I'm angry with Egypt, Essam the taxi driver told me as we made our way toward the Women and Memory Forum, a feminist library where I was hoping to do research for my final paper. Every country takes advantage of Egypt's history except Egypt! Essam himself was particularly historically conscious, pulling examples from the past to prove to me that Egypt was on the fast track to destruction.
In Mubarak's time, plenty of mistakes were made, but those were mistakes we could live with. Now? There are mistakes being made that we can't live with. Essam continued: What Egypt needs right now is statesmen -- like Amr Moussa. He's respected! He cited his experience with the Foreign Ministry and the Arab League. Who we have now -- those are no statesmen and no one can solve the problems they've created. You know, Islam teaches forgiveness...
He seemed to be implying that forgiveness of the sins of the past was necessary for the country to make progress. Look at Nelson Mandela! He was in jail for decades, but when he came out, he forgave the people who had put him there and moved his country forward. And what about us? The new regime comes and tries to control its enemies in exactly the same way that they [the Brotherhood] were being controlled before. They're just afraid that if they don't have total control they'll be sent back to the jail they came from.
Essam is one of a perhaps not very small minority of Egyptians that has begun to express nostalgia for the pre-revolution regime. He was for the revolution two years ago, but he sees its aftermath as even worse.
The Women and Memory Forum, where I got out, also has a mission linked to history. It aims to retell Egyptian history from the woman's perspective -- that is, reminding people that women's history is a part of Egyptian history that has been almost completely unwritten. It has reissued the memoirs of early women's rights activists like Malek Hefny Nassef and Baheya El Badeya and tried to collect the pamphlets, conference proceedings, and articles ("gray literature") published by local feminist organizations in Arabic from across the Middle East. The Arabic part is key: most dialogue about women in the Arab world happens in English and other European languages, and even many feminist activists in the region are more comfortable or familiar with the English terms for feminist ideas than with the Arabic. In order for women's history - and their contemporary priorities - to be accepted and integrated into public discourse here, so the thinking goes, it needs to be happening in Arabic.
I finished my paper on the use of cultural history by feminist groups today as part of their effort to reclaim public space for women (see "Women on the Offensive"). This was my last assignment for CASA, and very quickly the whole program came to an end. We were feted at the Flamenco Hotel with lunch and a set of student performances on May 16 -- which three friends and I contributed to with a dance medley to three wildly popular Egyptian songs. Probably for the best, the few days following our "graduation" were packed with goodbye parties and outings to our favorite restaurant, since most of the other CASAwiyyeen were leaving Egypt for good. I had little time for existential questioning: Do I really speak Arabic now? What do I do next? Of course my Arabic is way better than it was a year ago, but I'm not sure that I made the magical ascent to fluency that I imagined when I signed up. I'm not sure what more I'll have to do to get there, but staying longer in Egypt at least ensures I won't backslide too soon and, one would hope, I can keep learning from the streets.
One of the last days before the mass exodus to America and my own departure for Ethiopia, I went with a few others to visit our friend Sofia in her new married digs in Shobra. Having been previously only for the wedding itself, and at night, we barely recognized the street without the flashing Christmas lights and brightly colored swaths of fabric. Sofia and her husband, Muhammad, live in his family's building the floor over his parents. This is a common system in Egypt, where staying as close to all your relatives as possible is something that appeals to many young people (and aging parents). The sense of community in Shobra is obvious even from a brief visit. Muhammad took us up to the roof, from which we could see and yell across to people on their own balconies and roofs in all directions. Five-year-old Youssef was one of these neighbors. He looked across at us, then held up a walkie talkie and yelled something into it very seriously. Muhammad called to him to come over, and a few minutes later he appeared beside us. I was calling the government on you, he told us very matter-of-factly. He turned to my roommate Andrea and grinned: Better get a gun! Muhammad, a political activist, asked Youssef what he wanted to be. A policeman or a boxer, Youssef replied. You think the government is good? Muhammad asked him, bemused. He nodded. Then he proceeded to ask us about our favorite professional boxers. Later, Youssef decided to imitate for us the way that Americans dance. He rapidly jumped up and down in place. That's how Americans dance. And how about Egyptians? we asked. He immediately broke it down with the best sha3by moves around. It's like that, except with a knife! he explained.
People back home have always asked me, a bit incredulously, if I really feel safe here. I have always said yes. But a week or so before things wrapped up, the newly chosen director of CASA, Chris Stone, was stabbed in the neck outside the US Embassy. A young, angry, unemployed man had come in from the countryside, so the papers reported, in search of American blood. It is said that he approached Dr. Stone outside the embassy and asked if he was American. When he said yes, as none of us have ever been afraid to do, the man stabbed him. He went immediately to the hospital and made a full recovery, but the nature of the incident (random, in a sense, and highly intentional in another) had people on edge. It is an example of tragically misdirected hatred -- attempting to kill an American who has spent his whole life trying to make the West understand the Middle East better and more sympathetically. Right-wing blogs representing the other extreme of ignorance even circulated an article entitled "American professor who hates America stabbed in Cairo by Muslim who also hates America" with what was intended as a sinister picture of the pale-skinned, blond-haired Dr. Stone (who I met only once while he was eating with his young kids in a cafe in Zamalek) wearing a keffiyeh. To be honest, the incident did not make me feel personally unsafe: Of course there are people here who hate America (there are people everywhere who do), but the vast majority do not, and even those who do are highly unlikely to take it out on any of us personally. But it did discourage me -- why does our presence have to be so fraught? Should we be expressing some kind of imperialist guilt? That's exhausting after a while. Should we acknowledge the horribly unfair distribution of wealth? Be embarrassed by the glitter in my toothless fruit man's eye when he inquires about a visa to America?
Often I find myself just hoping for indifference -- as a woman, as an American -- not to be noticed or noted at all.
In Mubarak's time, plenty of mistakes were made, but those were mistakes we could live with. Now? There are mistakes being made that we can't live with. Essam continued: What Egypt needs right now is statesmen -- like Amr Moussa. He's respected! He cited his experience with the Foreign Ministry and the Arab League. Who we have now -- those are no statesmen and no one can solve the problems they've created. You know, Islam teaches forgiveness...
He seemed to be implying that forgiveness of the sins of the past was necessary for the country to make progress. Look at Nelson Mandela! He was in jail for decades, but when he came out, he forgave the people who had put him there and moved his country forward. And what about us? The new regime comes and tries to control its enemies in exactly the same way that they [the Brotherhood] were being controlled before. They're just afraid that if they don't have total control they'll be sent back to the jail they came from.
Essam is one of a perhaps not very small minority of Egyptians that has begun to express nostalgia for the pre-revolution regime. He was for the revolution two years ago, but he sees its aftermath as even worse.
The Women and Memory Forum, where I got out, also has a mission linked to history. It aims to retell Egyptian history from the woman's perspective -- that is, reminding people that women's history is a part of Egyptian history that has been almost completely unwritten. It has reissued the memoirs of early women's rights activists like Malek Hefny Nassef and Baheya El Badeya and tried to collect the pamphlets, conference proceedings, and articles ("gray literature") published by local feminist organizations in Arabic from across the Middle East. The Arabic part is key: most dialogue about women in the Arab world happens in English and other European languages, and even many feminist activists in the region are more comfortable or familiar with the English terms for feminist ideas than with the Arabic. In order for women's history - and their contemporary priorities - to be accepted and integrated into public discourse here, so the thinking goes, it needs to be happening in Arabic.
I finished my paper on the use of cultural history by feminist groups today as part of their effort to reclaim public space for women (see "Women on the Offensive"). This was my last assignment for CASA, and very quickly the whole program came to an end. We were feted at the Flamenco Hotel with lunch and a set of student performances on May 16 -- which three friends and I contributed to with a dance medley to three wildly popular Egyptian songs. Probably for the best, the few days following our "graduation" were packed with goodbye parties and outings to our favorite restaurant, since most of the other CASAwiyyeen were leaving Egypt for good. I had little time for existential questioning: Do I really speak Arabic now? What do I do next? Of course my Arabic is way better than it was a year ago, but I'm not sure that I made the magical ascent to fluency that I imagined when I signed up. I'm not sure what more I'll have to do to get there, but staying longer in Egypt at least ensures I won't backslide too soon and, one would hope, I can keep learning from the streets.
One of the last days before the mass exodus to America and my own departure for Ethiopia, I went with a few others to visit our friend Sofia in her new married digs in Shobra. Having been previously only for the wedding itself, and at night, we barely recognized the street without the flashing Christmas lights and brightly colored swaths of fabric. Sofia and her husband, Muhammad, live in his family's building the floor over his parents. This is a common system in Egypt, where staying as close to all your relatives as possible is something that appeals to many young people (and aging parents). The sense of community in Shobra is obvious even from a brief visit. Muhammad took us up to the roof, from which we could see and yell across to people on their own balconies and roofs in all directions. Five-year-old Youssef was one of these neighbors. He looked across at us, then held up a walkie talkie and yelled something into it very seriously. Muhammad called to him to come over, and a few minutes later he appeared beside us. I was calling the government on you, he told us very matter-of-factly. He turned to my roommate Andrea and grinned: Better get a gun! Muhammad, a political activist, asked Youssef what he wanted to be. A policeman or a boxer, Youssef replied. You think the government is good? Muhammad asked him, bemused. He nodded. Then he proceeded to ask us about our favorite professional boxers. Later, Youssef decided to imitate for us the way that Americans dance. He rapidly jumped up and down in place. That's how Americans dance. And how about Egyptians? we asked. He immediately broke it down with the best sha3by moves around. It's like that, except with a knife! he explained.
People back home have always asked me, a bit incredulously, if I really feel safe here. I have always said yes. But a week or so before things wrapped up, the newly chosen director of CASA, Chris Stone, was stabbed in the neck outside the US Embassy. A young, angry, unemployed man had come in from the countryside, so the papers reported, in search of American blood. It is said that he approached Dr. Stone outside the embassy and asked if he was American. When he said yes, as none of us have ever been afraid to do, the man stabbed him. He went immediately to the hospital and made a full recovery, but the nature of the incident (random, in a sense, and highly intentional in another) had people on edge. It is an example of tragically misdirected hatred -- attempting to kill an American who has spent his whole life trying to make the West understand the Middle East better and more sympathetically. Right-wing blogs representing the other extreme of ignorance even circulated an article entitled "American professor who hates America stabbed in Cairo by Muslim who also hates America" with what was intended as a sinister picture of the pale-skinned, blond-haired Dr. Stone (who I met only once while he was eating with his young kids in a cafe in Zamalek) wearing a keffiyeh. To be honest, the incident did not make me feel personally unsafe: Of course there are people here who hate America (there are people everywhere who do), but the vast majority do not, and even those who do are highly unlikely to take it out on any of us personally. But it did discourage me -- why does our presence have to be so fraught? Should we be expressing some kind of imperialist guilt? That's exhausting after a while. Should we acknowledge the horribly unfair distribution of wealth? Be embarrassed by the glitter in my toothless fruit man's eye when he inquires about a visa to America?
Often I find myself just hoping for indifference -- as a woman, as an American -- not to be noticed or noted at all.
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