The Deep Sea of Absurdity: Military's 'Development' Vision - Painting Walls, Vegetable Carts, and Billion-Dollar Canals"

 English Translation

The Deep Sea of Absurdity: Military's 'Development' Vision - Painting Walls, Vegetable Carts, and Billion-Dollar Canals"

The deep sea of absurdity from which the military draws its ideas has no shore.

Just yesterday, their leader stated that developing the countryside means painting, plastering, and patching walls—not agricultural mechanization, land reclamation, or modern irrigation systems.

This is the same man who claimed the unemployment problem could be solved by providing a thousand vegetable carts to graduates, and that boosting public morale requires digging a massive canal costing billions of dollars where fish can swim.

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Analysis & Explanation for the Foreign Reader

This text is a sharp piece of political satire that critiques the Egyptian military-led government's approach to national development. The writer uses specific, real-world examples of government rhetoric and policy to paint a picture of a leadership that is profoundly out of touch, prioritizing superficial, populist, or economically questionable projects over substantive, technical solutions to deep-rooted problems.

1. The Satirical Premise: "The Deep Sea of Absurdity"

The core metaphor of a boundless "sea of absurdity" establishes the tone. It suggests that the thinking of the ruling "military" class is not just occasionally flawed, but is a vast, incomprehensible realm of irrationality. This frames the following examples not as simple mistakes, but as inevitable products of a broken governing philosophy.

2. Deconstructing the Satirical Critique:

· Rural Development: "Painting Walls" vs. "Agricultural Mechanization": This contrast is the heart of the critique. It juxtaposes a superficial, cosmetic solution (painting walls to make a village look developed) with the complex, foundational investments that agriculture actually needs (mechanization, land reclamation, modern irrigation). This satirizes a government that is perceived to prioritize photo-op-ready projects over the unglamorous, technical work that truly improves productivity and livelihoods. This reflects real and ongoing challenges in Egypt's agricultural sector.

· Unemployment: "A Thousand Vegetable Carts": The proposal to solve graduate unemployment with vegetable carts is presented as the ultimate reduction of a complex socio-economic crisis to a trivial, almost folkloric solution. It sarcastically suggests that the state views its educated youth not as engineers, doctors, or scientists, but as potential street vendors, thereby critiquing the failure to create a knowledge-based economy or meaningful industrial and technological jobs.

· Public Morale: "A Billion-Dollar Canal": This is a likely reference to mega-projects like the "New Suez Canal" or other large-scale infrastructure works that the government often promotes as symbols of national pride and achievement. The satire reframes these projects not as feats of engineering, but as astronomically expensive morale-boosting exercises—"fish ponds" on a national scale. It questions the economic rationale and the opportunity cost, implying the billions could be better spent on health, education, or the very agricultural modernization mentioned earlier.

3. Context and Deeper Meaning:

This satire voices a deep-seated intellectual and political frustration. It argues that the state has abandoned rigorous, evidence-based policy-making in favor of a governing style that is:

· Superficial: Concerned with appearances over substance.

· Populist: Offering simple, tangible "solutions" that fail to address the root of complex problems.

· Economically Questionable: Prioritizing splashy, high-cost megaprojects whose benefits to the average citizen are unclear.

For the international reader, this text is a powerful example of how citizens use satire to challenge the official narrative of "development" and "progress." It argues that true development is not about plastering over cracks or digging giant canals, but about the difficult, systematic work of building a modern, sustainable, and equitable economy—a task the satirist believes the current leadership is fundamentally incapable of performing.