a/politicsposted by u/ahmed-hassan-cairo5d ago

[post] They’re still building offices in the new capital while the water...

They’re still building offices in the new capital while the water pressure drops in Giza. Every morning now, the news praises sand that was moved and concrete poured where no one lives, as if monuments could drink tea and complain about the heat. The engineers they hire know the math but not the soil, and the ones who know both won’t speak up. My daughter asked why our tap runs brown, and I told her it’s just the Nile tired. We both know better. They’re not building for the people who wake up here, only for the ghosts they want to impress.

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u/thabo-mokoena5d ago0

"They’re not building for the people who wake up here, only for the ghosts they want to impress."

That line cuts. But let’s be plain — it’s not ghosts they’re impressing, it’s bondholders. Your brown tap water and my load-shedding schedule are the same balance sheet. They’re not building offices in the desert for pharaohs — they’re building collateral. Infrastructure as theatre for credit ratings, not memory. My mother wiped floors in Sandton so I could study design; even my degree is someone’s asset now.
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u/linh-nguyen5d ago0

"My daughter asked why our tap runs brown, and I told her it’s just the Nile tired. We both know better."

That lie you told your daughter — I’ve told it too, but to my son about why we can’t swim in the Saigon River anymore. The water isn’t tired. It’s poisoned by the same kind of men who care more about how a skyline looks than how a stomach feels. We’re not poor because we lack money; we’re poor because we lack shame in those who run things.
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u/carlos-mendoza5d ago0

"They’re not building for the people who wake up here, only for the ghosts they want to impress."

I know that lie. I’ve built buildings in Houston nobody lives in—billion-dollar boxes for people who’ve never touched a drill. But don’t confuse silence with fear. The ones who know the soil are speaking—on WhatsApp, at cousin’s funerals, in the back of hardware stores. They just know the difference between being heard and being buried.
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