I woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain on the window above my bed. The sound had a trance-like effect which put me back to sleep for another 2 hours. It’s really very relaxing to feel nature trying to break into your house but failing at every attempt. In any case, in my lethargy I struggled to decide on a topic for the blog today, mostly because I was finally done talking about myself. From now on you can expect little to no chatter about myself and more of my general musings and thoughts on a variety of different things. I struggled today until I found my good friends over at PeaceCake had come out with another video for their Careem campaign. If you don’t know what Careem, it is a company similar to Uber, and In my opinion is much better. Their campaign is actually a very clever one and discusses a very important issue we have in Cairo, while also making a compelling case for using Careem. You can check out their video here:
The important issue the campaign addresses, and that I will be addressing now, is that of traffic. Cairo traffic is an absolute nightmare as I’m sure you all know. But what you might not have thought about it that the nightmare is actually just beginning. Thanks to our governments systematic incapability of doing anything right ever, we have been blessed with the deadly combination of having very expensive cars along with terrible roads, that pretty soon will not be able to accommodate us all. My only proposed solution to this is to ban auto sales for the next 5 years. No new cars for anyone. Want a car? Buy a used car. This proposed solution, along with a substantial increase in the amount of buses and bus lanes (as if) could potentially make life transiting Cairo’s streets alot easier. Unfortunately, due to the nature of capitalism, and the inherent corruption that is so rampant in our country, a measure like this or anything like it, will never happen. That’s why I want to ask for your help.
Don’t buy cars. And especially (and pay attention to this one) don’t buy your kid’s any cars either. Just FYI not buying cars is just the first on my list of the things you should NOT buy your kids, a list I will be expanding on in the next few days. My opinions on this were already well established before our government finally decided to step out of its denial/incompetence and regulate the economy properly, resulting in a dramatic drop in the EGP. Now this is especially more important, in order to weather this economic storm, we have to give up all (or most) of the luxuries that we have given ourselves, along with the traditions that our culture has created. This includes buying cars for you and your family. I want you to know that I am speaking as someone who was unfortunately given alot of things in life. Things that I didn’t really need to function as a happy, healthy human being, and yet tradition dictated that I must be given them. I will talk about these one by one in the coming days but the first of these was in fact a car. A car that I have every intention of selling very soon because at this point, I honesty prefer Careem. But also because I believe that we have to many cars on Cairo’s roads, and that in just 5 short years, this whole city will become a parking lot.
Don’t get me wrong though, the cars are not the only problem, it’s the amount of people as well. Cairo is grossly overpopulated and this has exacerbated the traffic problem. But we have not helped the traffic situation by compulsively buying cars for all the human beings our women happen to expel. It’s time we put a stop to all of that foolishness. Let your children buy their own god damn cars when they can afford them. And even then hopefully they will decide that it’s not worth their time, money and effort. In all likelihood though, with prices skyrocketing and the government still taxing cars for their own gain, they will never be able to afford cars and this problem will fix itself.
Another thing that is not helping the situation, is the fact that we have enabled all German cars to become our personal trophies. Those cars are too expensive as it is, and will now become even more obscene. If you must have your BMW, then for the love of all that is holy, do not keep upgrading to the newest model every year. It is a tragic consequence of capitalism, that companies are allowed to create more and more products without regard for the economic consequences. This addiction to constantly growing profits is both harmful to the psyche of our businessmen and the stability of the economy. It is a complete tragedy that our country has been run with the sole focus of increasing profits for a select few, instead of focusing on the needs of the many. But we are in possibly the worst kind of capitalist system. One that is rampant with corruption, incompetence, denial and little regard for economic stability.
On top of all that, imagine the financial ruin we would all be in if the city entered a phase of gridlock the likes of which we have never seen. In any case, we can all help by starting with a very small adjustment to our lives.
Don’t buy cars.
More tomorrow.
NoteWorthy 