One of the nicest things about being in Egypt this year is that I have been able to see many of my friends from Alexandria University again. I had the pleasure of hosting Omar (pictured above), one of my best friends last year, last night at my apartment in Cairo. He is in Cairo this weekend because he is being honored at a ceremony today as the top student in Egypt! After being named the top student at the Alexandria University Medical School, he went through a series of interviews and tests on the national level and emerged in first place. Omar was quite modest about his achievement (I didn’t realize that he had won the top spot until we were about to go to bed last night and I asked him about the specific details of today’s ceremony), but, from what I can tell, this is the real deal! The award is well-deserved.
As is usually the case with conversations these days, we talked primarily about politics and the changes that have occurred since the January revolution. I was impressed by Omar’s ability to articulate what exactly the revolution meant to him and what type of effect it will have on the country as a whole, so I will share some of his thoughts here:
1) On Mubarak – Omar recalled a friend of his posting a question on Facebook after the fall of Mubarak along the lines of “if you could say one thing to Mubarak right now, what would it be?” Omar wrote that he would ask Mubarak how he felt when he saw the outburst of patriotism that emerged during the revolution. “What do you think,” he wanted to ask Mubarak, “when you see people so inspired and optimistic about their future, waving Egyptian flags, chanting inspiring slogans and writing about and drawing their hopes and dreams for a better Egypt in all of these public spaces? Does that not make you feel that your 30 years in power did more harm than good?”
2) On the country’s future – “When I look at Egypt right now, I a country that is poor but that has hope. People wanted instantaneous change after the revolution, but we have to realize that we are looking at a country that needs 15, 20, 25 years to get where we want it to be. The most important effect of this revolution is that we have finally have a chance to put ourselves on the right course. All the focus on the upcoming elections is well-warranted, but people should not think of them as a make-or-break. The Egyptian people have said with certainty that they no longer want a strong man like Mubarak to stay in power for 30 years, and I am sure that peaceful turnover of power from party-to-party or president-to-president will occur no matter who wins the first round of elections. This country is too diverse for a single party to rule for a long time (assuming that that party plays by the rules, instead of changing them or applying them selectively).
3) On what the revolution meant to him – I have never been more proud than I was during the 18 days of protests that brought down Mubarak. I don’t think that this revolution will have much of an effect on my career – I was already in good position to earn my medical degree before it happened, and I would have been able to live a perfectly comfortable life despite Mubarak or his son being in power. Still, I was constantly frustrated during the Mubarak era by the idea that I, a medical student on the verge of becoming a full-fledged doctor, would walk down the street and be afraid that I might fall victim to a policeman exercising his authority arbitrarily. Why was my country like this? We have such a wealth of resources here – both human and natural – and yet we had a government that was so visibly wasting them. The most important thing to me in the new Egypt is that each person receives his just rewards. If you work hard, you deserve to succeed. It shouldn’t be like the past, when personal connections and a few well-placed payments were the key to getting a job. This revolution was about Egyptians standing up and saying “enough!” to that old system. Judge me on the basis of my talents, as opposed to who I know or how much money my family has.
I think Omar’s observations are spot on. It is easy to get caught up in the electoral politics right now in the country. All sides seem to be accusing their opponents of having anti-democratic intentions, and there is a fear-mongering all around. Nevertheless, I agree with Omar that Egypt is generally headed in the right direction and that we should make sure to maintain a long-term view even when engaging in these short-term debates. Much as I think that this year is one of the most exciting times ever to be in Egypt, we won’t know the real impact of Mubarak’s overthrow until 15 or 20 years down the road.
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