The Sadness of Egypt

Submitted by Robinoz (Australia), Jul 31, 2013 at 04:54

When I visited Egypt in 2010 I was not surprised at the run down, backward place it was as I lived in the United Arab Emirates and had visited several other Arab/Muslim countries. In 2010, tourism was doing well but the one toilet available at the Great Pyramid stank of urine and like the rest of the country was a broken down relic totally unsuitable for the thousands of visitors. In Cairo, the dirtiest city I had ever visited, Mohammedans, Jews and Christians apparently lived peacefully which was heartening. But, I couldn't understand how, with so much money coming in from tourism, the country was still a dump and couldn't even provide a coffee shop, cafeteria and decent toilets at its ancient artifact sites. It also occurred to me that the Egyptians who built the pyramids et al, were intelligent engineers, architects, designers and obviously not related to the current incumbents.

If only we had a "Governance Plan in a Box" based perhaps on the Westminster system (that works despite many flaws), we could hand it to these run-down countries and help them get on their feet. Unfortunately, in many of these cases religious stupidity and intolerance holds people back from achieving their true humanness. I feel so sad for Egypt and the terrible loss of human and capital potential.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".