There's a sewer outside Azza Suleiman's office, a hot ditch in which the filth of one of Cairo's worst slums has been reduced to a slowly moving swamp of black liquid. A blue mist of exhaust fumes and dust moves down alleyways thick with scarved women, men in white robes, coffee sellers, donkey carts and garbage boys, the five- and six-year-olds who come down from the Mokkatam hills to gather up Cairo's garbage every morning. Some of it feeds their goats and – yes – the pigs bred in the rotting suburbs. A veil of smog lies over this misery. But a veil of a different kind lies over Egypt, a covering which Azza Suleiman is determined to tear away.
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Horrifying. I read this and think, this is a society in deep, deep dysfunction. I can't believe anyone chooses to live like this, men included. This may sound naive but I really believe that if people had self-determination, they would completely reject these atrocities. So what's the deal? Is it poverty that causes a people to turn on the weaker members of society (women), is it backlash against Western imperialism, is it a backward (to say the least) tradition that is having resurgence, or what?
ReplyDeleteWell Ann where to start? It's obvious to me that whatever symptoms a society is suffering from it's a reflection of how a society has been regulating itself in according to principles and morals,( religiously oriented but not only) imposed by the dominant cast, patriarchal essentially. This dominance is absolute in the absence of democracy, free debate and lack of education.It's high illiteracy, tribalism and the grip religious figures on the sheeple ..It's backwardness on every level..
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