Now I couldn't find anything in the rule section on responding to other people's posts so I'm going to go out on a limb and call this a /r/TrueOffMyChest of how much I found a particular post here irrational, quite consequential, and how much I believe this proves about the general nature of reddit and people's double standards here.
A post was made earlier about somebody's opinion of a country they visited, and how much it sucked.
Now that post got some traction because it presents a larger truth about a particular country not many people know much about apart from what's on the news every now and then but also, in my opinion, because it satisfies people's urge to find drama on the Internet.
The irony is not lost on me, as I'm making a post in response to somebody else, which will undoubtedly earn me a ton of detraction. If you're interested in my breakdown of what a slippery slope that guy/gal went down, I'll quote my reply below.
I want to give my general thoughts in this post about people giving their thoughts on a culture/country/community they know very little about on the Internet and presenting their opinion as fact, without touching too much on the specifics of what that person said. But in short, a post about an unpleasant experience in a foreign county turned to a rant about how
- An entire people are undeserving of their heritage
- Imperialism was a good thing because it protected the ancient artifacts of a bunch of vile Africans they wouldn't know how to deal with anyway, but "we Europeans" would
- These people generally just want to die and have no interest in life anyway
- Visiting that particular country would be much more enjoyable if the people there, well, weren't
What I've noticed is that when a post like that is made and it gathers momentum, it becomes almost impossible to attempt to discuss it.
People really do enjoy the shitting on/trashing of anything they don't feel a belonging to. It's so easy for people, behind a phone screen 5000 miles away from some place, to suggest they know so much more about how some place can be better or more sustainable given their resources or "heritage", right after they've had their decaf extra skimmed mocha latte.
And when you get an opposing view, perhaps from someone who would know more about that place being trashed, that person has next to no chance to present the truth in a good light.
It really surprises me how much the polarization of American media post-Trump (I'm not blaming him per se) and the war on "fake news" has actually given people so much space to present fallacy as fact, and be unopposed.
You mirror exactly what you're trying to fight against. Your war on prejudice is actually one you're fighting with even more prejudice.
How can you claim an entire country is a "shithole" after seeing so little of it and then argue you're doing anything but assassinating anyone who belongs to it, basically?
And it's not just that one person posted it, this post's going on 10k upvotes. It really does present a larger truth of how much people here are their own worst enemy.
Anyway, onto the meat of it. Downvote me if you like. Just don't claim to be the guardian of any truth but your own in the future.
Link to original, downvoted comment: Clicky
You started off great, hitting the nail on the head with what you said about scam artists, tip culture, city maintenance, general apathy etc.
Then you just launched an attack on an entire people for merely existing. That's where your post went wrong for me.
"never been so completely and utterly disgusted with a people, culture or nation"
I actually couldn't possibly blame you for this if you're somebody whose prior experiences were in Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, the UAE, or even Saudi Arabia. Egypt doesn't do as well a job at playing 'host' for tourists, not as well as it did under prior the administration whose sole focus was tourism for 30 years.
But even then, you'd still carry that impression back home on the surface level. And I don't blame you.
"Firstly, the garbage. Egypt is absolutely disgusting"
City maintenance workers basically make what your average daily expenses are, per month. It's not out of this world to see someone make $20 a month in Egypt. If you're wondering how they live, that's just the effect of nearly half a century of subsidies. On gum, pet food, gas, even a loaf of bread. The government subsidized everything, and allowed wages to completely stagnate since the early 2000s.
Would you really do your job then? I doubt it. That's not a justification of how filthy the streets look, but when you live here long enough it becomes more of a metaphor for the general living conditions, rather than an ungodly sight.
What I take issue with here, starting with this paragraph, is your blanket statement constantly calling "Egypt" a filthy place, "Egypt" a dystopian place, "Egypt" a hell hole. Egypt is one massive damn country. I've lived here my entire life, and when I leave my home city of Cairo, I'm in complete awe of how much of this country I haven't seen. This is the exact type of logical fallacy that makes people issue blanket judgments on the U.S for example, a much larger country, going off something like a YouTube video.
What I gather is that you've been to three major cities: Cairo, Giza, and Luxor/Aswan. The latter is mainly a destination for tours for Egyptians and otherwise. The first two are residential cities that happen to be closest to the Nile which, yes, Egyptians have populated the seams of for centuries because it's a natural hub for agriculture, decent living etc. The major difference now is that Egyptians happen to breed like rabbits. This has a societal, cultural, and religious backdrop. So you can't blame it all on one thing, such as Egypt being a "landfill."
As for the next part about con artists and unwelcome vendors, that's all well and fair. But you'd be surprised to find out Egyptians go through the exact same thing if they look like they have some money in their pockets. It annoys them just as much. I had a little girl climb into my car through the window once and refuse to let go, all because she saw me give her sister a 20 pound bill. I could go into the fact these children were mostly kidnapped at a young age and forced to live the lives of beggars because it's the only life they've ever seen. I could even tell you about the practices of people responsible for that trade.
But at that point I'd be explaining something most people here, in their desperation to cling onto their lifestyles, have taken to be a fact of life they can't alter, and don't really notice it anymore. Sad? Yeah, you can make an argument for it being apathetic and depressing. But again, how long were you here? And can you really blame these people who have lived here their entire lives, for not having the same attitude you have after spending 20 minutes down here?
Now it seems that you only opted to visit the more pivotal, congested areas of Cairo where all the tourist attractions lie (in Cairo, at least). There was a lot more to see. Had you visited Hurghada or Sharm Al-Sheikh, it would be a different story. But I won't go into explaining that here in the interest of character count. What I take issue with is that you're presenting this holistic view of a country you saw very little of if, granted, you got a justified impression based on what you saw. But I'd probably mistake Detroit for a war-torn country if I visited it too, would that enable me to call America a "dystopia"?
"Egypt is also culturally dead. Islam is their culture."
I don't know if that's an observation or outright critique. But did you really expect anything different? We could argue all day long about how the use of religion to dictate policy has brought many countries backward (and that doesn't just apply to Islam), but I'm struggling to figure out what it is exactly you expected when visiting a country that has Islam in its constitution. Did you expect people to be riding camels and dressed as what we perceive to be pharaohs? Did you expect ancient Egyptian script to be on street signs because we live on a different planet?
Egyptians don't identify with Egyptian history because modern-day Egyptians have very little to do with it. The brilliance of ancient Egyptians in science, art, and crafts would be lost on any people today, Middle Eastern or not. Yes, Egyptians identify with Islam because it forms the most recent part of their country's modern history. I don't understand why that's somehow a point of weakness in their cultural identity.
"Coptic Christians are leaving the country in droves due to the hostility against them"
This is where you veered into exaggerated statements for shock value, for me. Please say that to the police cordon surrounding the 3 churches in my neighborhood in response to recent attacks on churches (as opposed to 1 mosque that is barely attended by any type of security personnel, despite the bloodiest attack taking place at a mosque in 2017).
It's just dishonest to say Christians are mistreated in Egypt as a matter of policy and not casual ignorance that drives racism, sexism, and other irrational behavior. And I'm curious to know how a couple weeks, or even a month of excursion here led you to that conclusion.
"LGBT people and atheists are openly discriminated against and hated"
This is also quite disingenuous despite it being true, because it's so much more complex than to simply say "Egyptians hate LGBT people and atheists." We happen to live in times of complete globalization of society and culture at the hands of social media and the Internet, the younger generation is seeing the irrationality of plainly mistreating people who are different from them. But again, what else did you really expect? Why are you judging people with your own standards and at the direction of your own moral compass? This part is also where some very ridiculous underlying implications in your text that Egyptians are better off not existing at all start appearing.
"Had Europeans never set foot in Egypt I doubt any of the ruins would have survived past the 20th Century"
Well if you're trying to make an argument for imperialism then I wonder where your actual values lie, and what the point of this post is. At face value you're giving critique and an honest opinion of another country on r/TrueOffMyChest, but reading further into your post I just see suggestions that a) Egyptians are better off under the control of some other dictatorship rather than their own, b) Egypt is a filthy dystopian place, so much so that you suggest people are just waiting to die because of religious convictions, and c) that in order to enjoy Egypt, its people shouldn't exist in it.
What was your intention when making this post, really? To provide a conjecture on what might lead to the betterment of another country, or to simply state it's a dump, with people who are undeserving of possessing your entertainment value and ancient treasures?
"Egypt is a completely unsustainable nation that is coming apart at the seams"
Well with an economy that is recovering massively from a revolution and the treasonous rule of Islamist fascists that followed, which led to economic growth that was in the double negatives, I'm not sure this particular statement holds true.
"A backwards, stagnant society living in the shadows of a far greater, more glorious past."
We're just sorry we don't live up to your romanticized idea of a past that probably only exists in textbooks, and probably wasn't as colorful as Elizabeth Taylor had you believe.
"I have no doubt that Egypt will one day completely and totally implode on itself much like Syria did"
You say that almost like you'd love for it to happen because nowhere in your post is anything remotely indicative of anything other than disgust and complete disdain.
"THREE different levels of security checks you have to go through at Cairo airport"
You criticize that...
"Egypt has a growing extremism problem,"
But then you offer a rebuttal to your own critique...
"when you see the conduct of its people it really is no surprise"
And then you attempt to justify extremism!
Your impression is justifiable and there's an argument for most of what you said. I have no problem with you explaining how dysfunctional a lot of institutions are in Egypt which leads to the general chaos you witnessed.
What I do have a problem with is your tone of what I can only call moral superiority, like Egyptians do not deserve to own these pleasures Europeans visit their country to enjoy, so as a consequence they shouldn't really exist!
I wonder if you know enough about ancient Egyptian history to realize that despite how glorious, advanced (for their time), and pivotal to our modern-day idea of society and culture, they wouldn't really hold up to your modern-day standards of "equality," "freedom," and democracy. I wonder how much you'd enjoy visiting them for a change.
Submitted October 16, 2019 at 05:12AM by samsop https://ift.tt/35CkVjM
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