: "I was lying unconscious on a hospital bed, most of my body burned, my blood infected." She displayed misshapen hands. "I am still under treatment." Medical opinion concurs: firecrackers affect the head and limbs more than other parts of the body; explosions can cause blindness as well as burns; heat of up to 982 degrees Celcius (the temperature required to melt gold) is accompanied by noxious fumes; last year alone, 322 people, 80 per cent of them children, sustained injuries including permanent blindness in the first three days of the Eid -- a peak for firecracker injuries.
Still, as one teenage vendor puts it, "Ramadan would not be Ramadan without firecrackers, nor Eid Eid." It is a sentiment shared by many Egyptians, even though there are those who are annoyed by them. "In the old days there was only one kind of firecracker, now more and more kinds are coming on the market, some locally made, some imported -- mainly from China -- and people know their names. When they come asking for one kind, you can be sure they'll find it." He named Bakkar -- the cheap and plentiful kind named after the Ramadan TV cartoon character, Bazooka and Mesht -- a rocket and a gun, respectively, not only in terms of shape but by virtue of the sound they make when they go off; he showcased others, too, which give off a wide range of lights and sparks. The rising popularity of firecrackers has prompted some critics of the phenomenon, like AUC Social Research Centre sociologist Sayed El-Masry, to suspect a subtext of violence in such apparently harmless child's play. But there is no need to exaggerate the danger, he is quick to add, elaborating: "Egyptians are unlikely to alter a tradition however much its meaning changes over time. And firecrackers are hardly a new development." Since the Fatimids and until a few years ago, after all, it was cannon fire that prompted people of sunset -- the time of breaking the fast. "And probably even then, in far-out places where the cannon could not be heard, people used firecrackers instead. Egyptians appreciate celebration and enjoy it. It's a folk practice undergoing its normal course of development..." Still, the commercial side should not overrule awareness of the risks.
For General Fouad Allam, an authority on security, such awareness is key: "security measures will not put an end to crime by themselves. The financial size of this industry is huge, and people will take the risk, especially since the punishment in place doesn't compare with revenues. It's true that the criminals are routinely arrested but, equally routinely, they manage to be bailed out on the same day." Allam believes it would help to introduce a more effective penalty, stressing the fact that Egypt's borders are too spread-out to monitor effectively: "traffickers are wily, they're always updating their plans and it's hard to track down every network." Allam believes that the media should convey the message clearly, and urges parents and school teachers to do the same. Citing the power of public opinion in better developed societies, Allam says it is awareness, not security, that holds the key to solving the problem.
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