Revolutionary Socialists are hoping to spread awareness of poverty in Egypt with the Ayzeen Naeesh (“We want to live”) campaign (File photo)
DNE archive
A group of Revolutionary Socialists were to gather at the Hadayeq Al-Maadi metro station to raise awareness of social injustice on Wednesday night as a part of the organisation’s Ayzeen Naeesh (“We want to live”) campaign.
“It’s not a protest…it’s a general awareness campaign,” said Revolutionary Socialist Ahmed Hassan. “It’s to show the people the social injustices that are happening in Egyptian society.”Ayzeen Naeesh focuses on the key issues of wages, healthcare, housing, and education. The campaign also centres its awareness on the idea of combatting poverty, exploitation, slums, and unemployment.
The Revolutionary Socialists founded the Ayzeen Naeesh campaign and have started events like those at Hadayeq Al-Maadi over the past two months. They approach people and distribute flyers outlining pressing social and economic issues facing Egypt.
A flyer on the initiative’s Facebook page reads, “Egypt produced 54 television sitcoms in Ramadan with a budget upwards of EGP 180 million while there are 15 million homeless Egyptians living outside and in tin huts, garages, cemeteries, and slums in Greater Cairo.” Another reads, “a minimum wage for those living in cemeteries, a maximum wage for those living in palaces.”
In response to the current electricity and waste collection crises, another message reads, “My dear collector, we won’t pay the price of a service that doesn’t reach us. The electricity is cut all month and the garbage isn’t being collected.” The message echoes sentiments expressed by the Socialist Popular Alliance Party (SAPP), which has established the “We Are Not Paying” movement. Through this campaign SAPP has called for people to refuse to pay electricity and garbage bills, as power outages and uncollected garbage continue to plague Cairo and the rest of Egypt.
While the campaign allocates most of its focus on fair wages and poverty, a wide variety of messages distributed by the Revolutionary Socialists include issues of sexual harassment and rising prices that affect impoverished communities.
The Revolutionary Socialists continue organise protests calling for fair wages and social justice, often in cooperation with other groups in the country. However Ayzeen Naeesh is an exclusively Revolutionary Socialist action aimed at communicating the values the group holds important for progress in Egypt.
At the bottom of a long list of social injustices printed on one of the flyers, a concluding statement says, “together we will be able to realise the social justice that we deserve, and this is not granted from anyone. This is the simplest right that we need to realise and we will.”
