Egypt suffers one tragedy following the other. Safe part of the tragedy is death and sorrow. This is the part we see.

The part we do not see but perceive if we want to is the way this tragedy is handled. No side is looking for a solution but instead blames the other side. This can’t work.

The poverty is increasing, the tourists stay away, the government has no real solutions and the military just wants to preserve their power. For the next months I expect it to become even worse. There must be a real, from everyone accepted, change to come out of this. And this in not possible at the moment.

Democracy is not for free. It needs time and effort. And the word democracy is an empty hull, that has to be filled with meaning. Good luck Egypt.

Religion is as old as mankind. And there are different kind of believers. There are the ones who believe in God and his laws, given to us by the prophets. And there are the ones who believe in something bigger than us, something or someone who did all the things which enabled mankind to grow. Whatever the reason is, that makes people to believe something – it is their reason and I do not want to discuss this nor to draw it in question.

But to make the perspective clear: I do not believe in God and the prophets, but I do not know if there is something bigger than us. The universe without a beginning and an end is unimaginable as well.

The thing I want to talk about is the advantage and disadvantage of religion. The obvious advantage is, that religion gives authority and the ability for the leaders, to spell the last word. Because the inspiration was given by God and therefore from the highest thinkable authority. And beeing so, it is easier to organize a state and to govern the people. And it works pretty good because all the people can understand the given laws and normally follow these laws given by the highest authority.

The disadvantage is, that people might meet their personal thinking borders within a certain time. If somebody believes in a hightest authority which knows all the answers and which will point out the way, somebody may not need the thinking tools to analyze situations and to use the own brain to create a path sb can follow on.

So in a certain situation religion is very useful to organize and govern a state. After a certain time religion will become the anchor that keeps the ship in the save harbour without the possibility to meet new horizons.

As time moves on and things are developing, also religion needs development. The thing with religion, as most people understand it, is, that it does not allow any developments. Given by nature.

Of coures there was long-term development at all times. Each religion appeared at a certain time to fulfill a certain task. And all the prophets had the needs of the people in mind. Development takes always time. But maybe we need a prophet.

…Egypt. And of course as well to the rest of the world.We will see, what the year will bring. I do not expect any better than the last few thousand.

The reason for this just left my office. I had a very interesting discussion with a student concerning human errors.

Nobody is free of these errrors. The problem is the lack of ability to admit them. For several reasons. One of these reasons is, that we can’t see them. For several reasons. Sometimes we can’t see them because we do not want to see them. And this is the tricky thing.

It takes some energy to find an opening in the own cocoon to slip through to see the big colorful picture. And once we see the big colorful picture it might happen, that we detect the errors in it. But the cocoon protects us and makes the world easier for us.

The cocoon keeps all the prejudices and half-knowledge and hypocrisy we have inside and therefore makes the world easier to understand. And the cocoon keeps away all these realities and facts, which would make our life a bit more uncomfortable. It takes a real effort to leave the cocoon against all antagonism of society and culture to gain a free sight onto the picture.

This is human. This is part of our ancient heritage. Even if we developed a complex brain, we still have to stick to the same thinking and perception tools. Bad luck. But maybe we should spend some effort to try it. Makes things more difficult but the possibility that two people find the same base to talk to each other and to understand each other is much higher. And of course, Designer need this way of thinking as an essential tool. Self-explanatory.

I love reading books. And most often I read books which contain some knowledge about whatever. A Designer should be interested in everything, as I am used to tell my students. And the question which makes me really tick since a while, is: is it us who makes our world or is it the world, which makes us? The answer seems to be quite obvious, but it isn’t at all!

Of course we are trained and educated in a certain environment and society. And this training gave us a certain way to think, to think using certain strategies or in certain ways. And these ways of thinking make, how we perceive our world. And how we perceive our world makes how we act in our world. And the feedback on how we act in the world makes once again our perception. The image of what humans are like, differs from era to era. Sometimes the heart is the home of the soul, than we are compared to machines and nowadays to computers which work using a certain software. The future of this might be, that we loose ourselves and become part of something bigger than us. But this is not, what I wanted to say.

I wanted to say, that each culture, era and society develops their own thinking tools. And these thinking tools define how we see the world and how the world sees us. The big question is, when are we able to develop these thinking tools? And with thinking tools I also mean the emotinal aspects like empathy. I suppose that we learn these tools during our childhood. This question is especially interesting for Designers or other people, which need the ability to think creative and to understand needs and wants. And the other question is, how to raise this ability in countrys with a very special structure of education and government, like Egypt and also somehow like China. Means in countrys, where certain decisions are most often not done by the individuals but by an authority on the next level. And the decisions are often not discussed but very emotinal and based on a very personal point of view. So the lower level has no chance to understand the decision and therefore it makes no sense to think about it or to plan something. And because it is as it is some people are not in need to learn to think and to come to own decision on a higher level. And this is a big bug in every society.

We can only think, what we are able to think. So we can only see, what we are able to see. Together this leads to the idea, that we can only imagine, what we can think and see. We really create ourselves through our storys and through our imagination. We create ourselves every day using the thinking tools we once learned. And without these tools the storys we can create stay on a quite low level.

Almost ten days of struggles and clashes between protesters and the police. Most of the clashes took place not on Midan Tahir but on a side street, leading to the interior ministry. Army and police say, that they just wanted to defend the ministry. Generally the language used in media as well as from the “combatants” is more related to civil war than to a demonstration. And I suppose some of the demonstrators as well as some of the armed forces think the same way. What was quite obvious from the first moments after the revolution in january on, is the fact, that every group has a different image of what should Egypt be in future. Because there is a huge lack of education and knowledge as well as a lack of a discurs culture and respect of different opinions, many have no other way than violence to express their aims and wishes. And the ones who express their aims and wishes in different ways are offended or harrassed, like the example of Sarah Gebril, Alaa Abdel-Fatah and Aliaa El-Mahdy shows.

The egyptian society is not mature enough, to deal with real democracy, I fear. The attempt to elect a new government starting this weekend will lead to more fighting, but this time not against one enemy but between the different interest groups. And as usaul the stongest will win. This is how Egypt works at the moment. It will take much more time to create a sufficent base for real democracy.

Of coures, nethertheless, there are very kind, smart and interested people in Egypt. I know many of them. But there are also many uninterested, stubborn, illiterate and hypocritical people in Egypt, in all social classes. Education in different fields is the biggest task for Egypt at the moment and not democracy. Democracy is something that needs certain abilities to make it work. And these abilities are completely missing at the moment.
hopefully I am wrong.

Once again everything is focusing on downtown Cairo. The other areas of Cairo are quiet so far. And at the moment I do not think that the incidents this night will cause any sectarian strife. Many rumors are flooding the streets and at the moment nobody can say who started the fight. Each involved party blames the other and the government blames a mysterious “third party” without defining it.

In the end it will support the military to extend the state of emergency and to keep the power. And most western states as well as Israel will support this supposingly because it might also help to stabilize the region; In a shortterm thinking construct. And we have to keep in mind that Mubarak also was from the military and that he guaranteed peace with Israel. Free and open elections could bring a government, which maybe could cancel all peace treatys with Israel. And this is something, many states are afraid of. Also democracy has to stick to the rules of the big game.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011101072623285752.html

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/503553

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/23749/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-general-prosecution-starts-investigating-Mas.aspx

scrolling through the newespapers you could become quite worried nowadays. Fightigs, shootings, burnings, shoutings all over the country. The new freedom is used to express someones opinions in the most expressive way, by force. Equal which group is fighting for what, what some of them have in common is, that violence seems to be an appropriate measure to target its aims. But it is not only some of the egyptians which behave this way. Also some westerners seem to have found a new strategy for self expression. The whole country is nervous, which is not really astonishing but worrying. The country is sliding in a deep econmic struggle if nothing will happen. The tourists still stay away and all branchs are affected. Most people generally do not have too much money and now things become serious very fast. Hopefully the tourists come back before someone else gives the money the people need to survive. Egypt has rich neighbors which influenced the country before and also nowadays.
But… the country generally is safe and at the moment nobody is targeting foreigners. Egyptians are still the people they are used to be… but with a uncertain future… and not everyone can deal with this in the same way.