I am so thirsty girls , guide me to the Sabil "The water well"
عطشان يا صبايا دلونى على السبيل
An old Egyptian folk song"Sabil" is a water well used to be built in the Islamic age in public square , you can till now find it in Turkey and in Greece
المصرى اليوم
The thirst revolution is continuing in Egypt , escalating to the limit that you can expect much more anger that can reach to revolution and strike if the government does not solve the problem fast and permanently , because people can't take it any longer
Unfortunately the Egyptian government seems to be in vacation despite the orders of the president , it seems to me they think that as soon as the heat wave decreases people will forget their thirst !!
well they are very optimistic ,really because not only we are still going to have another two hot summer months to come August and September but also we should not forget that the holy month of Ramdan is just on the doors , now we are in Rageb so you can imagine : Thirst+heat+Ramadan+government drinking mineral water=more and more anger.
The problem is not in West delta as I thought in fact it is much more wider and sadder , now it reached to the upper Egypt to Minya and Qena Governorates too not to mention the threat of the villagers in Sohag to cut the high way of Cairo-Aswan if they do not get water !!
Already the situation in east delta is terrible people now are fighting to get their share from the water trucks the government is sending to them
In Dakahlia Governorate where the problem began to surface 40 people were injured yesterday because of fighting over the water shares , and last week they were 50 injured ,despite the police forces existence , this act shows how dangerous the situation can be
In Dakahlia now there are more than 42 villages which are suffering from the shortage of water and people got sick from the officials' promises and one water truck sent to each village only !!
The problem for those farmers is not drinking water , but forget irrigation ,there are more than 10,000 acres in one village only "Kafr Ghanam" that did not get any drop of water , the thing which made the farmers continue their strike , the strike that the government that does not care much about
In upper Egypt it is not that better , people now are drinking from the Nile , despite the health dangers ,but may be the upper Egyptians could not take anymore here we are not talking about the Delta weather , we are talking about Qena,Sohag and Minya where the temperature can reach 45 and sometimes 46 degrees
The problem seems to very bad water infrastructure because it turned out that in east Delta they were suffering from 5 years silently from water shortage , in fact the village that started the protests and strikes there was suffering from Water shortage since 1981 , the proof was a disturbing documentary made in that year by the fantastic documentaries director Attiyat El-Abnoudi
The problem as I see it again is the water infrastructure and the big question where did the billions the government saying that spent on the water infrastructure go ???
This is a very big issue here and I am afraid the government must do a very serious inquiry ,pubic inquiry about it ....oops this is only for the civilized real democratic countries !!
I mean may be this is why Mubarak after 25 years of rule said in his presidential campaign that he will work hard to make water and electricity reach every village in Egypt , he knew , he knows that there are still villages with no water and electricity ,despite we take more our share from the Nile and despite we export electricity to 2 countries :Jordan and Syria !!
I don't know why I feel that our government does not make any effort what so ever to make the people love it , the prime minister and minister of housing remind me of Marie Antoinette but instead of suggesting that the villagers eat Gateau , they should Avian !!
The good thing in this tragedy is that people now are daring to take steps against the government and regime from strikes to protests , they are fed up from that the NDP crap and its broken promises
Anyhow back to the main issue if that problem is escalated more and more expect more troubles and fear on the current regime , of course I know the regime is warned from that still it did not take preventative curing steps !!
Technorati tags: Egyptian life, national, river, Nile, Mideast, Noth africa, Egypt, News, citizen Journalism, water
Hello Zeinobia,
ReplyDeleteJust a little comment if I may. Sabils are very common in Islamic Cairene Architecture. Several survive from the Mamluk and Ottoman eras, either attached to architectural complexes, to kuttabs (small Quran schools for children), or standing alone. They were not only found in public squares, they were almost everywhere. Building them was one of the rulers'/powerful amirs' major acts of piety.
They are found till now in Cairo and they are many :). We need not look as far as Turkey or Greece :)
All the best,
Heba
I object at the use of the word Islamic by Arabs without associating it with Arab. So we should say Arab/Islamic, as Arab culture and Identity of middle east is facing an existentialistic threat posed by IRAN- which is manipulating an Islamic discourse to cover up for its crimes in Iraq and leathal expansionism in the Arab world
ReplyDeleteHey Heba , thanks for the wonderful information ,I know about the Sabils in the Islamic old Cairo , there are so few , yet when I mention Greece or Turkey , because till now you can find working sabils in the squares and so on
ReplyDelete@Amr , I won't start here a bizantic discussion but let me remind Islam is not Arab religion and we are only 200 million from one billion , another thing all historians call it the Islamic period and Islamic civilization because it is much greater and wider than the Araic civilization , we are talking here about civilinzation from mounts in France in North to the middle of Africa , to Russia and China
another thing object like you want but I want let this take more than these two comments because here we are discussing much important urgent topic
if you did not read well it was about the Egyptians who suffer shortage of water now in the middle of the hot weather
I have a question. The point is not clear here. Is it the drinking water shortage or the irrigation water or both. The post is not clear in that point, at least for me.
ReplyDeleteI dont think it is irrigation water cause I used to see every farmer pump up water from the closest canal using his own gas operated pump. Unless all the canals got dry which is not logic.
If it is drinking water then what happen in a matter of few months that %80 of Egypt water infrastructure collapesed boom like this?
both the irrigation and drinking water , mainly the drinking water , it is terrible ,really terrible
ReplyDeletethis is not a matter of logic or not , people are suffering now and there are strong rumors the irragation and water minister will be dismissed from the cabinet because of this
oh, you scared me zeinobia. I got to call my mother in Alexandria tomorrow to see the situation there. Maybe they need some water from NY and shy to ask
ReplyDeleteDR.SR , you better check on her , because there is water shortage over the country spreading like fire
ReplyDelete