The events of January 2011, Egypt forces me to think about the genesis of the CBO in a society.
At the end of January 2011, the world witnessed a popular uprising in the largest muslim country in the middle east, where its population lived under 30 years iron fist rule of the President Mubarak. The popular anger which was simmering for many years due to social, political and economical stagnation ignited into flame on the 25th of January 2011. The initial protest was incited by the similar uprising in Tunisia few weeks before which led to toppling of its corrupt and dictatorial regime. But the fuel that sustained the protests in the days following were one hundred percent egyptian. Egypt's high unemployment, lack of hope and dreams amongst its youth and impotence of the existing political organizations to bring about the necessary change led to this uprising.
And this is a country is where we found ourselves in. We have been living in Egypt for little over 3 months. Enough time for initial titillation of novelty and discovery to be replaced by frustration of daily life in inefficient and difficult city.
Almost everybody, be it middle east expert or us, believed this population are simply too tired and exhausted from daily grind to openly defy the authority that has ruled for 30 years. But within 4 days, an popular uprising has turned into revolution. The so called tired and defeated mass has managed to chase away the police force. Those few left found themselves barricaded behind the gates of interior ministry building. As predicted in many instances in our history, the collapse of the local law enforcement led to looting and pillaging by the mob. Initially it was concentrated in shops and businesses, but it soon moved to residential areas. But what surprised us the most was equally rapid formation of the neighborhood protection group who created check points and initiated 24 hour foot patrols. Essentially a Community Based Organization.
This led us to think about such CBOs or rather lack of such organization in other countries. Particularly Nairobi, Kenya. A country we have also lived in previously for almost 2 years. Nairobi is one of the most developed city in West Africa. At the same time, there are enormously large population who scrape of the living in poverty. Which leads to it notorious criminal reputation. It is also one of the most free country in East Africa. Unlike Egypt, its press and media are outspoken and free, therefore it is relatively easier for the like minded people to come together and form an organization without the interferences of the authority. But we found that most if not all the neighborhood to be insecure due to rampant criminal activities, yet there are no such neighborhood protection groups in existence in Nairobi as in Cairo. There maybe some, but definitely not in its scale or its effectiveness as in Egyptian counterparts.
So the question arises are why does one environment led to formation of such CBOs while the other did not.
