Bombs going off. People dying everyday. New protests. Old reasons. Widespread violence and bloodshed, and tragedy, is now an everyday scenario we face in Egypt. It seems like not a second goes by without some new tragic event. The reason I am speaking about this new way of life is because I feel as though violence, if not prevented or stopped, will sooner rather than later become a part of the Egyptian culture.
The actions that happen everyday that are experienced by a large amount of people, soon become adopted by many. I know a lot of people do not agree with violence, but when it is something you come face to face with everyday, you can't help but become frustrated. Furthermore, this frustration needs some sort of outlet of expression. How do people express themselves? They follow by the example of their society, and when majority of examples are protests, violence, destruction, that becomes the norm. Am I saying it is normal for violence to occur every five minutes? Not at all. I am simply explaining the logical process in a bad action (ie. killing) turning into a norm, which is then in turn adopted by those in society, which additionally creates a new culture within that society.
Why am I wasting my time talking about all of this? It's simple. More and more, we are reading in the news stories about bombings, terrorist attacks, protests, discrimination based on religion, and killing. This is becoming something us Egyptians have gotten used to. It's quite a sad reality, but I believe it is the truth. Sooner or later, we are going to become desensitized to what we are reading, because it is always present and always around us.
We need to take serious action to stop the widespread of all of this violence. What will our children think? If a five year old sees a man protest for no reason, that child is going to grow up thinking that it is acceptable to protest for every reason under the sun. This is completely incorrect. Look at ISIS. Beheading 21 Copts, 30 Ethiopians, some Westerners, and God only knows who else. We are teaching our kids to watch this news everyday, to hear about these killings everyday. Has anyone really thought about the consequences of spending the majority of our time listening and reading about events like this? Don't you think the more we scream and cry out because of these heinous crimes, the more we are giving ISIS the reaction they are searching for?
Honestly speaking, it is time for us to start focusing on the good aspects of our lives, our society. If we only focus on the negative, and the tragedieis, that is what our culture will become.
