Mind The Gap

The world is currently suffering a critical problem, which is income inequality.

It has created a wide social gap between social classes that is so hard to be filled. Such
that, President Obama stated that widening income inequality is the defining
challenge of our time. There are two extremes that are currently existent, those who
are living a luxurious life while enjoying all the privileges of their social status, and
on the contrary, there are those who are not even able to gain access to their basic
human rights such as food, clean water, clothing, education, and shelter. Therefore, I
decided to write my opinion paper on income inequality, specifically in Egypt, and to
show how this form of inequality has reflected in other dimensions through the
passage of time, creating social inequality.
Income inequality has always been existent, and it has always been seen as
functional. The justification for difference in income distribution is that each persons
educational background, work experience, and skills are subjective. Thus, the
existence of these differences provides incentives for competition, innovation, and
pushes people to excel among their counterparts. Thus, this is the reason the
difference in income distribution was considered in a fair manner. However, in the
past few years the gap between the rich and the poor has become higher than ever; In
BBCs article Gap between rich and poor keeps growing it is mentioned that the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stated that the
richest 10% of the population are earning 9.6 times the income of the poorest 10%.
Consequently, this widening gap is preventing the economy from growing, and is
depriving a high amount of the population from their basic human needs without even
offering them with a gateway for escape. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an
action to take place to avoid facing any further consequences.

One of the primary factors that have contributed in turning the inequality in
income distribution into a significant issue is the fact that everything has become
more materialistic than ever. Thus, money has turned into a decisive and main factor
in determining an individuals social class. In the older generations, this problem did
not arise and was not apparent because inequality in income at that time was just a
single measure of inequality that was not strongly associated with social inequalities
in terms of outcomes. This is because at that time gaining access to the basic human
rights was available for everyone. Thus, the income gaps never caused further
inequalities in other dimensions. For example, at the time of my grandmother, who is
in her late seventies, there were a very limited number of private schools in Egypt that
were highly expensive and were there to serve the crme de la crme of society. Thus,
public schools were the main source of gaining access to education for the uppermiddle class, middle class, and lower class. Consequently, public schools at that time
were offering high quality of education, and a big portion of society was offered an
equal opportunity in gaining access to education and in the quality of education
established.
The fact that Egyptians used to be more civilized in older times is sufficient to
explain how essential equal access to high quality education is vital, as education is
the essence of bringing up an enlightened generation. Thus, in older generations there
are numerous examples of underprivileged people who were able to climb the social
ladder and escape hardship for good. However, it is because the higher is the illiteracy
rate among the lower social classes, the less powerful they become. Subsequently, the
easier is manipulating them by the uppers social classes, who are the ones in power
and who are constantly willing to maintain their power status and dominance at any
price. This is known as the Cultural Hegemony which is the ability of the higher

social classes to hold power over the lower social classes through dominating their
thoughts, values, worldviews, norms and expectations. Thus, the more deteriorated is
the education system the higher is their chance in maintaining their power and
dominance. As education is the most empowering weapon any person can earn, and
through being deprived from it; a person is not only prohibited from climbing the
social ladder but is also proscribed from the ability to evaluate and take a stand.
Therefore, gaining access to high quality of education and in affordable
amounts of money is a dimension that should be satisfied and offered equally among
all social classes once again. Firstly, it is because as mentioned above education is
well known for being the primary gateway for any individual to escape the social
class they were born in, through working hard and excelling among their counterparts
to end up landing in a job that provides a high income. However, through preventing
equality from taking place in the education received this would subsequently, deprive
any individual from their right to do the hard work and escape to the social class they
are willing to be in. In addition, gaining access to education equally allows children
to be exposed to the same things. Thus, children are all raised up with somehow a
similar mindset, which results that upper and lower social classes can easily
communicate and interact with each other. However, when education received starts
degrading based on the income level, the children get exposed to different materials,
so when both social classes come to interact or communicate the process is so
difficult. As each person comes from a different world with different forms of
thinking, which is exactly what we are currently suffering. There are the two extremes
that are currently living in Egypt and the gap between them is so wide in an
intimidating manner. There is the elite of society, who live in superior neighborhoods
in their luxurious apartments/villas, go to private international schools that are priced

in a lavish manner/attend university abroad/ working in multinational companies,

travel abroad at least once per year, shop monthly from designer brands, own a
summer escape house either in the exclusive extravagant compounds such as Marassi,
Hacienda, la Vista or in Gouna. On the contrary, there are those who are living in
desperately poor circumstances, and are either unemployed or are employed but their
income is extremely low in such a manner that it fails to satisfy their basic human
needs. Thus, they are living in unsanitary, overcrowded places or are homeless, with
no access to food, clean water, clothing, sanitation and definitely no access to high
quality education.
The significant social injustice featured above has caused negative
implications that are calling for an immediate action to take place as soon as
conceivable. Besides, the damages that happened in communal bonding that caused
difficulty in communication between social classes; it has also, led to social diseases
such as extensive amounts of greed experienced by the lower social classes towards
the upper social classes. These negative effects are reflected in the different forms of
interactions that occur in places that force different social classes to interact. For
example, it clearly shows on roads in the driving attitude of microbus drivers who
belong to the lower social class towards those who are driving luxurious cars, and
belong to the upper social class. They are usually willing to annoy them on purpose,
especially when a young person is driving an expensive car they are very likely to be
harassed by taxi and microbus drivers verbally and physically. It is all because of the
greed that has accumulated inside of them because of the prevailing social inequality
the Egyptian society is currently experiencing.
As previously mentioned the strongly materialistic world we are currently
living in has augmented the amount of social inequality experienced, as income does

not only determine a persons access to education. It also affects their health, house,
lifestyle, occupation, access to services and social connectedness. As all of these
dimensions are money based. For example, whenever a person is sick they should be
sent to a private hospital to receive proper treatment, which certainly demands high
amounts of money that are not afforded by everyone. Thus, here social injustice
clearly arises; the poor person who does not receive enough income to be treated is
then forced to go to the public hospital, which is jammed with patients. The
consequence of the deteriorated education is that people graduate and start to work
but as the education they received was not up to the standard they are not able to
provide patients with high quality services. Also, when it comes to houses real estate
prices in the past era have skyrocketed so in order for a low-income family to afford
buying an apartment, it is almost impossible. In addition, high quality food and water
are sold at very high prices that low income people can never afford so only people
who receive high incomes are able to eat and drink high quality food and clean water,
which is a significant form of social injustice.
In conclusion, for a better tomorrow the prevailing social inequality we are
currently experiencing should come to an end. This can be achieved through primarily
tackling poverty that is suffered by 1.3 million Egyptians, according to the World
Bank. Therefore, to tackle this issue the government should prioritize these social
problems, and tackle each based on their urgency. For example, education is the major
problem that should be tackled in the first place. The government should start
investing in the public schools in order to renovate them, and turn them into
functional and attractive buildings that the students would be willing to go to and
spend time in. Also, the culture of going to school to spend time instead of hanging
out in the streets should be introduced, the soccer fields should always be open for

students to play in anytime as long as there are no classes. In addition, the right people
should be chosen to become teachers; this means that there should be certain criteria
for hiring. For example, a teacher should be patient, inspirational, motivational,
understanding, emotionally intelligent, and most importantly passionate about the
subject he/she is teaching. Also, these teachers should earn a high monthly income in
return so they would be willing to work in public schools and would provide the
students with the same quality of education that is provided in the classrooms of
private schools. Lastly, the material that is taught should be more focused on teaching
the students critical thinking and analyzing skills instead of memorizing. Accordingly,
through satisfying these measures a promising improvement in education would
definitely occur. A positive relationship between the school, the student, and the
teacher would be attained which will definitely reflect positively in everyones
performance. The students educational performance will definitely improve and the
teacher will attain a fulfilling sense of accomplishment. As mentioned numerous times
above, through education any country can be able to escape poverty and develop
immensely. Thus, through terminating illiteracy, and lifting people out of poverty
certainly a wide gap would be filled in social inequality, and hopefully this newly
culture would bring Egypt a step closer to achieving social justice!

References & Citations:

Reuben, Anthony. Gap between rich and poor 'keeps growing'". 21 May 2015

Warwick-Booth, Louise. Social inequality. 2013