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.

Yesterday… as usual I was listening to D-radio Kultur… Topic was how to help Africa. The first caller answerd this question, and he was serious about it, that the best way to help Africa would be, to colonize it again because these people can’t help themselves. My brain switched immediately to emergency mode and tried its very best to keep me calm.

But it didn’t work out. The reason why it didn’t work out is, that the rest of my ablity to think told me, that the guy who called the radio station is not alone with his strange ideas. I also know some people at the GUC who are really serious about the fact, that they are the better ones and that it is a waste of time to teach Egyptians because they can’t, they don’t want and for sure, they are not developed enough to understand, what we, mighty and thoroughly educated, Europeans want to teach them.

This way of thinking is the reason for a lot of struggle. The better way would be, first to understand the culture and the people we are acting in and with and than to think about how to implement our knowledge in this culture and in other ways of thinking. Things are different, but not worse.

And then I followed the discussion about the strategies to prevent that all these africans come to cross the border to the EU. And I felt really bad. I am a well welcomed guest in this country and never had a problem because of my nationality. These people did’t have the luck we had. That’s it. We are nothing special, we are only the lucky guys. And we dare not to share our luck? I know, it is more complicated than this. But we should think of different ways of how to deal with other humans.

On Friday and Saturday last week the army tried to disperse a demonstration on midan tahrir after the curfew began. Many people were injured and following egyptian media at least two dead.

The mood of the people at the moment is completely different to the mood before the revolution. All over the city people try to do business as usual and to revive the economy.

The army tries to substitute the police while the police is trying to organize itself after the revolution. But the army has not the training to work properly as a police force. And there are still people of the old regime in charge who try to find their own best way through all this.

So. Things are more complicated than they might seem.