Out of Egypt (With apologies to Andre Aciman)

Some random thoughts and comments on what I observed that I did not wish to publish  from Egypt.

Bear in mind, please, that I had personal interactions only with out local tour guide, a “liberal” woman of about 35, two or three Egyptian  men who worked for the American tour operator, and a physician who treated me for a minor problem. Of course, I interacted with hotel staff and about 5,000 street merchandise hawkers but I had no conversations with them.

Tahrir Square

. We went to the Egyptian Museum on the morning of a scheduled “million man march.” We were in and out of the Museum before the demonstration began. The Museum is right next to the former headquarters of the Democratic (Mubarak’s) party. The building has been utterly destroyed by fire and just the hulk stands there. This is really the center of Cairo, next to the Museum and fancy hotels. I think people are satisfied to keep the ruin there as a symbol of the “ancien regime.” Traffic that day into central Cairo was horrible but maybe it is horrible every day. There were Egyptian flags everywhere, sort of the way it was in NY after 9/11. I was told that pre-Revolution no one would have thought to fly a flag.

Traffic and security. I didn’t see traffic lights anywhere in Cairo or Giza (the Cairo suburb in which the Pyramids are located) and certainly none in the other cities. There were accidents and arguments all over the place. Crazy.

The approach into and out of Cairo airport is very similar to Ben Gurion. Modern and lovely with the same kind of security set up; only in Cairo no one stops the cars. There were no soldiers visible in Cairo airport. In fact, the only soldiers I ever saw were in Aswan at the airport and by the High Dam. Cairo airport is really like BG, a modern terminal with much more capacity than seems to be needed. The “modern” part ends abruptly as soon as you go out the door, just as it does in TA with the confusion with Sherutim and buses. In Cairo, the confusion is slightly more pronounced and it really helps to have someone wait for you. In fact, the tour operator always has at least two people waiting: one to get me through and one to drive the van.

The police are sort of under siege after the protests and particularly after the “soccer massacre,” so three was not much police presence in Cairo. From Luxor going north, there were many police “check points” which consist of booths alongside the road manned by one or two uniformed police who didn’t stop anyone at all.

I arrived in Cairo around midnight and the ride to Giza was over an hour. The road first went through  a quite lovely area with office buildings and high-rise apartments. The road and the neighborhood both deteriorated after about 30 minutes. The streets were full of people and street markets were open and crowded everywhere.

South of Aswan, the monuments are pretty empty as the only sensible way to approach them is by boat on Lake Nasser. There was security in each monument that consisted of either a young soldier with an Uzi (pretty sure it really was an Uzi) or a  middle aged “tourist policeman” with  a handgun. In these cases, the security guy would walk around with our group. On certain days our group was accompanied by a tough looking young soldier type with an Uzi (seemed very Israeli).

We had one troublesome encounter. At Hatshepsut’s Temple, the AIA arranged a viewing of part of the temple that is generally closed to the public. (In fact, this tour was called “Hidden Treasures” because we had access to several sites that are usually closed including the interior of the step pyramid and several off-limit tombs.) Anyway at Hatshepsut’s Temple, a group of clearly religious young men vehemently objected to our having access while they were excluded. Tensions were high, particularly since this was the precise location of the massacre of the Swiss and German tourists ten or so years ago. Several of our group were perfectly happy to pass on the visit, but the guide and accompanying archaeologist were determined to bring us in. The temple guards (not police or soldiers, just unarmed guards) stood their ground and we went in without incident and when we came out the young men were gone. I think we were all happy to get back on the bus. I am sure we seemed to be the last vestige of colonialism,  and maybe we were.

Women and Liberalism: The vast majority of women have their hair covered with head scarves in Cairo. Outside of Cairo, virtually every woman had her hair covered. Our guide does not cover her hair. She professes to be religious and says her mother and sister do cover their hair but that she says she can be a believer and modern at the same time. Her husband is a hotel manager who spends part of every week at Sharm el Sheikh. She and her husband lived in the US for several years while he worked at a hotel in Florida.

She said she had not previously been involved in politics but joined the women’s march and identifies with the sign she saw that said: “I want to live to see another president.” She supports Mubarak being put on trial and believes he should be punished (executed?). She believes the real cause of the revolution was the fear of the military that Gamal Mubarak (the son) would be put in charge and that the military actually supported and maybe fomented the revolution. She seems to believe that conspiracies lie behind everything in Egypt; she may be correct.

Anyway, she both fears and admires the Muslin Brotherhood. She fears that they may impose their values  regardless of what they say and admires their courage for their steadfastness during the Mubarak years. She says if the environment becomes too religious or repressive she will emigrate ( to Norway, not sure what the connection is but she probably has a relative there.)

Interestingly, the doctor I met, absolutely without my asking, said he cares only about his family and not about politics. He said if things get bad, he will move to Germany and that he has secured German citizenship. The Egyptian Gazette (an English language newspaper)) reported on the continuing brain drain to Canada and elsewhere. I think elsewhere means the USA.

Our "liberal" guide and our American church-going West Point Graduate tour operator ( a  really nice man who seems perfectly sensible) both believe that the NGO's and their personnel were doing inapproriate things including paying demonstrators. Al Jazeera reports (with incredulity) that some generals seem to believe that the NGOs were a cats paw for a US invasion! Am I nuts or is everyone else? It seems to me that this will work out pretty quickly not because of fear of loss of US military  aid but for fear of not getting an IMF loan, without which the country is likely to collapse. In any event, the military "government" is salami slicing itself out of existence and the Muslim Brotherhood (which really paid demonstrators) is not worked up on the NGO issue.

Soccer Massacre. The reaction of the few locals I spoke with is confused, naïve and contradictory. They blame the government for repression and they also want the government to impose order. I can see where this is going. The speaker of the Parliament, a Muslim Brotherhood  guy, said the military should resign and the MB should form a government. That government would then  have “legitimacy” and so could end the protests “with whatever means are necessary.” The liberals (not more than 25% of the parliament and badly fragmented) have said they will not join any coalition government so they will be in the victim category. Sounds French and Russian.

Tourism. Hotels were not more than 25% full. The most common languages heard in Luxor were German and Russian. No other Americans a few English folks. Many of the people in my group were blithely unaware of developments while we were there and were deliberately not communicating with relatives back home who were worrying.

As I said in my blog, Philae is on an island and we got there in a 100 year old (so it seemed) rowboat with an outboard motor piloted by a kid who was no more than nine. He had to start the motor by cranking it with a piece of clothesline. We all noticed that another group of tourists-German- were in a spanking new boat captained by a grown-up and all the Germans wore life vests. Our Lake Nasser cruise boat was lovely but there never was a safety drill and this was less than a month after the Italian cruise boat incident. So no police, no regulation and nobody gives a damn. While we were in Egypt, three German tourists drowned in a sightseeing submarine off the Sinai coast. That didn’t stop several of our group from going up in a hot air balloon to view Luxor. I hope the guy controlling the balloon was more than 9 years old.

Roads and River. The north-south roads going out of Luxor stink and there does not seem to be any commercial river traffic at all. The land along the River is fertile (it is now irrigated and fertilized since the Nile no longer inundates). I saw fifty miles of sugar cane but the cane is moved principally by camel and donkey cart. There seem to be resources but no infrastructure.

Gasoline lines. Service stations either have no gas or have gigantic lines. We had to change buses every day because the driver couldn’t fill up. No explanation given but my theory is that this relates to the subsidies. Gasoline is heavily subsidized by the government and this is primarily a middle and upper class benefit. The government can’t afford the subsidy but is probably afraid to take it away so I bet the government is controlling its outlay by limiting the supply rather than adjusting the price. That is my guess.

Local color. As we drove out of Luxor we saw hundreds (maybe thousands) of kids in the villages. Everyone of them smiled and waved at the bus. Some of my fellow travelers said they saw a few grownups making hostile gestures but I only saw smiling kids and friendly adults. I cannot begin to describe the hawkers who approach any and all visitors to any temple or site or street or airport. Everyone wants money and some are straight-forward saying “I want money.” Usually the hawker is trying to sell you some useless item but you cannot shake these people off your tail. It is the same story in retail stores. If they would just let you look they would sell more. I never felt unsafe just totally hassled. It would be exhausting to do this trip without a group and professional tour operator who immunizes you just a bit.

The most common site in Egypt.  Every street corner and almost every building is plastered with colorful campaign posters usually of smiling men wearing ties. Occasionally  there is a poster of  a sheikh or imam and very rarely of a female. I wonder what the streets looked like before Mubarak’s fall; certainly less colorful.

The second most common site. Half built buildings and apartment houses. Various explanations were given. The building is not on the tax roll until completed; a guy builds a new floor for his son who will marry one day but not yet; cheap financing; corruption; who knows what. There seemed to me to be more incomplete buildings than complete ones. I sort of remember the same thing in Turkey fifteen years ago.

Random thoughts. I got a great sense of satisfaction at the Aswan  High Dam. All that is left of Nasser is the Lake and all that is left of the Soviet Union is the Friendship Monument. Thus always to tyrants!

Shabbat in Luxor. I had the weirdest feeling that I was the only person in Luxor, perhaps in Egypt, who heard the Muzzein on Friday night and celebrated Shabbat. This in the land of Maimonides and the hundred thousand Jews who were forced out just in our lifetime.

The future. I am not buying stock in Egypt any time soon.

What I saw. I absolutely am thrilled that I took this trip. It met or exceeded my expectations. It put everything I read and studied into a real context. But… I saw nothing of Egypt and the  ancient sites are somewhere between a great museum and Disneyland. It happens that I love both museums and Disneyland so I am ok with that. Contrast this with Rome, which is also Disneyland but is a living breathing place. The ancientness ( I know there isn’t such a word) of Egypt and the sophistication of so much of what is there is unparalleled anywhere else. Inshallah, I would go back in less exciting times.

I need to think more on the New Kingdom and the Exodus story. Aknathen, a true mon-theist is part of this puzzle as is abrupt change of policies and capitals and building projects and the introduction of chariots and horses. I am not turning into a Bible literalist but the “foundation” story does appear to have some foundation.

Farewell, dear Reader.