Sunday, February 19, 2006

Catching up with the Press

The ferry tragedy happened on a late Thursday, the Egyptian authorities decided to do something about it well into Friday, and The Egyptian Gazette enlightens us with this front-page headline the following Wednesday:

'Israeli navy had no part in rescue operations'

The governor of the Red Sea yesterday denied news reports claiming that the Israeli navy had taken part in the on-going operations to rescue survivors from Al Salam 98, which sank of Friday with 1,400 people on board.

All naval units involved in rescue operations are from Egypt, Arab and friendly countries, Bakr el-Rashidi told the Middle East News Agency (MENA).

This comes after we learned that they initially turned down offers from American and British warships to save the drowning human beings.

Dear Governor of the Red Sea,

The year is not 1962. We are now in 2006. We have signed a peace agreement with Israel over a quarter century ago that has since been mutually respected and beneficial to both sides...it is OK for its naval ships to save your fellow citizens if they happen to be drowning at sea.

Disgusted citizen

A note to our foreign readers:

The Egyptian people really aren't this stupid. Unfortunately our government is, evidently.

sigh...
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1 comment:

Seneferu said...

This is very sad, however I emphasize again that is not the norm, but the exception. I take it as my duty to criticize what I see as wrong in my society, in order to identify the problems so that they may be fixed, not in order to generalize the problems and misrepresent them as the norm. However the problem is manifold here when the exception, in this case the "Governor of the Red Sea", is placed in a position of governorship over a population. This - the system of corruption which rewards cronyism rather than competence and efficiency - is the real tragedy at sea.

8:51 AM

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