Friday, March 21, 2008

Happy Mother's day

The third special occasion in this festive week is Mother's Day. In Egypt, this occasion was established by Mustafa Amin, the Egyptian journalist, who was known for adding a human dimension to journalism. Amin, who believed in western-style democracy, involved his readers in a vote (the one and only free & uncontested vote in the history of Egypt) to choose a day to celebrate Egyptian Mothers. Most readers chose March 21st (the first day of spring) which symbolizes birth, serenity, & blossom.

The first Egyptian Mother's Day was celebrate in 1956. Later, several Arab countries followed suit and the day is now celebrated in 14 countries.

Some voices have risen requesting changing the name of the occasion to Family's Day. Their reasoning is, fathers too deserve to be celebrated and that the occasion might be painful to children who have lost their moms. To the two groups I say:
  • If you haven't noticed yet, there are 365 days in the year. March 21st is Mother's day. You still have 364 days left (& even 365 days in leap years) to choose a day to celebrate Father's or Family's Day. All I can say to people who still wanna hijack March 21st, and as best said by Salah Mansour in the movie "elZawga elThania" : "Heya 7abaket????"
  • I am capable of and I actually do a lot of mean things. But one thing I would never want to do is to hurt the feelings of others. Moreover, I would rather die than hurt the feelings of a child. Yet to those who want to change the day to a Family Day not to hurt orphans, I say: "In a society that claims that it is the most religeous society in the world, if orphans do not find a relative, a neighbor, or a friend who would replace (as best as possible) the mother this child has lost, then there is a huge problem with the society, and the problem won't be treated by canceling Mother's day.
  • If you are still not convinced, .............. well, I ran out of good arguments, so just let's celebrate.
Happy Mother's Day to my mom, & to all mothers in Egypt, the Arab world, and the whole world.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If some Egyptians want to change Mother's day to Family day, they will be having a common holiday with Korea where Family day is celerated on May 8th, otherwise they can choose any of the following days to celebrate father's day with the following countries.
March 14, Iran
March 19, Belgium
June 1, Lithuania
2nd Sunday in June, Austria, E
quador
June 17, El Salvadore
June 23, Nicaragua
July 30, Vietnam
2nd Sunday of August, Brazil
Septemper 1, Nepal
October 1, Luxemburg
December 5, Thailand
3rd Sunday of June, all the countries not mentioned above.
With so many dates, Egyptians can pick up any date and celebrate father's dae, or choose a totally different day to do so, they do not need to change mother's day to family day.... I smell Amr Ameen having something to do with wanting the change....

Anonymous said...

happy mothers day mama!
just curious, when is son's day?

Anonymous said...

I am replying to your question instead of your mother,"Son's day" is every day of the year, specially for sons like u...