Here i present one the coolest spot (at least for me) in Alexandria. It was an old commercial stock market trading place in the coast road: Tugareia (literally commercial). In here the transactions were carried out sitting and having drinks. They dont serve nescafe or coca cola, just traditional Egyptian drinks. In here the black & white view of the beach in a cloudy windy day:
The cafe has a very particular structure: half of it is just for men to drink cafe/te and shisha (note that the verb to drink in arabic is used for smoking too...so u drink a cigerrete :P). In this area, these men play infinite competitions of the oh-so-popular board games tabli (backgammon), chess and others. The other half of the cafe is the "family part" where there is not board games. Thats where we always sit. The family part is a bit more expensive and they have particular waiters and until very recently just weak shisha was available. The family area has another peculiarity: you cant stand in there, you have to sit or leave. The reason for this is that given the negotiations that we taking place originally in there conversations could get very heated up, people could enter from the street and join the arguments and so on...so everybody sitting is better for ensuring the peace of the place :D . There is another curious rule: when a man and a woman are sitting alone in a table they have to sit opposite to each other, as hands could go on legs easier :) the funny thing is that this rule just apply to new customers the old customers are free to sit and touch :D anyways, that never happened that i saw :P ...In here i just show the pics of the family area. Currently the age of the crowd in here is a mix of very old men that seem to have been hanging around for decades...
...and young group of culturally and socially active people in different degrees: NGO workers, poets, film makers, theater actors,etc...mixed with many foreigners from everywhere. Bahz defined it as a train station.
The paradigm of mixing of the old and the new/young is a useful guide, thats why the picture of the blog of the photovoltaic panel and the mud building as cover of this blog: The vernacular knowledge mixing with new approaches and ideas, the continuous process of learning the from the past to resolve the future. One of the many characteristics that differentiate humans and other creatures is depict the future and come with new solution for facing the future. The currents affairs in the world from an energetical, environmental and political point of view and dominated by capitalist system, are leading us to destruction. Adam Smith got it wrong in a couple of points: 1. capital is created by extraction from the earth, manufacture and selling a product. and 2. the more consumption and trade the healthier the economy. So basically we gotta take from earth, sell, take from earth, sell, and so on...until we have depleted everything, but we would have very healthy economies!! suuure. So basically in the Smith´s model a building that wastes resources and energy is better for economy than one that consumes near to nothing???!!! how ridiculous and preposterous!! An old Afican proverb said something related to the collapse of such model: when you have cut every tree, fished all the fish and polluted every river, you will realise you cannot eat money. Well the model was still (sort of) good when we had an amount of resources much greater than the needs of the world population. But now, the needs of water, food, energy and education/information/culture of an unprecedentedly rising number of people in the planet are simply impossible to sustain using the progress models we are using if we are ALL to achieve a decent quality of life.
Thanks God, a lot of people have realised that and they are trying to understand the problem in more depth and develop the concepts necessary to address the challenges. There are very interesting papers by Prof. Geoff Hammond in (Bath University) and other authors treating the concept of ecological footprint (http://redefiningprogress.org/). Consider how much area (A1) of fishing, farming and industry area is required for provide sufficient energy and goods to a maintain the population in a particular area (A2). If the whole world population would be to achieve the levels of comfort of London with its energetic and gods consumption levels...mmm are we running out of earth? and at the rate of growth of the population? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population . Take into account that not all the areas are susceptible to produce fish and animals and vegetables and certain goods... and if those areas are degraded to the point that they are over polluted or underwater or extremelly hot dry or subjected to continuous natural disasters? well, thats really what is happening, we are heading towards a massive cataclysm or the apocalypses, doesnt matter what u call it. I hate to say this but i achieved that conclusion from a scientific point of view...we are getting there, and fast!!! Millions of people in their way to death in a painful manner is not good (if ur not a sadistic or extremely desperate...i know, you should be desperate).
Today the British Nobel Laureate Sir Harold Kroto, co-discoverer of buckminsterfullerene molecule C60 (the one that led to the discovery of my beloved carbon nanotubes) had a bitter and justified attack on educational policies (http://education.guardian.co.uk/universitiesincrisis/story/0,,2084784,00.html) , i quote him:
As well as trained engineers and scientists, we desperately need a scientifically literate general population, capable of thinking rationally - and that includes lawyers, businesspeople, farmers, politicians, journalists and athletes. This is vital if we are to secure a sustainable world for our grandchildren.
The facts that a) we use in one year an amount of fossil fuel that took a million years to accumulate, b) we may be on the verge of a climate change catastrophe of global proportions and c) powerful technologies may soon fall into the hands of disturbed individuals with minds riven with those twin cancers of nationalism and religious fanaticism, seem to concern the scientific community a lot more than they do politicians or the media.I do not agree with one point: powerful technologies may soon fall into the hands of disturbed individuals. It should be written: many powerful technologies have been long time in the hands of some (extremely) disturbed individuals with minds riven with those twin cancers of nationalism and religious fanaticism (and their own personal economical interests)...and many of this disturbed individuals ARE actually politicians and people in the media. Are not the information technologies misused by the mass media to deform reality? Are not missiles being launched daily against civil areas by westerner politicians? Powerful technology IS BEING USED in our faces for not so honorable purposes.
So are we humans predestined to destroy our selves victims of our selfish impulses??? well it will definitely depends on how we consider and resolve problems at global/planet scale. Capitalism has brought advantages, that could have been better achieved by other means, but thats not important now. Who cares how many people advocated for it, promoted it and practice it all way around...we all do somehow, looking at it, hating it and denying it is not going to resolve anything. You gotta play the game, to improve the world requires and effort to change ourselves, is what Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahum alehi salam) called jihad. Jihad literally means effort...nothing to do with terrorists and bombs. Actually for quoting Islam again: the ones who kills one human, is as bad as if he has killed the entire humanity. Clearly many journalists in Europe do not know about what jihad or Islam really means...coming back to the issue of jihad, like every concept in Islam meanings can be interior or exterior. There are literal interpretations and the interpretations that emanate of the Qur2an when you explore the whole thing. And we have to quote the same Prophet again when coming back from winning a great battle: now we come back home to fight the most important jihad, that is the jihad against one selves. Islam gives a higher importance to change the world by changing ourselves, not for killing those people that think differently.
The conclusion of all this is that what we ALL have to do is change and rethink about ourselves in developing and developed countries for achieving global sustainability. In developed countries to help to promote equality at all levels by means of helping other underdeveloped areas (nationally and transnationally) NOT exporting our old models of waste of energy and pollution..oh by they are profitable (at the end we will end up eating our money...). In developing countries, if just one wish: education. But we all know how difficult that is...educational models require social changes first. But as the social changes are slowed down, so is the evolution in education. To disestablish establishments is always painful in one way or another, but sometimes in life we find ourselves in a moment of taking a decision and taking pain. I am sorry for the people that might feel disgusted for the following comment,but ive got a point...the choices are: you can eat camel shit or dog shit; the only sure thing is that you will end up eating shit. The less painful way is changing ourselves: so the muslims do jihad against yourselves if is your faith, and so the westerner or any other religion /culture by any other convincing excuse you want...but for citing Sir Kroto again for the scientific mind "you realise before long that if the world is in anyone's hands, it is in yours." Lets change ourselves by questioning ourselves: what is progress?
