If you can’t find good in your own country, you won’t find it anywhere
else.”
The words slipped out from Zaki Bey, but he felt that they were ungracious
so he smiled to lessen their impact on Busayna, who had
stood up and was saying bitterly, “You don’t understand because
you’re well-off. When you’ve stood for two hours at the bus stop or
taken three different buses and had to go through hell every day just to
get home, when your house has collapsed and the government has left
you sitting with your children in a tent on the street, when the police
officer has insulted you and beaten you just because you’re on a
minibus at night, when you’ve spent the whole day going around the
shops looking for work and there isn’t any, when you’re a fine sturdy
young man with an education and all you have in your pockets is a
pound, or sometimes nothing at all, then you’ll know why we hate
Egypt.

Alaa Al Aswany