The Fat Against The Fast

Today at 6pm Venezuela shuts down till the results of the presidential elections. This means that there will be no opened businesses, except a few stores in some very big & famous malls. Transportation of merchandise will be banned from Venezuelan highways from today till Monday. Selling of alcohol is banned, but that doesn´t keep people from drinking to be able to accept the news.

There are two main fronts supporting two main candidates. The first front is the great patriotic pole supporting Hugo Chavez Frias for this 3rd presidential period. The second front is the democratic unity round table (MUD) supporting Capriles Radonski. The choice was made to support Radonski earlier in February this year in separate elections that were organized by the MUD to make sure that all the votes will unite behind one opposition leader.

On the scene you might find other candidates such as Maria Bolivar, Orlando Chirinos, Reina Sequera, & Luis Reyes. Many Venezuelans think that these people were paid to go for presidency as a maneuver from Chavez to push some votes away from Radonski. However after realising that Chirinos might be a threat to his own voters apparently in very mysterious circumstances he was convinced to step aside & give all his votes to Chavez.

In February the participation in the MUD elections was considered high. But I personally thought that even with this participation it would be very hard to push Chavez away. Now I changed my opinion.

The speed with which Radonski was moving, was extremely astonishing. He was giving speeches in several cities everyday. Crossing a minimum of two states in his early days of the campaign, & in the last days he was crossing three.The old fat grumpy Chavez couldn´t match the performance of his rival. His swiftness made states & big cities compete in the number of people coming out welcome him. For example yesterday, people of Barquisimeto state Lara wanted to compete in numbers with Maracaibo state Zulia.

Chavez is known to offer money to people to participate in his parades. In addition to the government employees that might be risking their job if they don´t go to support him. We only saw big numbers in Chavez campaign in his home state Barinas, states Portuguesa, Falcon, & Cogedes.

I don´t know about other people, but for me it is completely clear that Radonski has all the votes that can make him win. The question is will Chavez surrender? The other question is, what might happen in cases of obvious fraud? In the past days people would get random previously recorded messages from Chavez asking people to vote for him & to be careful because there will be an electoral fraud. Does this mean that the CNE (National Elections Council) that was known to be a Chavez supporter is not allied to him anymore? So many questions are being asked & the answer is on Sunday. What we know is, it will be very hard for oppositions to accept defeat if Randonski looses with an electoral fraud.

The Venezuelan tradition is to drink to death the day of the elections hoping that the effect of alcohol would help their tolerance to the loss. Lets see how tolerant can the opposition be.

The Pharao Versus The Cacique Part I

After living almost 8 months in Venezuela I decided to start writing about what I learnt, in order to share my experience with my friends, countrymen, & even Venezuelans that can speak English.

In this part, I will discuss what the Venezuelans don't know...

I- A brief presentation of Egyptian history, society chemistry, & public opinion:

Egypt, is a state that lived a closed economy & a regime that was a hybrid between a war & a socialist economy not very far from the Hugo Chavez model, from the early 1950s till the late 1960s. 

We came out of this era to a super neo-capitalist regime that ruled Egypt from the early 70s till the 2011 revolution. This recent 41 years regime succeeded in exploding the country in population, destroyed the demography & population destribution, increased desertification of fertile lands, divided the society in one small rich group that directly or indirectly manipulates political power, a relatively small middle class, & a huge lower class, what you can call a typical African misery.

Before the "Glorious?" 25th of January 2011 revolution most Egyptians used to talk positively about the time of the king, about the strength of the economy, lower prices, lack of inflation, etc...

They were cursing the Mubarak era, since it only brought a weaker currency, inflation, made the rich richer, & the poor poorer. As a result the main demands of the revolution of 2011 were purely socialist. They directly asked for food, freedom, & social justice. Be sure that middle class triggered this revolution. You might think I am contradicting myself since I previously mentioned that the middle class was small. Beware, it is small in percentage, but a small 15% can be millions of people in a country with more than 85 million of inhabitants. What I am sure of is that this revolution didn't ask for a new simulation of the Nasser era. Egyptians has finally realised that what they had in the 50s & the 60s wasn't socialism, it was something called Nasserism & it is bad.

Egypt lived unrest with Israel from 1948 till 1973. A status quo that made all the generations that were born before 1948 hate Israel because simply it was a country that didn't exist when they were born. People that were born between 1948 & 1973 logically hated Israel because of losing a parent, an uncle, a friend, a neighbour, or a relative in battle or resistance operations. Some others that lived by the Suez Canal, had to move to the cities of the interior because of the regular air raids on their houses, I have always understood the aggressive reaction against Israel from people who lived in the Canal. However these age groups refused to offer peace to their children. They have always raised the new generations feeding them with vengeance & convincing them that Israel & the Jews are the ultimate enemy & the main threat to our existence. This feeling of hatred to Israel & the United States (As their main sponsor) was very well fed by all means of mass communication, starting from press to national radio & television. Our government like any other government, in order to remain in power, had to convince us that they are the only protection from the ultimate external threat "Israel". What we didn't know, (Or we actually knew but we didn't react) is that they were doing all kinds of business deals with them, selling them natural gas, signing industrial agreements, trade agreements, & all kinds of stuff that would fill their Switzerland bank accounts with nice & green Benjamin Franklins.

II- The random Egyptian opinion about Chavez:

1- The poor low class Egyptian opinion:

This kind of Egyptian doesn't know where is Venezuela. As an Egyptian he will never tell you that he doesn't know. He will probably tell you that it is a country in Europe somewhere very close to Canada. Or he might suggest that it is an island in Europe right next to Australia. So obviously he doesn't know. But the next thing he would tell you "It is a country of the president Hugo Chavez". This is the only thing he does know about this country.

If you ask them, "So? You know Hugo Chavez?" the answer is "OF COURSE!!! A GOOD MAN!!!" & if you ask him why do you think he is a good man, you will have this model answer "Remember the time of the Aqsa rise of the Palestinians against the Israelis? He is the only president in the world that immediately kicked out the Israeli ambassador." For him Chavez is the best man because he feels that he did the reaction that the Egyptian or any Arab president should have had. You can have this conversation in Egypt with taxi drivers, coffee shop waiters, car mechanics,& you will always have these model answers.

 2- The educated, middle class, eloquent Egyptian:

This kind of Egyptian is divided into three types, an Islamist/Neo-capitalists (Believer in political Islamism & Islamist economy which is a disguised neo-capitalist economy, & this is the official right wing of Egypt), a liberal, or a leftist.

In case of an Islamist, his opinion won't differ a lot from the lower class Egyptian. Religiously he hates Israel, & his cause is ending the rule of Jews in the world. Thus he will have a very positive opinion about Chavez as the man who is defying the empire, & for sure for his level of education he will express his point of view more eloquently than the lower class Egyptian.

The liberal & most likely Neo-capitalist. Is the kind of Egyptian that believes in business. He has probably read about Chavez economic policies, & might have an idea about the currency exchange control & how the Venezuelan economy is completely closed, so most probably he would have a very negative opinion about the Chavez economic policies, & he might not consider the reaction against Israel heroic, he would rather consider it a show off, since Venezuela is thousands of miles away from Israel for them to have a real conflict.

The leftist Egyptian might be the most interested. He would be curious about the situation of Chavez being a military. From their own experience, most leftist Egyptians don't prefer having a military general in power. However the situation would still be very interesting since Chavez doesn't only represent the left in Venezuela, but the roomers that he finances the leftist campaigns in all the countries of Latin America might reach so many people of the left wing anywhere in the world. So many leftists around the world think that Venezuelan finance was the reason for Lula Da Silva taking power in Brazil, Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, Ollanta Humala in Peru, Jose Mujica in Uruguay, etc.

 3- The opinion of a rich Egyptian:

Rich Egyptians don't think to have an opinion. They always hire people to think for them. The only thing they know about Venezuela is the nice beaches, beautiful women, & the biggest production of rum in the world.

To be continued...

The No Ideology Ideology

I've had it!

I had a conversation with a friend a few months ago about how the NDP is not a very dangerous political party nor the SCAF since they do not have an ideology. Back then I didn't have a tangible proof nor the right words to describe how they had one.

First of all, what is an ideology? According to wikipedia it is, "a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions". Fuck wikipedia, everyone says it's inaccurate, according to Cassell Concise English Dictionary, it is "The science of ideas, especially that enunciated by Condillac, abstract of fanciful theorizing; the political or social philosophy of a nation, movement, group, etc..." My simple definition is, if two people share the same belief or idea, they have one ideology in common, & eventually any human being ends up to be a set of numerous & different ideologies. What makes a military institution have an ideology? It happens when they have a political opinion. From my perspective, our military institution had one... Instead of acknowledging our righteous revolution, they mugged the authority instead of leaving the normal sequence of events to move on, claiming that Hosni Mubarak left the authority to them while it was so obvious that they forced him to step down, according to the state television that was following their instructions at this moment & always referred to him as the "Expelled President". They adopted an ideology from the day they decided to stay in power, their ideology is very simple, they have an opinion...

Their opinion is that the political status of the country is very weak, & they think that all the politicians that exist in the Egyptian society won't be able to handle the gap in politics & will be smashed by the Muslim brotherhood. The military officers obviously wouldn't like it if they became the ministry of defense of an islamist party or even a socialist one, thus they kept on wasting time knowing that the more the time passes people won't be set on one goal & end up dividing into several mini groups & mini political parties. With this happening they became sure that they will have the biggest presence in any decision that is being made. It was an attempt to divide the people, & it worked. Also, they gave a label on some people, called them Salafi & kept on advertising their crimes on television to make sure that they will replace the Muslim Brotherhood in their ex-reputation of being a threat to the state because of religious fanaticism. Needless to say, they are very scared to lose the neo-capitalist economic system since this is the only guarantee for them to keep their money in their pockets & get more. They don't want to take the risk to have a government a bit socialist in spirit that might take some of their properties to help the poor 50% of our population.

One important advice to the SCAF:

An armed force that adopts an ideology is not called a professional army like everyone is saying. It gets on my nerves that everyone is talking about the Egyptian army as if it was a professional army. ABC professional army is not having an ideology, nor a draft, unfortunately our army has both. A standing army is considered professional when it has no opinion about the country's politics. A professional military institution is an organization authorized by its GREATER SOCIETY to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. Once these forces work on developing ideas & start following them they transform to an armed militia, like the ELN of Colombia (National Liberation Army). The ELN of Colombia was founded in 1964 as a Marxist armed militia, as well as other armed forces in Colombia that don't like the country's politicians, nor the country's economic & political system. Their plan is to take authority by force. The only difference between the ELN & the SCAF is that the SCAF is luckier, they are already in power with some people yelling at them to leave it to a civil citizen, their preferred political & economic system is set up since the old regime. On the other hand the ELN is very unlucky since it is not the only militia in Colombia, they compete with the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army), the EPL (Popular Liberation Army), & the original professional standing army of Colombia that belongs to the citizens, that actually do what the GREATER SOCIETY wants.

No matter how much you love the army they have given to all of a us a shit social contract. Our ex-social contract with Mubarak was, he is president of everything & responsible for everything (howa mama we baba we anwar wagdy), his sons' can take the country's economy in a cruise from behind their father's back, as if it was a fancy car he just bought, you get a corrupt parliament that doesn't represent you, you get a link between the judiciary system & the executive sector so that the first would never clean itself on its own, you get a corrupt executive sector with ministers that are also members of the parliament so that they remain untouchable, & since it was this way, everyone rebelled against this shit. Our current contract with the military is, they are the president, they are the parliament, they are the executive sector & they are the top president of the judiciary sector, they didn't give us the law of separation of authorities, they gave us a shit parliamentary election law with weak discussion, they broke their own constitutional declaration concerning the emergency law & they are applying it whether we like it or not, & after the last Sunday's catastrophe they decided to discuss the law of houses of worship, same speed of Mubarak in noticing threat. We were supposed to just tolerate this status quo till September according to the contract we signed & afterwards we will have whatever we want through a civil state... IT IS FUCKING MID OCTOBER!!!

If I remember well, in the revolution we were one, & after that Mubarak resigned we became two (people who believed in mixing religion with the state, & people who didn't) & then we started to divide even more. What is happening now, is that the military institution is falling the same way Mubarak did, subject to their own mistakes. Each mistake they do will make people unite against them, & the more they will stay the more mistakes they will do, a vicious circle that I love & bailing out in a late stage is not like doing it in the early stages.

Last advice: The later the bail out, the more things you will lose, learn from the Mubarak experience, he was the stupidest & that is why he is risking everything now...

Parliamentary Salad

Why do we have a problem with the plurality voting system?

The normal answer you will find in our streets is that the plurality voting system will give the chance to corrupt old members of the parliament to win some seats in coming parliamentary elections. Lately with all the debate about the elections & the new law that is being imposed on Egyptians without having them participating in the decision making process, everyone is repeating the above mentioned opinion like a parrot. Smart Egyptians call this phenomenon "memorizing without understanding". My point of view, it is a very limited idea about what will happen in the future.

Lets go back & see what used to happen in the past to learn about the logical sequence of events in the future. The culture of previous parliamentary elections, was the most commercial way of mating political power with economics. An Egyptian MP was protected by the state & by the other members of the parliament, for example, if an MP cheated in the elections of his district, & you have everyone suing him for forgery, these court cases won't reach any results if the rest of the lobby (the parliament) voted for him to stay, under the excuse of "The parliament is the overlord of its decisions".

Thus, for any businessman ambitious enough & wanting to move his business to a different size, it is essential to find a way into the parliament as a business integration strategy, this way he can grow without being bothered. The last thing in their heads was to serve the country, or even read the laws that are coming out of their own assemblies. It was like a club, if you manage to join it you become supreme in the Egyptian business society.

Now there is no parliament, but there are businessmen & not very happy ones. In all the versions of the law that the supreme military council keeps on amending every few weeks, there is nothing that discussed the protection of the state to the MPs, which implies that this law is still active, & that in the coming parliament the MPs will have immunity. That is the biggest problem.

Whether we have relative lists or direct plurality voting system, if the immunity is there, all the businessmen will go to war to get a seat. Normally the plurality system will permit more of them to win, because your vote goes directly to a person. But realistically nothing will stop them from invading the first members of lists as well, whether they were proportional, semi proportional, non proportional, closed or opened lists, etc... they will win paying money to people to vote for lists the same way they used to do it for individuals. We have to be careful because this time they are going for the seats NOT to earn more money & to expand their businesses, this time they are fighting to survive. At a certain point we have to realize that with the last amendment of the supreme military council to the law, he gave 1/3 of the seats to plurality voting & 2/3 for the closed proportional lists, this is sort of imposing a quota of 1/3 of the seats for the old members of the parliament, this way the military council is doing what he can to preserve the current economic map of the country. We have to know that from the interest of the supreme council to keep the economic map as is, otherwise they will be facing an uncertain fate with new businessmen & new politicians, all the members of the council are in the late 60s early 70s, they really hate uncertainty.

Lets imagine a hypothetical parliament where all the MPs are not businessmen, & their only source of income is the money they earn per session. Of course if our parliament looks this way it would be the most honest & legitimate parliament we would ever have, why? Several reasons but the following two reasons are enough:

1- The MPs won't really care about immunity since they don't have any other interests but making laws & following them. Immunity is useful when you have another job other than being an MP, & mostly useful if you have a post in the executive government.
2- The MP that is absent for more than a month without a logical excuse is definitely taking bribes, since the only way for him to make money is attending sessions.

This hypothetical parliament is very far from what will happen. We are a country where Business & Politics are married. Do you really think that Egyptian businessmen would leave the parliament be so distant from their hidden hands? If this happens they might face crazy economic decisions that would make them lose some of their assets to help the society or pay more taxes to the state. Of course our businessmen are much smarter than that, they always pay less & make more money.

Lets get some things straight. The economic map of Egypt is all over the nice big fancy billboards, inside cities, on the highways, in malls, stations, airports, etc... These people paying that much money just to make us know that they exist, would pay much more money to keep the economic map the same...

You want to know more about Egyptian businessmen? You have a database that represents the future ecopolitical map of the country http://www.eba.org.eg/Main/Search.aspx

The Bull's Eye

From my regular sources of information, (Public places such as coffee shops, metro stations, cheap restaurants, etc...) I realized that Egyptians have a mixed idea about stability, whether economical or sociological.


A normal Egyptian that has no political background, no creative interests, & usually lives like a blinded bull roaming around a waterwheel, has a very important perspective for stability. Honestly it is the perspective that we should consider the most, since this kind of Egyptians represent a large number of our society. His simple idea is that the pre-revolution era (the 30 years of dictatorship) is the social & economic stability. We can't blame him, he lived for so many years able to go to his waterwheel every morning & pretend to work, without seeing people demonstrating in the streets, or having to change his course to avoid bottle necks caused by wild bulls attacking everyone.


The Bull & Social Stability:


In the eye of the bull the stability comes when you have zero percent demonstrations, zero percent opposition to the government, zero percent complaints, etc... However he is always able to tolerate all kinds of inflation, & recession. His way of expressing his tolerance is usually insulting the government, the revolution, or anyone he sees (with his blinded eyes) responsible for this incident that directly damages his salary that he earns from the owner of the waterwheel every 27th, 28th of a month. The bull knows nothing about change, his life lacks diversity for him to understand the meaning of this word, any change for him must be eased in with a process that takes several years for him not to feel it coming. He is not equipped psychologically for these sudden events. Our bull also have a very important definition for progress. For him getting married, having kids, being promoted at work from a bull of a waterwheel on a small canal to a bull in a pumping station on the main stream of our blessed Nile river is progress. For him social control & social order have nothing to do with him, it is the job of the government to control the people & their day to day pathways. It is the government's concern to be there for us all the time to keep us in control, their only tool to control & order is some people wearing a uniform & carrying guns. For the bull, seeing people with uniform & guns is social stability, this way he is sure that there is no desert lions hunting bulls on their way to work.


The thing the bull have never heard of, is social solidarity. That is because he is a farm bull, wild bulls in Africa & North America learnt that they are more protected living in herds thus they know more about this issue than our friendly little farm bull. For our beloved bull, seeing other bulls going on strike is something against his god, his god is called "The Production Wheel". Bulls believe in their superiors, & their superiors believe in this god, if he doesn't believe in it, he might get fired. It is the dominant religion in our society. Domestic bulls can't stand together, why? because they always think that they are better than each other. The bull of the pumping station looks to the bull on the waterwheel with superiority & despise. The waterwheel bull instead of despising the attitude of the pumping station bull, he feels so bad not because he received this look, but because he doesn't get the chance to give this look to other bulls lower than him in the social hierarchy. He seems to be OK with the behavior, he tends to do whatever he can to work in a pumping station to be able to give the same look to other bulls, & at this moment there is an important phenomenon created "The Suck Dick Phenomenon".


It is clear now that the bull is very sick in the head. I believe that he didn't do this to himself. He just got sick. Nobody wants to be sick or try to do it on purpose.


The Bull & Economic Stability:


For the bull, economic stability comes when you have so many foreign bulls in the country. Rich bulls coming from all over the world to spend their money, in his head the amount of foreign currency increases in the country & he would get his share of the pie by selling to tourist bulls something at ten times its original price. Seeing stores with signs written in foreign languages, foreign franchises, foreign banks, very expensive cars, cities booming in size, etc... All these are signs of economic stability in the eyes of our beloved bull.
He sees this as the ultimate solution to solve all the problems of inflation, recession, small business cycles. At this point we must admire the situation & sense one of the most ancient phenomenons in our society which is called "The Foreigner Complex". We have the idea that any good solution must come directly or indirectly from someone else that is not a countrybull of our wonderful nation.


The Conflict of Social Stability with Economic Stability:


These days our bull is very sad. He blames all the herds of wild bulls that go down the streets to ask for stuff that doesn't belong to them in the first place. The traitorous herds are the biggest threat for all the foreign bulls, all of them are rapists & they are scaring the foreigners away, not only on the tourism level, but on the investment level as well. Briefly the social instability is affecting the economic stability of his country.


For the bull to know:


I- Social stability consists of:


    1- Change: The ability to make or become different.
    
    2- Progress: The view that human beings and civilization are improving and advancing toward a better goal also increasing sophistication of knowledge and the improving quality of life.
    
    3- Social Control: Refer to the social processes by which the behavior of individuals or groups is regulated. Since all societies have norms and rules governing conduct (a society without some such norms is inconceivable) all equally have some mechanisms for ensuring conformity to those norms and for dealing with deviance.
    
    4- Social Order: Is how and why societies cohere, this can happen in two different ways: 
               a- The role of shared norms and values in maintaining cohesion in society. Mutual self-interest and contractual agreements as the basis of social order in increasingly complex industrial societies. 
               b- Cohesion is sustained through economic compulsion, political and legal coercion, and bureaucratic routine. Economic and political coercion has proved a remarkably effective source of stability, especially where power is legitimated as authority.
    
    5- Social Solidarity:  Is the integration, and degree and type of integration, shown by a society or group with people and their neighbors. It refers to the ties in a society - social relations - that bind people to one another.
In simple societies it may be mainly based around kinship and shared values. In more complex societies there are various theories as to what contributes to a sense of social solidarity. Ibn Khaldun argues, effectively, that each dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the unity presented by those areas to their advantage in order to bring about a change in leadership. As the new rulers establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax and more concerned with maintaining their lifestyles. Thus, a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.


II- Economic Stability consists of:


Absence of excessive fluctuations in the macro-economy, an economy with a constant output, stable inflation, non frequent recession & financial crisis is a stable economy.






Finally the simple proof for the bull, the biggest country in demonstrations & strikes in the world, is the biggest country in tourism in the world.

Formulae For Half-Life In Exponential Decay

In the last few months, with the sudden "However Limited" freedom of expression, so many issues were raised, & some of them, are raised to last longer than the others. To me this process looks like dealing with radioactive substances. The issue itself is the substance, & the radiation is the rumor. You are not obliged to move a substance to contaminate something, however the radiation can always do the job. The same way nuclear power-stations control the radioactivity & the half-life of certain materials, the people in supreme power control issues & rumors after studying the exact result of each one of them, they increase the half-life of the ones that serve their purposes, & transform the ones that don't into nuclear decay.

The Old Game:

Back in the day, our government was controlling all the outlets from which all issues were being raised, or in my stereotype, all the sources of radioactive material. Each outlet was very wisely used to serve a certain purpose. A great example was happening every year:

The biggest issue Egyptians would always discuss in the beginning of every year, is inflation. Instead of giving the people the chance to discuss such issues, you would see that all the newspapers, television, etc... would race to talk about these issues on the behalf of the people, it is the classical most primitive way to create a fake public opinion. This scenario used to happen every year, you would see big clashes between ministers on these issues & the below scenario was the classical one to be used in such situations:

One morning you find in the newspaper that the minister of the central bank is insuring to Egyptians that there will be a minimum increase in prices of 25% in all commodities next year. The next day, the minister of trade comes out on television & insures that he does not agree with the minister of the central bank, & from his point of view the increase in prices won't  affect the strategic commodities. As if they have never worked together... Or may be have never seen each other before... Then few days later the minister of agriculture, who also have never met the 2 other ministers, comes out & explains how the increase in international prices might affect some strategic commodities. We used to remain in this hassle for at least 3 months, then all of a sudden, BAM! A minimum increase of 35% in all commodities.

Is the consumer shocked? The answer is "No"

The consumer is never shocked, the increase in prices was eased in to everyone, thus no one will stand & object, we all knew about this increase in prices coming up, they have been talking about it in the news for ages, & all of us are prepared for it if not financially, at least psychologically. It is a very simple & slick game that was being played on yearly basis. This game was always very easily plotted if you are the source of radioactive materials. The good news is, THIS GAME IS OVER!

The New Game:

First we have to agree that politicians are stupid, not only in Egypt, it is an international phenomenon, George W Bush was president... TWICE!!!
In our politicians' point of view, there is no big difference between the old game & the new game, they will still use the same classical effete policies. They are not creative enough to impose a new system, or a new protocol to control the above mentioned radioactive materials. Their technique in dealing with issues raised, is the same technique the far east uses for disasters or just to be fair, the far east is better in dealing with disasters since they can somehow anticipate it's source & power, shortly before hand. The people in power here don't act, they react, which keeps them always late, their technique is very primitive, they observe all the issues being raised & they don't have a big role in triggering them, however they can increase the half life of radioactive material or decrease it. We witnessed two incidents that can serve as perfect examples to prove my theory:

1- Decreasing The Half-Life of A Radioactive Material:

In July 2011, someone was badly injured in certain circumstances & died the next day. The circumstances were that this person was going to demonstrate peacefully to express his opinion in front of the headquarters of the people in power. What happened was that the people of the neighborhood around the headquarters were informed by undeclared sources that there will be thugs & thieves coming by, to loot their neighborhood. I wonder who would make up such a terrible lie? Politicians???? The first thing an Egyptian would do when informed of such news even if there is a chance of 95% that it would be only a rumor, is preparing Molotov cocktails, weapons & go down the street waiting for the big fight. WE LOVE TO FIGHT!! That is why it is very easy to call anyone "thug"...

The funny thing is, it wasn't a rumor, IT IS TRUE! People are coming from all over the place. Clashes & clashes, so many people wounded, & the next day a guy died from his wounds in the hospital...

The funeral was coming out of our famous Omar Makram mosque, for those who don't know this mosque is in Tahrir square (The football court of demonstrations & revolution), if this demonstration coming out of the mosque would succeed to cross the street & conquer the Tahrir square, this guy will transform from a thug to a martyr. Why is he classified as a thug? because he is against the people in power (This is the official name for them, see previous publications). It was impossible for them to let this guy become a martyr. They can't take the chance of creating a new one that would gain sympathy of the people. Especially if the average Egyptian mind might relate the people in power to the death of this particular person simply because it happened in their backyard...

No risks are to be taken, half-life of this radioactive material has to be decreased! & it happened. People came out of the mosque they found themselves surrounded by our beloved military police protecting them. They didn't let them out, they kept them for a while, then they sent each one home separately, a very smooth operation that was executed in a few hours schedule. A month passed, & do we remember this guy? do we remember the whole incident? No we don't.... This is a classical perfect half-life decreasing process to a radioactive material.

2- Increasing The Half-Life of A Radioactive Material:


In August 2011, three persons were killed. Two of them are useless, they are considered to be yearly casualties, simply they are numbers in statistics, however the third one is the most important, they were not planning on having him dead. This person is not like the one of July, the one of July was wearing normal trousers, may be jeans, & a shirt. The August man had "GREEN ON!" & that is the biggest difference. The dead of August was a perfect opportunity, a perfect radioactive material to serve the purpose of people in power. The people in power are having so much trouble controlling one part of the country. This part happens to be in a treaty with a second party that we are sharing borders with, thus the authority can't send military reinforcements in this part without the approval of the second party, the death of this man was used to serve their purposes.

A perfect plot, some political movements declared that they will do a demonstration in front of the embassy of the country that killed our men, WOW!!! THIS IS REAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION!!! What do we want more? A sit-in? DO A SIT-IN!! they are all yours, you can eat them alive...

I felt very weird this day, especially when I remembered what happened the 1st of August in Tahrir Square. This incident was a clear message that sit-ins are not to be tolerated during Ramadan, for all the problems it makes, & the traffic that doubles during Ramadan, we received a clear message that such behavior is not accepted in this blessed month & the political movements were generous enough to postpone the sit-in to further notice. However if you have another sit-in that would serve my purpose you are most welcomed to do it anytime of the year...

The "Shoft" Phenomenon

A simple Arabic verb in the past tense, often used by Egyptians to express the question "Have you seen?". The most common word to be used after saying hi to a friend.

Sorry to disappoint Egyptians & other Arabs using this word the same way we do, verb "Shaf" or "Shawafa" is not verb To See. According to the very famous & very old Arabic dictionaries like (لسان العرب، مقاييس اللغة، الصحاح في الالغة، الخ) this word has so many other meanings & none of them is related to the way we use it now. The only use that had something to do with the eyes, was to describe an animal that is making certain actions when it feels danger.

It is not a voluntary neural special sense action made by the eye, it is a complete hormonal involuntary action that is caused by the excess secretion of adrenalin when an animal smells danger, & the results to this hormonal action is stretching of the neck into a certain direction accompanied with a gaze in the eyes, a high heart rate, etc... 
A movement that expresses concern, fear & curiosity.


The funny thing is that Egyptians ignoring the actual meaning of the word, they usually use it to open a conversation, & always use it when they want to talk about anything that they have seen that interested them, as if they are being hunted by the things they see. It is funny & it is true. How many times in a day you are being hunted by ads, television, etc... 
the proof you are being hunted is that they make money... 
The other interesting thing, is that in the original language, "Shoft" is an involuntary action, which is true as well, living in our society the fact that you see media is involuntary, how many of us don't like Amr Diab however involuntarily we memorized every single video clip he did?

Egyptians have this characteristic of living in a dream. They are very naive & they would believe what they want to believe. If you give them fake good information & realistic bad information, they would stick to the unreal good ones, & that is not the only problem. The bigger problem is that they will build a whole life based on a good wrong idea, that is the medium in which all mass communication entities swim in our country. The Egyptian society is a very good medium that conducts rumors, & television bullshit faster than copper filaments conducting electricity. Again the proof is this linguistic discovery I made, the "Shoft" effect, & another on the ground proof, the number of new television channels & news papers opened after Hosni Mubarak was kicked out of power. I think we are the biggest medium in the region, even other countries are investing to build mass communication organizations in our country, only for the fertile medium we have. We are a very fast process, & according to the information technology theory GIGO (Garbage in garbage out), we can process very good feelings, information, goals, objectives, & make a wonderful revolution, or we can process all what we get from the media & end up doing what we are doing now... nothing...