If an Egyptian goes to jump off a bridge, will another stop him? In an attempt to gauge the Egyptian people's response, TV show host Mamdouh El-Shenawy set out to find an answer to this question. Standing on Qasr al-Nil Bridge, El-Shenawy pulled an unusual stunt by seemingly attempting suicide by jumping off the bridge into the Nile, hoping to be stopped or acknowledged. However, to his surprise, he wasn't.

Unfortunately, the people’s reaction came to El-Shenawy as quite a shock because no one tried to stop him from taking his own life. To his surprise, as he stood on the edge of the bridge, no one actually seemed to care what he was doing, even after he jumped into the water. Some even went as far as photographing the stunt before carrying on their way. Passersby ignored him as if they saw this every day.

“I jumped to prove Egyptians’ indifference to a man attempting suicide. They turned a blind eye to what I was doing. We are starting to lack integrity, it simply does not exist anymore,” said Mahmoud El-Shenawy on his show, Kholaset El Kalam, which airs on El Hayah channel, after making it out of the water with no injuries. “Some people only stopped to take photos and videos on their phones of what I was doing, which tells me that we have much to work on. May God help us.”

A silent killer here at home, suicide is a taboo issue among Egyptians that is often curbed and not given sufficient attention. With Mamdouh El-Shenawy making a bold statement, there is definitely a discussion to be had about the seeming desensitization of the Egyptian public to this often fatal issue.