#boulaq

[art-and-things-of-beauty]

John Varley (1778-1842) - A Street In Boulaq near Cairo. 1881.  

[newstfionline]

In Cairo Crisis, the Poor Find Dashed Hopes

By Kareem Fahim, NY Times, December 13, 2012 CAIRO--A faded poster of Hosni Mubarak hangs on a wall in a crumbling neighborhood here, reminding residents of an empty pledge to find jobs for young people. Down the street, a campaign banner for his successor, Mohamed Morsi, hangs across the road, a reminder of more recent promises unkept.

In the neighborhood, called Boulaq, so long neglected that houses regularly collapse, there was little expectation that Mr. Mubarak would provide. But Mr. Morsi's disregard has been much harder to take.

"We had high hopes in God, that things would improve," Fathi Hussein said as he built a desk of dark wood for one of his clients, who are dwindling. "I elected a president to be good for the country. I did not elect him to impose his opinions on me."

Away from the protests and violence that have marked the painful struggle over Egypt's identity in the run-up to a referendum on Saturday on a constitution, residents of Boulaq have their own reasons to be consumed with the crisis. The chants of the protesters, for bread and freedom, resonate in Boulaq's alleyways. In many of its industrial workshops, passed from struggling fathers to penniless sons, disappointment with the president, his Muslim Brotherhood supporters as well as the leaders of the opposition grows daily.

There is a sense in Boulaq that the raging arguments would be better resolved in places like this, where most Egyptians live, carrying the burdens of poverty with no help from an indifferent state, and where the revolution's promise of dignity is long overdue.

When he took office five months ago, Mr. Morsi seemed to understand. "He talked about the conditions of the poor, the people in the slums," said Amr Abdul Hafiz, a barber. "He talked about the street vendors and the tuk-tuk drivers. We thought he felt for us."

The barber and many of his neighbors were convinced that Mr. Morsi and the Brotherhood had earned their chance to rule. People remembered the Brotherhood's charity after the earthquake in 1992, and its decades of struggle as an outlaw movement. In stages, though, doubts grew as the Brotherhood broke its promises and Mr. Morsi seized power, culminating in his decision to ram through his constitution. Boulaq's residents, including the president's supporters, bristled at the thought of being treated as subjects again.

"He became occupied with other issues," Mr. Abdul Hafiz said. "They want power, to make up for all the injustice they suffered, as if we were the ones who inflicted the injustice on them."

At night, the arguments rage at a storied cafe on Abu Talib Street, with an intensity that no one here recalls seeing before. By day, the arguments simmer, in a neighborhood whose former grandeur still peeks out from underneath the rot.

Everywhere, people tell stories about the government's failures, suggesting that the new leaders had turned out no better than the old ones.

In the shadow of a fallen dwelling, one of many that make Boulaq look as if it suffered a war, a widow stood over workmen she had hired to fix a ruptured sewer pipe. The ministry assigned to handle such matters had ignored her calls for three months, so she and her neighbors collected the money to pay for the repairs themselves.

On Abu Talib Street, Mr. Abdul Hafiz fretted over the dangers facing his pregnant wife, whose belly was swelling with excessive amniotic fluid. An appointment to see a doctor at a private hospital, which would cost $80, was too expensive. The administrators at a public hospital told her she could see a doctor a month after she was supposed to give birth.

Security guards threw Mr. Abdul Hafiz out of the hospital when he pointed out how ridiculous that was.

He wanted a change from Mr. Mubarak, who had coverings placed over the houses in Boulaq during the public opening of a nearby building "to hide insects like us." It was part of a pattern of neglect that stretched back for decades, when the land under the residents was sold to investors in shady deals that no one has untangled.

Sheep grazed on celery outside the barbershop, on a dirt road that was paved when Mr. Abdul Hafiz was a child. He took over the shop from his father, only because he lacked the connections to get a government job. Under the mirrors in his shop, he kept a copy of the draft constitution that had caused so much debate, which he bought at a store for 50 cents. He had studied every word.

"I don't see my rights reflected here," he said, faulting the document for failing to deliver on the promises of the revolution, especially those related to social justice. Worse, the president and his allies had reached into people's spiritual lives, lecturing a conservative nation on belief while fomenting discord between Muslims and Christians, he said.

"These are things for God," Mr. Abdul Hafiz said.

Views here about opposition leaders are hardly better. Accused of hypocrisy and expedience in the current crisis, many are viewed as fighting for their own interests, rather than for those who live here.

Amira Hassan, 30, who sells fishing rods, has lived in Boulaq all of her life. Once a grand port on the Nile, the neighborhood has been shrinking steadily since the day she was born. "The houses that fall are never replaced," she said.

She has been following the debate over the constitution on television. "There's a lot I don't like," she said, mixing criticism of the charter--over provisions that deal with Islamic law, for example--with complaints about Mr. Morsi. Like many of her Muslim neighbors, she is angry that Christians are fearful. And she is suspicious of the president's attempts to seize more power.

[collectifhuma]

While Morsi was doing his show with fireworks, big stadium, cars, escort and blablabla, I was doing a report in some slums of Cairo where people are suffering from kidney failure due to poluted water, lack of electricity, police harassment and imprisoned by a continuous poverty.  So Mister President?