On the Minia front

This clipping from Al Ahram claims that in protest to the destruction started on Hada Shaarawi's house in Minia, Samir Gharib a high responsible at the ministry of Culture sent a message to Minia Governor asking him to take steps to stop this destruction.

More has to be done on the national media level, however the point of the cause and of the blog is not to say to people how they should do their work, I am sure that most journalists and most "intellectuals" all do their best for the common cause, within the concept of "permissibility".

We on the other hand, are just a group of people who are doing this out of our deep sense of loss at some landmarks built many a decade ago and our resolution to fight this destructive trend as long at is does not put our livelihood or lives in danger, we are not calling for a revolution. Actually many of our friends on Facebook are "Royalists".

My point is that when we discuss the courses open to us we have to keep in mind that the proposals should be feasible by us either as a group or individually... Actually we still don't know to what extent can we count on our Facebook friends, and how much more than a few mouse clicks are they willing to do for the cause.

Now, about Hoda Shaarawi's house, the government and the ministry of Culture are weighing in. And the medias are pitching in, but the point about us being here and doing something is just a bit more of whistle blowing.

If we really want to have any impact we have to find and publicize those violations and destructions that the government and the public does not know about.
We also have to call our friends who think the same into the cause, or invite them to check this blog if they are not on Facebook.

In any case the more we are and the more our chances to make a difference will be bigger....

As we do not have a picture of the house in Minia , we posted a picture taken in Hoda Shaarawi Street Down town Cairo.

Cairo GGG (part III)

The Effect of the Absence of Urban Planning on Pollution in Cairo

The dwellers of densely packed districts, such as Mohandessin, Shobra, Ain Shams and others must realize the fact that their lives are in direct danger. The dust alone that is carried into Cairo from the desert makes it unsuitable to live in according to experts. Add to that the fact that factories are built in urban areas, rice straw is burned yearly (following the instructions of the Ministry of Agriculture) causing a "black cloud" to hover over the city for weeks. According to the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, 15,000 to 20,000 deaths per year in Cairo are attributable to pollution-related causes (and we all know 'official' means multiply by two). In summer, while Cairo's more affluent move around in cool, air conditioned cars, sipping their warm cappuccinos, Cairo's lesser fortunate suffocate to death due to poor ventilation in overcrowded housing that also causes water shortages, poor or absent sewage, all exacerbating the heat waves that constantly drain the weak. We haven’t even started discussing vehicular traffic, which of course increases rapidly as the city grows. Instead of spreading out horizontally, Greater Cairo is growing vertically and the increasing number of vehicles are all circulating in a very limited radius. The dire consequences of the inconceivable number of cars puffing black smoke in our faces day in and day out must be made clear to everyone. Awareness must be raised, and problems must be solved from their roots. The buildings simply cannot keep getting taller! We cannot have more and more people crammed into the already overpopulated districts. Spread out, make space, leave the few small buildings alone, architectural heritage or not.