Imagine if you were Russian and you woke up one day to discover that due to Moscow’s insufferable traffic problems, the Kremlin decided to build not a new mass transport system, but a new capital city altogether.
Or, if you were Chinese, and because of Beijing’s endemic pollution problem, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, rather than pass new laws to limit carbon emissions and limit the number of passenger cars, has decided instead to move the capital to a new hitherto unknown location.
Or, if you were Italian, that your government decided to abandon Rome and locate the capital to the coast to be close to maritime routes.
And imagine in all these cases that your government did this without informing you of its intentions, let alone consult you as a resident of any of these ancient cities or as a citizen of any of these countries.
This is exactly what the Egyptian government did. In a dramatic move, and to showcase its future plans, the government suddenly unveiled a plan to build a new administrative and economic capital of Egypt some fifty kilometers to the east of its millennia-old city, Cairo.
We, Cairenes and Egyptians, were not informed, let alone consulted about this move.
The new proposed city as revealed in the project’s website, has pictures of shimmering post-modern buildings, Dubai-like skyscrapers, and flashy images of “a global city with smart infrastructure for Egypt’s future, which will provide a multitude of economic opportunities and offer a distinct quality of life.”
The website also links to Capital City Partners, a private real estate investment fund led by Emirati Mohamed Alabbar. Alabbar is one of the main advisors of Muhammad bin Rashed al Maktoum, the governor of Dubai. He is also CEO of Emaar, a leading construction firm which built the iconic Burj Khalifa in Dubai and which already has extensive business in Egypt.
I won’t dwell on the fascination with Dubai as a model for urban development and how unsuitable this model is for Egypt whose GDP per capita is 8% of that of the UAE. Nor will I dwell on the deep political and social inequalities that lie beneath the glittering veneer of Dubai, and the serious political implications that this model bodes for the new proposed capital of Egypt.
I also won’t dwell on the meaning and significance of announcing such a momentous decision not in front of Parliament (for we have no such institution due to a legal fracas that delayed the elections to an unspecified future date) and not to the local media (despite the fact that whatever independence this media might have once enjoyed has evaporated in thin air), but to a group of word leaders and foreign investors who claim to be “focus[ing] on efforts to promote shared prosperity in Egypt and the region” (in the words of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry).
I just wonder what will happen to Cairo, Egypt’s capital for more than a thousand years? What will happen to the metropolis that is home to close to 20 million inhabitants? Where do they fit in the government’s plans for the new capital? The website says that it is hoped that the new city will attract five million inhabitants when it is finished.
Assuming that the aim of building a new administrative capital is to alleviate the pressure from downtown Cairo where the majority of government offices are located, and assuming, for argument’s sake, that the five million inhabitants will actually be moved from the overcrowded city, what will happen to the rest of us?
In a rare sneak preview in preparation for the Sharm El-Sheikh economic conference that is presented as a panacea to Egypt’s economic problems, the Minister of Investment, Ashraf Salman, said that the new city will cost a staggering 500 billion Egyptian pounds (approximately $66 billion). Imagine what this amount of money could do to alleviate Cairo’s problems, or Egypt’s for that matter.
To take just one example, that of transportation, the total cost of Cairo’s last underground metro line cost something in the vicinity of $1.8 billion. In other words, the cost of the new capital could cover the cost of building over thirty metro lines in Cairo.
With $66 billion, Cairo could easily solve the problems of transportation, housing, sanitation and garbage collection. With $66 billion, we could solve the problems of Cairo’s inner cities where 63% of the city’s inhabitants live. We could provide them with all the basic needs that they have been deprived of over the past fifty years: potable water, health care, clean air, recreational facilities and much more.
With $66 billion, we could improve the living standards of millions of Cairenes and of Egyptians who, at best, are dealt with as second-class citizens in their own country.
But no, our Dubai-intoxicated political, military and economic elites want to turn their back to a history that goes back for thousands of years and to pretend that Egypt is a tabula rasa on which they could draw their depraved dreams for the future.
More seriously, these deeply corrupt elites are willing to turn their backs to their own people. They yearn to have a new Egypt, with a new capital, and a new people.
For decades now, we have heard this elite lay the blame of Egypt’s problems on Egyptians themselves. Not only military leaders, but intellectuals, artists and academics have insisted that while Egypt is rich, the problem with Egypt is that it simply has too many Egyptians.
Those Egyptians, this decadent elite has been repeating for years, are responsible for their poverty, their sickness and their ignorance. We have tried everything to enlighten them, they seem to be saying. Time has come to leave them stuck in their own filth and squalor. We will not allow ourselves to be shackled in this mire. It is time to move on to greener pastures and to set our eyes on brighter horizons.
I, for one, happen to disagree.
I have no illusions about Cairo, a city that is harsh, rough and sometimes unforgiving. But we, Cairenes, are not responsible for our city’s misery.
The problem with our city, like the problems of our country, is not that there is too many of us, but that our repeated governments insist on cutting us out from any decisions pertaining to our city, or our country. And the very manner in which the decision to move the capital outside Cairo has been taken is the best illustration of our government’s insistence on ignoring us.
No. Cairo’s problems is not caused by too many Cairenes. Cairo’s problems are caused by the complete lack of any effective, democratic institutions in which we could have a say in how our city is being run.
The governor of Cairo, like the governor of Giza (its sister city), is not elected, but chosen from the ranks of the military or the police, his prime mandate being the pacification of the city and keeping it under control.
Our municipal bodies, although elected, have no financial or administrative independence, and, as such, they have become a hotbed of rampant corruption. We don’t even have a say in how to run our streets or our buildings.
And instead of addressing the root of the problem and allowing us a say in how we shape our own lives and fulfill our dreams, the government is boasting about its ability to raise billions of dollars from friendly governments and business tycoons from all over the world, only to spend these deeply needed billions on chasing mirages in the desert.
WE SAID THIS: Khaled Fahmy is a Professor and Chair of the Department of History at the American University in Cairo. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.