The Suez Canal finally open, shipments traffic is back, the stuck cargo ship Ever Given is finally free., and everyone is relieved that a major disaster has been averted. However, the ramifications of the stuck ship will take some time. Delays, litigations, courts, trials, insurance claims, assessment of the Suez Canal as a reliable global waterway, and the credibility of the Egyptian officials are still in question. The world has been transfixed on the cargo ship stuck at the Suez canal waterway for almost a week, suddenly Ever Given stopped on given blocking world shipments traffics for almost a week. The mammoth ship is the biggest and the longest globally (1300ft); it weighs more than 22000 tons and carries over 20,000 containers that each weigh 20 to 40 tons. The news of the stuck Cargo ship was covered by media, analyzed by experts, and talked about all over the world except in Egypt. Suez Canal is considered the jewels of Egyptian pride and modernity. Egypt has fought three wars to prove it. However, for days no words came from Egyptian government officials or the Suez Canal Authority (SCA). The Egyptian media didn’t cover it, and the news of the stuck ship’s that blocked the canal was blocked in Egypt. Egyptian authorizes warned journalists not to report anything other than the authority’s version. Egyptian Securities are running around the small village located across from the stuck cargo, warning people not to talk to reporters or take any pictures. Good luck with that; the name of the village is Manshiyet al-Rugola, the tiny village of the Manhood or Cheverly in Arabic. Villagers who had the best seat in the global village to watch the spectrum from café and rooftops cherishing the sudden global attention. Seats were put out in the street to watch the soccer game in African cup qualifications between Egypt and Kenya as the view of the stuck ship standing in the background. “What’s up with [Mohamed] Salah? (Egyptian superstar who plays in Liverpool) He is like this ship, stuck at the pitch in the final third” “before this happened, the tallest building in the village was the Mosque minaret,” mused a bearded man. “I wonder if we could get our hands on one of these containers, it must have enough food to feed the whole village,” joked a young man who refused to give Times reporter his name fearing retribution. “We hope that some of the efforts given to getting the ship on track are exerted to solve the problems of the village,” said a villager giving just his first name, Awad. “Hyaithm, 29, jokes as a police car passes near his house: “We are sure of our president and the military that they will solve this problem and will punish the bad [Muslim] Brotherhood for their role in the accident.”. referring to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s long-running obsession with cracking down on the outlawed Islamist group.” Reported the Middle East Eye. Some zealous Egyptian journalists claimed that the ship has been refloated already and the canal was back to business., which resulted in more ships entering the blocked canal. ” This incident is not the Egyptian fault; the stuck Ever Given cargo ship has a bad reputation and has a lousy behavior records,” claimed Ahmed Moussa, a TV presenter. People in Egypt had to resort to social media to follow the tragic accident; hashtag #freeEverGiven is trending, asking Egyptians if they have any suggestions to help free the stuck cargo. As world experts from all over the world are struggling to come up with a solution. Egyptians came up with their own; memes from the humorous to the ridiculous, from the obvious to the ingenious, a mother wondering about her son’s solution that will only take two days, one day to destroy the Cargo Ship and clean the mess the next day. Some suggested draining the waterer from one end and tip over ship free; another wondered if they could use WD-40 grease spray to loosen up the stuck ship’s end; others jokily call on general el-Sisi to use his supernatural power to push the ship free it from the sand. The suggestion that floated all over Egypt asked el-Sisi to use his “Tafreeha” bypass that he built in 2015 and claimed it is the “rebirth of Egypt” and declared it “Egypt’ gift to the world”. The $8.5 billion “New Suez Canal” was built to boost sipping traffics but mainly to post general el-Sisi’s ego and image traffics. There was a hysterical celebration that lasted for weeks, five miles of the red carpet was spread on the road to welcome general elSisi entourage. The image of the general standing wearing his enormous black glasses with his military uniform on the Pharoah boat is startling, a reminisce of the one used during the official canal opening on November 17, 1869, that inspired Aida opera by Verdi, the great Italian composer. When the Egyptian Ambassador to the US, then Mohamed Tawfik, was visiting Minneapolis to celebrate the anniversary of the Alexandria Library. I asked Ambassador about the hysterical celebration of an insignificant 20 miles waterway bypass in a country that built the pyramids and the Hight dam. He was shaken. “Don’t say that, this is a miracle done by Egyptians and for Egyptians,” The expanded canal was used as propaganda to boost el-Sisi as the champion of modern Egypt, the new messiah who would save Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood. Now this “New Canal” the miracle of elSisi didn’t help in any way in freeing the stuck cargo that halted shipping traffics for almost a week; the clumsiness and the incompetence of the Egyptian authorities in handling the stuck cargo are damaging Egypt and Suze canal reputations around the world. General el-Sisi has yet to speak or address the crisis; the first time to hear from him was on Monday in a tweet congratulating Egyptians for their hard work to free the cargo, no mention of the Dutch company doing the work, Royal Boskalis Westminster, Peter Berdowski, the chief executive was not as optimistic! “We shouldn’t start cheering just yet,” he cautioned. “The Egyptian government is a practiced liar. It lies to its people every day, but, in times of crisis, italso lies to the international community. “explained David Hearst at the Middle East Eye. “The world now realized how important the Suze Canal waterway” bragged Admiral Osama Rabie, the head of Suez Canal Authority, who gave the credit of freeing the stuck Ever Given to general el-Sisi. “The president’s words gave us the motivation to free the ship,” he explained in a press conference, world efforts and technology used were ignored. The cargo ship is free now after being stuck in the Suez canal blocking global shipments for almost a week. However, General el-Sisi, for years, has been blocking the road to democracy, and only Egyptians can free Egypt from the stuck General!
Ahmed, 3/30/2021
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