National Pride And Identity II: Striving Against The Wind

More indirect than the first part I wrote on this issue, but to me it seems to be a logical continuation of emphasizing the own country’s and people’s accomplishments. It is something I found in Injy’s speech at their graduation and I take it to be the spirit of media written by and for the educated Egyptians younger than 30 and I call it explicit ambition. People talk and write about what the urgent problems are, make some hands-on suggestions how to start doing something about it and call the reader to take on his or her share of the responsibility. Here I often find a mixture of an individualistic and a collectivistic approach. On the one hand they are encouraging the individual to trust in their individual capabilities and to work hard to accomplish everything possible and to even push further the boundaries of what is possible for YOU – something not completely unusual in German magazines either. On the other hand they stress the responsibility you have for the society you live in – regarding the future I am familiar with this logic, too – and partly also base this on the great accomplishments made by Egyptians for the good of the whole country or even beyond in the past quite often, to the conclusion that this is the standard to meet and finally: “We are Egyptians, we can do it!” Needless to say, this logic is still out of order in Germany.

Another fundamental difference I see is that many of my Egyptian friends and as far as I understand most of the young people involved in the revolution are really determined to do everything they can and work as hard as possible to make a change, both for themselves and their country. I am not quite sure whether this is mainly due to the very problematic situation in many domains of life and society or to a stronger sense of community. Or maybe a combination of both.

However, I also see the downside of a tumultuous time which offers both opportunities and chances for a better future, but also risk and uncertainty. It can be very stressful to be driven by large problems and narrow time windows. But at least it gets you somewhere. I still am grateful that I don’t have to fight for the things people in Egypt have to or my parents’ generation did in Germany. Here we have the task of maintaining and modernizing ideals which may be more subtle, but just as important. In any case, it is less dangerous.

As I post this article Egypt has gone through another series of riots and many freedom fighters have lost their lives. They must not be forgotten.