Begging has long since shed its humanitarian guise and morphed into a profession adopted by those who have neither the economic standing to keep them from it nor the dignity to feel ashamed of it. In every street, café, and transport station, there is always an outstretched hand, a desperate—or seemingly desperate—face pleading for help, muttering the familiar refrain: ‘For the sake of the little girl with you, may God bless you.’
It would be harsh to condemn these individuals solely for faking poverty or making a career out of begging. While idleness in earning a living is undoubtedly a failing, no one so easily trades away their dignity to become a pitiful, deceitful creature. These individuals merely stumbled at the first hurdle in a system that never taught them the meaning of self-respect, nor reserved a place for them among those who have just enough to get by. They do not exist in the official records of life, so they have taken it upon themselves to carve out their own reality, even if it is a misguided one.
The real issue lies with those whom life has genuinely forced into extending their hands for help. Among them are many who, you can sense, would return home at once—if they have a home—the moment they gather just enough to meet their urgent needs. They are not few, and we must acknowledge that, with a little human insight, we can distinguish them from the flood of beggars that fills the streets of Cairo.
A few days ago, I came across one such man in the tangled maze of Cairo’s streets. He appeared to be in his early sixties, perhaps younger but aged by illness. He wore an old but once-elegant suit, with glasses perched on his face, resembling the actor Farid Shawqi in his role in Civil Servants on Earth. But unlike Shawqi’s character, he leaned on a cane, seemingly recovering from a stroke or similar affliction, making it difficult for him to walk properly.
He did not ask anyone for anything. He did not even raise his hand. He lacked the practiced skills of his trade. Instead, he wore a forced smile, a flimsy disguise for the immense embarrassment that his eyes could not hide, betrayed by a tongue too paralysed by shame to utter the words that might move passersby to help. He hesitated every time someone came near, overwhelmed by indecision, his presence blending into the faceless crowds that rushed past, their expressions as cold and unchanging as a stone relief carved into the streets of Cairo.
This man—his sincerity, his desperation, his failed attempt to trample on his own dignity—raises many questions about himself and the thousands like him. What was his profession? How did he lose it? Does he receive an adequate pension? Is he above the retirement age? Or did illness force him out of the bureaucratic machine, leaving him with a meagre severance and a health card that grants him nothing but a place in a humiliating queue—sorry, a place under the so-called ‘healthcare umbrella’? Or is he one of those forgotten cases, an old, sick, unproductive man who will soon die, relieving both the system and his broken society of his burden? And when he does, people will forget that a respectable man once walked these streets, choking on his pride.
These are all questions in search of answers—answers that seem neither near nor sufficient in the midst of the ongoing political, social, and parliamentary debate over the so-called miracle of the new pension law. A law that appears to serve no purpose other than shifting the state’s crumbling pension fund from one authority to another, one that might slap a fresh coat of paint on it, prompting us to rejoice at yet another ‘new era’ of social justice.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.