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BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES
It's hard to recall a month of so much euphoria. And tragedy. On
February 3, the passenger ferry Al Salam Boccaccio 98 sank in the
Red Sea, killing over 1,000 people - the worst ferry disaster in
Egyptian history. Families angered by the lack of information from
the government and ferry company about relatives aboard the sunken
vessel and amidst reports of the captain and crew's negligence -
ransacked the office of the vessel's owner and set fire to the furniture.
Riot police were called in to disperse the angry mobs.
A week later, a very different kind of chaos spilled onto Egyptian
streets as millions of exuberant football fans danced, waved flags
and ignited Pyrosol to celebrate the national team's surprise victory
in the African Cup - a record fifth win. The all-night street party
helped to expunge the embarrassment of Egypt failing to land a single
vote in its 2010 World Cup bid.
Indeed, the streets have been busy this month. Satirical cartoons
depicting Prophet Muhammad first published in a small Danish newspaper
last September and subsequently reprinted in several western newspapers,
as well as a few Middle East publications, have caused outrage among
Muslims worldwide. Angry Egyptians took to the streets after Friday
prayers demanding an appropriate apology from those they deem responsible
for the offensive caricatures.
So far, Egyptians have limited their protest to peaceful demonstrations
and a consumer boycott of Danish goods. Elsewhere, angry Muslims
have resorted to burning churches and embassies, kidnapping foreigners
and issuing fatwas calling for the heads of the cartoonists.
Cartoonists have been spared in Egypt, but it's been a bad month
for birds following news on February 17 that the H5N1 avian flu
virus was discovered in samples taken from poultry in three governorates.
Health officials have banned the transport and sale of live birds
and culled hundreds of thousands of birds in an effort to contain
the outbreak, which has since spread to half of the country's 26
governorates.
The government has had even less luck containing rumors, which spread
like wildfire. Allegations of cover ups, compromised food products
and human cases only served to heighten the fears of those already
panicked by the worldwide media hype. An SMS claiming that the drinking
water was contaminated because people were throwing infected birds
into the Nile sent mobs scurrying to stock up on mineral water.
Within an hour, supermarket store shelves were bare.
If this is the reaction to bird flu, one can only imagine how the
public will react if the H5N1 virus mutates into a strain transmissible
between humans.
CAM MCGRATH
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