On Friday, June 12th, one newspaper published a statement made by the novelist Joseph Qaeed who said that it's better for Egypt to postpone the parliamentary elections until the Egyptian people develop a sense of awareness and culture. It's really amazing to discover just now that the Egyptians were not aware enough when they overthrew the regime of the Muslim Brotherhood and when they voted for president al-Sisi!
They mentioning statement came at "Egypt in an hour" TV show repeating what was said by Dr. Ahmed Nazif, Egypt's Prime Minster under Mubarak's regime. The same statement was repeated by General Omar Suleiman, former Vice President.
Away from politics, we don't really understand what culture is. Most of the people think that culture is related to reading as much books as you can. However, culture has a lot to do with development, facing invasions and senior tyrants across history, and draw wisdom from all that.
Therefore, idioms and fairy tales store several experiences. People may not read international novels. They may not even understand concepts like democracy and multi-party system. Yet, they may have better culture than many people who do understand such concepts. It's just a different type of culture.
Several idioms in our culture prove we have a good level of understanding of democracy. Throughout their history, the Egyptians proved they enjoy a good level of culture and awareness, especially at the time of wars and overthrowing tyrannies.
On the other hand, there are several types of awareness including: legal, technical, political, and moral awareness. Such awareness is related to interests of the people as well as the nation.
Finally, does it help to postpone the parliamentary elections in order to develop awareness of the people? I think that practicing democracy and voting in the elections is the best way to develop such awareness.
