Glyphdoctor wrote:nilevalley wrote:
When was there a meeting like the one for the ex-pats for the locals?
I did nor hear of any meeting for the Egyptian residents on the west bank or meeting for hotel/restaurant owners and I'm sure I would have known.
Even if the half of the attendees present were Egyptian yesterday, this was a meeting for ex-pats.
I think the locals might feel that the governor has time for ex-pats but not for them.
I think for 200 years the foreigners have been imposing themselves on Luxor. The people of Luxor never decided that they would turn their community into a tourist destination, it was Europeans mainly, and more specifically, British, who did that. In the 19th century, sick people came for the climate. They brought a railroad to get themselves there. Thomas Cook came in and set up cruises and hotels. They also came in and started buying up antiquities, and then started carrying out more scientific excavations to acquire those antiquities, and if it hadn't been for some Egyptians who decided enough was enough, Howard Carter would have walked off with half the contents of Tut's tomb as well.
Nowadays, "expats" force themselves on the governor, by dressing up in silly flag costumes demeaning to their own countries and force themselves on the governor as his advisees. They want clarifications about the legal status of their illegal marriages when they could get legal marriages. They want id cards identifying them as residents when they are tourists and don't bother to try to get legitimate residence visas even when they are entitled to them. And they ask the governor to turn the children of the governorate into garbage toting donkey carts so they can see clean streets. They set up a committee of themselves and arrogantly call it the "Luxor Committee" as if they represent everything and everyone related to Luxor.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against tourism or even foreign residents, but it's not that the governor is spending too much time on the foreigners, but that they are too demanding and expect too much from him and the country's resources. The more they try to set themselves apart as deserving of special treatment the more they stick out as people who don't belong. You want to be treated in an integrated manner, then stop expecting more than anyone else.
Although your points exist and up to a certain point are valid, you and others need to remember that it was the Governor and or his associates that asked for the setting up of this comity with expats. We were asked to offer suggestions and ways of improvements. Not only for the expats, but everybody concerned. To voice our opinions via this comity. Now you complain that the wrong questions are being asked, that it is all a collective of me,me, me or us, us, us. What is happening is what has been asked for. Continually bleating on about and bringing the sob story that the expats are dominating these meetings are a falsehood as those that attend these meetings are the people that are expected to attend. If Egyptians feel the need to join in, all well and good. But if the agenda or questions and answers do not involve Mohamed's problems with no parking area outside his shop, then as has always been the case in the past, he will know how to go about it.
If someone comes to my door, I'm first of all not obliged to answer it, or secondly, if I do, I am again not obliged to speak to them. No one, no matter who, can force themselves onto another person, especially one in a position of authority and power. You are an American, and will never be an Egyptian whether you like that fact or not. So therefore you are one of us, an expat by the very definition of your existence here considering your origins.
The spirit of adventure is older than the hills themselves. Sometimes it works out good, sometimes bad for the country concerned, but which ever way you look at it, in the long run, [the bigger picture], all countries have/are benefiting from the wanderer with a curious mind. $Billions circulating in and around rich and impoverished countries alike.
Let us leave it to those that are genuinely interested in improving the life of all concerned instead of the constant bickering and innuendos that are being continually slung about.
Life is your's to do with as you wish- do not let other's try to control it for you. Count Dusak- 1345.
