In a recent editorial published in The Age, former Australian Minister Peter Reith called on Australians to boycott Egypt. This boycott, he suggested, should not only consist of avoiding travel to the country that has gone through four Presidents in four years, but also stopping any funding of development projects in the country. Both of these ideas are a mistake and Australia should have a greater vision in mind. Here is why. As an Egyptian and a “journalist,” I wholeheartedly condemn the sentencing of journalists to prison simply for facilitating the crucial role of journalism: that is, acting as a check on society and those in power. This imprisonment, including the recent trend of isolating voices of dissent in Egypt, is a worrying trend and signals that the road to democracy after the January 25th 2011 revolution is much longer than many had expected. The question is: who is responsible? Are the four million tourism workers, who leave their homes and families in order to make enough of a living to feed their children, to blame? While a major source of income for the country is the tourism industry, the…
