Hi Solly
Thanks for your reply - and for the record, I vastly prefer living here, with all its associated problems, than trying to eke out an existence in the UK which, like most of the "western" world is so deeply mired in the application of rules and regulations that they have lost sight of what the people who have to live under those regulations actually need. It's partly what drove me out of the UK in the first place.
There has to be balance, although equality is an entirely separate concept, and although the gulf between freedom and anarchy is very deep, it's not actually very wide. Freedom from tyranny does not mean freedom from responsibility, and at the moment certain political, religious and ideological ideals are being exercised with little thought for the overall good of the country. Some people want the foreigners out, some people wish for sharia law to be implemented nationwide, some people wish for there to be a McDonald's on every street corner, but all of these people are looking at only what is best for themselves, and what they believe is correct, not what is actually best for the people - and one could apply that to many different countries.
What is best for the people of Egypt, given that millions of nationals earn their living from tourism - and I am not just talking dive instructors here but bus drivers, sales reps, tour reps, waiters, bell boys, cleaners, taxi drivers, camel owners, tank fillers, equipment technicians, taxi repair people, tourist police, market stall owners, the guy who waves the red baton to stop cars from crushing tourists as they cross the road, the guy who collects departure tickets at Travco, the boat captains, the fishermen, the Bedouin, the Tour guides in Cairo and Luxor, the construction workers and the garbage collectors.... they all have a job because of tourism, just like many people in Orlando, Florida, or Tokyo, or Paris, or LA, or wherever, are all connected with Disneyland.
And removing foreign tourism will immediately end the livelihoods of what must amount to several million people overall, who collectively help to bring 10 or more billion dollars to the country, in a world in which the holy trinity of money, power, and the ghost of well-meaning intent reign supreme. Much as I would love my little corner of the universe to be perfect, it isn't, and unfortunately we live in an imperfect world so therefore some compromise is necessary.
I'm very glad to see the visa restrictions lifted, if in fact they were ever seriously imposed in the first place, because of course it impacts my life directly and much as I don't want to, I can move on if I have to. Most Egyptians can't. Without the continued support of Egyptian Nationals, many of whom earn far less than I do but are supporting their families on the wages they earn in Sharm because it's better than the alternatives, we - as in the foreign staff - could not exist here. It's mutual symbiosis; both parties benefit - as opposed to parasitism, where one party takes something to the detriment of the host.
This has a daily impact on our lives here, and therefore the varying political climate is something that is uppermost in everybody's minds, even if we don't quite know how to deal with it - but serious stupidity tends to stick out as seriously stupid, and understanding of local cultural variations does not really matter because job = work = money = food on table for wife and three kids back home, just like it is in any country where you have to have a job in order to earn enough money to pay for the grocery bills that will allow your family to continue to eat until the next time you get paid.
Unless, of course, your entire source of income is removed because somebody fell out of the wrong side of bed one morning. I keep blabbing about Sharm because, of course, it's where I work, but Sharm alone employs thousands of Egyptians and if you add all the other resorts, never mind Cairo and Luxor, then actually, the 10-ish billion dollar figure placed on the income generated by tourism is a little bit irrelevant. What really matters is that hundreds of thousands of people will be able to put food on the table for their families (and my cat) because foreign people like to visit this most amazing country.
Cheers and Sakaras
Crowley