What happened here?

Day 4,139, 04:50 • Published in Egypt Egypt • by Hossam Nasr

Hey everyone,

I am a new citizen of Egypt that just joined yesterday, and this game seems really interesting. My friend got me excited about joining and pretending for once in Egypt that we have an actual democracy and meritocracy.

I was thoroughly disappointed when I became a citizen of Egypt and discovered that even here, just like real life, Egypt is suffering under dictatorship. I tried to get to the root of the issue and really understand what is going here and why we ended up in this situation. I read through newspaper articles from both sides as well as the clashes and debates in the news updates.

However, that is of course, imperfect. I'm not sure if something like this already exists, but I propose creating the following:

A centralized account of the history of Egypt:

I noticed that a lot of the arguments/debates centered around events and actions that new citizens, myself included, simply were not here to witness. I know some people have been here since 2010 and 2011. Why don't we pool together all of our knowledge and write a detailed account of the history of Egypt: what happened, who took power, etc., especially detailing the main points of clash that led to this situation. This, of course, can generate intense debate since certain framing of some events might not be favorable to one group or another. I still think it's worth pursuing, though, especially for new citizens. Once again, I apologize if something like this already exists, and if it does, please point me to it and ignore my suggestion.


Lastly, I am also happy to hear both sides of the argument for/against the decision to form a dictatorship. I think the argument against is more straightforward. That being said, I read there were also grievances on the other side that led to this decision, and I'm curious to hear their side of the argument.

I will tell you this, however: for you, this might just be a game where you can exercise your fantasy to dominate over a country, but for us, or me at least, this is more. We live under a dictatorship in real life. We have tried to liberate ourselves in January 25th, 2011, in personally one of the proudest moments of my life. Look up the January 25th revolution if you guys are curious to learn more about the modern history of Egypt. This revolution was stripped away from us in a coup in 2013, and we have been once again living under brutal military dictatorship since then. For me, this game was a chance to experience what it would be like to have Egypt be a democracy the way I always dreamed it to be. The arguments for dictatorship are all too familiar to us, and some of the things I've seen you guys say are very reminiscent of real life dictatorships. There is almost never an excuse for dictatorship, oppression, and domination.

That being said, as I mentioned before, I am interested to hear your side of the argument.

Thank you all for reading, and I'm happy to be joining Egypt!! Tahya Masr!