Monday, March 16, 2009

I did not want to write about it

I did not write as some of you have noticed anything about the huge fire in down town last night , I could not write anything about it despite I wrote a little tweet about it.
I could not write anything because I was angry and sad , may be I  was sadder than being 85426289angry , if I were angrier I would have written anything about it but as I said I was sadder enough to feel that it was no use to write or say anything.I just felt everything beautiful in the country is taken away , it is not only about this building , it is about the beautiful Islamic mosaic front of the Cairo Railway Station that was destroyed during restoration , it is about the Giza zoo, the second zoo in the world that is being destroyed deliberately in order to protect the Israeli embassy , it is about those historical palaces in Aswan demolished by the orders of the prime minister that knows nothing about their history !!
For a moment it sounded that there is no hope despite there is always hope , even if we can’t find it in front of our eyes , may be we can save all those beautiful places and things in Egypt if we want , it is not easy but we can try , at least we won’t blame ourselves later for doing nothing.
I know you will wonder why I felt like that because a fire in some old building , well it is 100 years old building and a part of what is  called in Down Town the Khedival Cairo , yes Khedival goes to Khedive Ismail who wanted to turn Cairo in to the Paris of the Orient. You can see the Parisian architecture  clearly in Down Town . “FYI : This is not the burned building photo before the fire”
I love those buildings and was so sad on how they looked without any maintenance and how people used to install ugly billboards without any respect to their historical values ,their owners built extra ugly floors without even registration or license from the Governorate !! It was a scene that saddened the hearts of those who love the Old Downtown Cairo in its glamorous days.It seemed that that part of Cairo was going from bad to worse still there was a hope. Last year Nazif announced the Khedival Cairo project to revive the historical area again.The project is simply to restore the buildings in the area,mainly the buildings that were built in the time of  Khedive Ismail. There are about 400 buildings that go back to this era.I was so happy to hear that news , already I began to see in the area the restoration works , the billboards were removed and one of my dreams seems to come true.85426327
But Saturday noon I found out that there was a terrible fire in a  beautiful building at Ramses St.It was a rewind scene from the Shura terrible fire , a building under a restoration caught in fire suddenly ; the firemen and their engines come from all over Cairo and they failed to put out the fire !! Did not I tell you that it was a rewind scene !??
This time there were victims  injured from the fire unfortunately.
At first I thought it was an accidental fire as a result of the infamous Egypt neglect but then conspiracy theories came up just after few hours from the fire saying that it was a deliberate act. some are hinting to the plots by  a foreign company to buy those buildings . I will not go deep in to this issue because I do not understand anything about it except that the land in this area is worth millions of dollars not only pounds.FYI the accused foreign company has an Egyptian partner , the Egyptian partner is Sameh Sawiris.The fact that the company did not announce its activity publicly made it suspicious.Currently there is a huge debate about that company and its suspicious activity in the media, especially in the opposition and independent press.
By the way many of the Khedival Cairo buildings are owned by the government or rather by the insurance holding company “a Public sector holding company that owns Misr Insurance company” and according to what I read in the economic newspapers the company has no intention to sell those buildings ,after all they are among its valuable assets.
I know there is a danger we should pay attention to and it is not only evil corporations but also neglect. We can be our worst enemies with our neglect to our great heritage we have. This is why we have to speak up over and over and not to lose hope.
I just pray to God that we succeed in the end in restoring the beauty not only downtown but the beauty of Egypt.
Update :
  • This building is owned by Misr Real Estate company , a subsidiary of the insurance holding company
  • It is 90 years old building not a 100 years building and so it is not a part of the Khedival Cairo but again it is a beautiful building that should be restored.
  • It is called El-Shawaraby building tribute to its former owner El-Shawaraby Pasha who had built two buildings in the same street.
  • The fire was caused by of some electric short circut in a tires warehouse in the building , yes there is a tire warehouse in this beautiful building !!!  It is not a registered warehouse by the way.
  • The third floor was completely damage according to eye witnesses.
  • Now regarding the damages , well according to the Egyptian Gazette the losses reach to $ 850,000 where as the rest of newspapers say that the damages can be fixed and the building won't be demolished !!

4 comments:

  1. I cannot understand the suspicious activity of independent press ?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Mido , I meant the company's suspicious activity not the independent press activity ,there has been a debate in the independent and opposition press about the company's suspicious activity for weeks now

    ReplyDelete
  3. Today, there is another fire at Mokattam area, I don't know what is happening in Egypt these days!

    ReplyDelete
  4. We are very sad and shocked to see the fire on TV!!! how a beautiful and historical building on fire and how an apartment in this beautiful building used as a storage? this is the most absurd thing we ever heard!!! in other countries like Europe, buildings like this is restored, renovated and protected by the Government! such a pity anything like this left from the King time to the Egyptian regime after revolution turn into sand!

    ReplyDelete

Thank You for your comment
Please keep it civilized here, racist and hateful comments are not accepted
The Comments in this blog with exclusion of the blog's owner does not represent the views of the blog's owner.