
Hot
tea is served with branches of mint in Fishawis coffeehouse.
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The
highest theological authority for Egyptian Muslims, the Sheikh of
Al-Azhar Mosque, graciously receives Protocol Professionals,
Inc. consultant, Dr. Keyvan Tabari. Protocol called for merely
an exchange of pleasantries.
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The tariff sign
at the Cairo Zoo divides visitors into three distinct caategories:
Egyptians, foreigners, and Arabs.
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Posing
on the camel at the Pyramids is obligatory.
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The
Ali Baba cafeteria, where the Noble Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, spent
many mornings looking out across Cairos main square.
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The
ancient Eqyptian sailboat, Felucca, and its proud captain, sail
down the main artery of the Nile River with Cairo in the background.
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A folkloric
dancer does a warm up act for the belly dancer in the wing.
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In the
transitional period to modernity elements of the past survive.
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The
Pita Seller
I
was sipping tea in the alley that doubles as the outdoor serving
area of Fishawis Coffeehouse in Cairo. A boy of about seven
passed through, pedaling small loaves of freshly baked pita bread,
shammy, held in a tray on his head. I asked for one. Showing
his fingers, he wanted five Egyptian pounds. He could not break
my twenty pound note. The customers next to me did not have change
either. An Egyptian man walked by and noticed my problem. He picked
a pita from the tray, gave it to me, and paid the boy one pound.
I thanked him and held out my money. He waived his hand to say his
was a gift. I learned later that the price of the pita was only
two-tenths of a pound. From such scenes I have formed my impressions
of Cairo, which I visited in the first five days of April 2004.
Fishawis is located in Khan al-Khalili, Cairos old bazaar.
Although both are recommended by guide books, neither is a tourist
trap. The bazaar is a center of local trade and the coffeehouses
customers are mostly local. I was sitting on a bench softened by
a thin cushion. Around me were men, and a woman, smoking sheesha,
the water pipe. Every so often, a waiter would bring hot coals in
a small brazier to stoke the pipes. On the wall opposite me in the
alley, next to an oval mirror, was the door to the coffeehouse.
The building looked authentically old, fitting between its neighbors.
I went in. A few customers were inside. There were two rooms, not
very big, with wooden and worn furniture, but still charming.
Khan
al-Khalili was established in the 14th century and seems not to
have changed much since. I looked at the medieval archways where
people lived and worked. The shops sold goods that must have also
been in demand several centuries ago. I thought of the frequent
complete overhauls of shopping centers in California and the changing
fads in their consumer products. The day before I had seen the farms
outside Cairo as we drove to Memphis, the earlier capital of Egypt.
They seemed as ancient as the ruins of Memphis and its sphinx and
statues of Pharaohs, and the nearby pyramids of Saqqara.
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Relics
of Religion
Our
group sat on the carpeted floor in the cavernous prayer room of
the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. The guide pointed to the European clock
in the courtyard. That was the gift Khedive Mohammed Ali received
from France in return for sending the Pharaonic obelisk that is
now in Paris, she said -as I would closely paraphrase such
sayings in quotes here. The clock has never worked, having been
damaged on delivery. What a bargain! she said.
It was the history of Islam, however, that the guide wanted to talk
about now. When she got to the Sunni-Shiite differences, she explained
that the Sunnis believed Mohammad was the prophet and the
Shiites believe that Mohammad was the prophet too, but have very
high respect for Ali. She paused and gave me a meaningful
glance. The two of us had a discussion on this subject in the morning
part of the tour, when I was her only client. Her characterization
of the Shiites was different then. She had said that the Shiites,
unlike the Sunnis, did not believe that Mohammad was the prophet,
They believe that Ali was the prophet. I offered that
the Shiites would be surprised to hear this as they clearly believed
that the prophet was Mohammad, and Ali was merely the first Imam.
I did not expect that our exchange would modify the guides
views. She had told me that she belonged to the Borhani religious
group that studied Islam carefully. She may have now simply allowed
for my presence. I wondered if how she described the Shiites in
the morning did not more accurately reflect the general view in
Egypt.
There
are no Shiites in Cairo, our guide said . This, in a city
that was founded by the Shiite Fatimids in the Tenth Century. The
guide explained that the Fatimid dynastys reign was ended
in 1171 by the Sunni Saladin, of the Crusade fame. The Sunnis have
since dominated Cairo. One of the most venerated sites in the city,
however, continues to be the Mosque of al-Hussein where the Cairoans
believe the head of Hussein, the prophets grandson,
is buried. There were more worshipers around Husseins shrine
than in any of the other major Mosques I visited. Although in Cairo
they may not mention it, for the Shiites Hussein, their Third Imam,
is the symbol of their grievances against the Sunnis. His martyrdom
in the battle of Karbala against the ruling Sunni Khalif is annually
commemorated as the defining tragedy in the Shiite history.
Islam appeared pervasive in Cairo. At a grocery store to buy a bottle
of water, I had to wait in line with two other customers while the
owner prayed on the floor. I saw overflowing crowds of men praying
on the street sidewalks in front of small mosques. Taxi drivers
hung verses from the Koran on their rear view mirrors. Most women
wore the Islamic headdress. This was by choice, as I also saw Muslim
women without such headdresses. I asked one such woman, a guide,
if I had heard correctly that a tourist police was asking her why
she was not wearing the hejab. She looked at me offended
and said that I misunderstood, and that nobody had a right to tell
her what to wear. Nobody dressed immodestly. To meet boys, my guide
went to the coffeehouses, but she sought calm and serenity in a
mosque.
The shrine that contained Husseins relic was in a rectangular
room. Two-thirds of the worshipers were women, but they were packed
standing in only one side of the room, separated from the men, far
fewer in number, some of whom comfortably lounged on the floor and
the chairs in the other three sides. I had already seen this disparity
in the Al-Azhar mosque. Its vast courtyard was lined with many rooms.
As we were crossing it, my guide pointed to one room where some
women were praying and said that was set aside for women. I asked,
which room is for men? The guide looked at me with a
smile of incredulity, his hands stretched out with palms up. The
whole place is ours, he said.
In conversation with me the Cairoans would invoke Islam as the guide
for political as well as moral conduct. Even their hope for a favorable
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem was cast in the millenarian
promises of the Koran.
In the old quarter of Cairo, I visited a 9th century synagogue with
a well in the courtyard which was claimed to be where the Pharaohs
daughter found the baby Moses. The Jews also fled here in the 6th
century when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Jerusalem temple. No Jew
worships at this synagogue now. The nearby Hanging Church, however,
is an active center of the Coptic community that lives largely in
its own neighborhood, separate from the Muslims. Pictures of visits
by all of Egypts Presidents were in conspicuous display in
the church. Fifteen percent of Egyptians are Coptic, my guide noted.
The next day, as I was walking by the Nile, a young man who said
that he was a Coptic Egyptian made himself my uninvited company
for a few blocks. After learning that I came from the U.S., he said
I hate the Arabs. I gathered that he was referring to
Muslim Egyptians.
I recalled that two years before, in New York, a friend had taken
me to dinner at the house of a wealthy emigre Jewish Egyptian family.
One of the sisters, not present, was married to a well known Coptic
Egyptian. The conversation was mostly about the Arabs, not complementary,
but the focus included Palestinians as well the Egyptians since
one of the guests had just come from Israel with stories about the
terror of the Intifada. Now I was walking some distance south on
Gizas Sharia el-Nil, a broad boulevard. The sidewalk was occupied
by sheep herders with their flocks. They looked biblical. Call it
kitsch, but I imagined Abraham.
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Quiescent
Politics
The
former Shah of Iran is buried in Cairos Ar-Rifai Mosque under
a simple flat tombstone. There is a royal Iranian flag in the otherwise
empty room with its elegantly ornate walls. In a room two doors
away lies the body of the Shahs former brother-in-law, Farouk,
the last king of Egypt. The Shah was given sanctuary in his last
days from the vengeful wrath of Ayatollah Khomeinis revolution.
The Egyptian revolutionaries had shown greater tolerance by allowing
the return of Farouks remains from exile. When they overthrew
him, the king was despised by his subjects for the same reason the
Shah was denounced by his: despotism in collusion with foreign powers.
Politics seemed quiescent in Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak has
now been in office for more than two decades, but there was no picture
of him, or a banner extolling his virtues in the streets of the
Capital. Nor, on the other hand, did I notice any evidence of an
organized opposition to him. It is so hard to make a living
now that people are left with no energy for political activity,
one Cairoan explained. Such sentiment toward Mubarak as was expressed
to me was favorable. Even the grooming of his son to succeed him
was approved. The sons benevolence toward the youth was noted:
He organizes computer classes for them. Mubarak was
accepted also because there is no one better on the scene.
The Cairoans complained about the increasing poverty and the widening
gap between the rich and the poor, but they did not blame the President
for those problems.
Mubarak
was credited with being smart, and appreciated for keeping
Egypt out of unwinnable wars. In reaction to the American invasion
of Iraq, unpopular among Egyptians, Mubarak had declared that he
would not stop anyone who wanted to fight with the Iraqis but would
not sacrifice Egyptian soldiers against the overwhelming American
power. Two Cairoans related this to me approvingly. They also agreed
with Mubaraks rationale for not intervening militarily in
the Palestine conflict: How could you fight them when they
have nuclear bombs?
The tariff sign I saw at the Cairo Zoo differentiated among the
Egyptians, the Arabs, and the Foreigners. The other Arabs
are neither foreigners nor Egyptians. The headquarters of the Arab
League is a prominent building in the center of Cairo. One Cairoan
told me, however, that the other Arab countries were unreasonable
in expecting Egypt alone to carry their burden. When I heard that
there would be a huge demonstration provoked by the recent Israeli
assassination of the Hamas leader, Ahmed Yasin, I went to the campus
of Cairo University which has a grand plaza capable of accommodating
thousands. I found, instead, only festive small clusters of engineering
students in nice suits and dresses, celebrating their graduation.
Across town, in the elite American University of Cairo, which is
near the barricaded American Embassy, students were playing basketball.
A short distance from Cairo University is the Embassy of Israel,
a relic of the Camp David Agreement of 1978. These days, the Cairoans
hostility toward Israel is so intense that, in conversation with
me, it extended to all Jews. The United States, one said, is believed
to be controlled by the Jews. The disappointment with America has
been accentuated by the U.S. occupation of Iraq: while Saddam
may have been bad, the Iraqis should be left alone in deciding their
own affairs, I was told. Even if one assumes that democracy
is good, it cannot be imposed by foreigners. The Cairoans
stressed that they distinguished between the American people and
the American government. Their anger at America, however, was such
that one said Ben Laden is a hero here because he was able
to hurt America. I reminded them that far from hurting Egypt,
the United States was giving it billions of dollars annually in
foreign aid, more than any other country save Israel. One Cairoan
dismissed this aid as going only to those friendly to the U.S. in
order to enable them to stay in power. The other considered it as
simply owing to Egypt for its entering the peace agreement with
Israel. Perhaps no amount of aid could adequately reduce resentment
against the U.S. The Cairoans sentiment seems to be derived
more from a sense of dignity and pride: they feel outraged and humiliated
by what they perceive that Israel and the United States are doing
toward other Arabs.
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Being
a Tourist
As
my taxi approached the pyramids of Giza, I was trying to make out
their outlines in the smog that engulfed Cairo that day. Suddenly,
I saw several young men running toward the car. The driver did not
stop; he left four of them behind. The fifth man, however, opened
the back door of the moving taxi, jumped in, and seated himself
in the back. I was sitting in front as passengers do in Cairo. Not
quite understanding what was happening, I yelled at the new arrival,
What are you doing here? Get out of my taxi. He shouted
back several phrases, including I am with the government.
I said I did not care and he had to get out. The vehemence of my
protest finally made him leave. My driver then confirmed that the
intruder wanted to be my guide for the pyramids. I fended off several
other such would be guides, while I viewed the two bigger pyramids
from the outside and walked toward the third one, the Menkaure.
Here I was met by another man who offered to take my picture. Before
I knew it he literally forced me over a camel. The beast got up,
my picture was taken, and I paid the man. At the entrance to the
Pyramid, an official tourist police stopped me and said that I could
not take my camera inside. As I was trying to figure out where to
leave the camera, he grabbed it and told me to follow him. We went
inside the pyramid. He led me down to all the corridors and storage
rooms, pointed to where I should pose and took my picture. When
we returned to the outside opening he gave back my camera. I tipped
him well, as he sternly warned me not to tell any one outside about
what he did for me.
The
would be guides of Cairo were already notorious for their hassle
at the time of the visit by Mark Twain. They usually approached
me by asking where you from? which was then followed,
regardless of my answer, with welcome! Soon thereafter,
they made their pitch, persistently. When I declined their invitation
to visit a store, they would reproach me, just five minutes
to look, not five dollars. The position of a guide with an
established tour company is a coveted one. A carpet salesman who
claimed he knew four languages -and spoke English well- disclosed
that his career goal was to become a tour guide. Enrollment in the
school of tourism, I was told, requires high grades, second only
to those for medical school.
I found that a good guide book served me as well as any tour guide.
Indeed, the great value of Cairos popular tourist attractions
was the direct sense of awe they induced simply because they were
so venerably old and monumentally huge. Detailed description almost
distracted from this enjoyment.
The pyramids and the sphinxes are located in stark desert settings.
Cairos Museum of Antiquity is only a slightly less harsh environment
for its magnificent artifacts. They are warehoused rather than displayed.
I saw no docent or museum guard. Cleaning crews were throwing buckets
of water on the floors and moping under the feet of visitors in
the galleries.
Life pulsated through the splendid architecture of medieval Cairo.
I exchanged pleasantries with men who were buying lunch from a street
vendor just next door to the 9th Century Ibn Tulun Mosque, which
still provides the worshipers tranquility in its enormous courtyard
of simple grandeur.
The buildings that were Cairos attempts in the 19th century
to imitate European cities looked tired but still charming, in the
Talaat Harb square. Groppis, once a gathering place for tout
Cairo, was now only a half empty patisserie. Café Riche ignored
its past as the locus of Gamal Abdel Nassers hatching his
coup and, instead, boasted of its literary heritage with an imposing
picture of the Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, dominating those
of lesser luminaries. A far more modest Ali Baba Cafeteria, in the
Tahrir square, which Mahfouz regularly visited, was more like a
place at which to conjure the tales of his Cairo trilogy. The Cairo
opera house which once premiered Verdis Aida, now made no
overtures to foreign visitors; my hotel concierge tried several
days in vain to find out the current program.
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The
River
What
is truly inspiring and beautiful in Cairo is the river Nile. It
is majestically wide, and surprisingly not crowded with vessels.
It is cleaner than expected. The Nile is the view coveted by the
new fashionable high rises. On its banks, especially on the Corniche
el-Nil, lovers promenade. An hour at the sunset in the ancient sailboat,
Felucca, is the most sublime experience in Cairo. In the near stillness
of this old water one peers into history. I was lucky, because on
that night there was also a full moon on the opposite side of the
sky.
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Patterns
Belly
dancing is Cairos signature night entertainment. The show
began around eleven, as we were being served dinner. The menu was
not limited to Egyptian cuisine - which I did not find especially
creative with its heavy use of tomato sauce. The warm-up acts consisted
of two bands of three performers. They were all singers; one also
supplied the music by a synthesizer. Each group performed for about
an hour. The songs were all Arabic. The belly dancer came on the
stage at an hour and a half past midnight. She was accompanied by
eleven instrumentalists. Her dancing was more athletic than the
belly dancing I had seen in the West. She changed her gorgeous colorful
costumes several time. She did not come down from the stage and
nobody went up to plant money on her body. She danced for nearly
an hour. Egyptians stay up late for their fun. I noticed that at
least three in the audience were talking on their cell phones as
the show went on. I wondered what urgent matter had to be attended
to so early in the morning.
The performances of the belly dancers as well as the singers struck
me as too repetitive, excessive, and overwhelming. I was reminded
of the arabesque in the visual arts of Cairo. It was tempting to
project this notion also into my observation of the life of ordinary
people in Cairo. In this view, the chaos of the Cairo traffic -
cars, pedestrians, and donkey driven carts competing for the same
space- was merely an exaggerated version of the same patterns. Western
tourists could escape this unfamiliar environment by retreating
to the modern world of their mostly new hotels. This cultural transition
was always a strange experience for me.
In the prism of my hotel, Cairo looked different. Opulent and luxurious,
the hotel was a bargain by Western prices. It was staffed to the
brim. Apparently all Egyptian, except the senior managers, they
spoke nearly impeccable English. The service was deferential and
effusive. Everybody seemed to have learned my name, and to use it
when speaking to me. I had never seen such courteous and efficient
concierges. My requests were accommodated almost instantaneously
and confirmed in beautiful, typed cards which were promptly slipped
under my door. I indulged in savoring the cooling pool. There, I
was corrupted by the pampering of never fewer than three attendants.
Each asked about my welfare and catered to my ordinary needs. Further,
unsolicited, each brought me, separately, such quaint perks as bookmarks
when they saw me reading. I never use bookmarks. Unable to refuse
the overwhelming hospitality, I was left pondering what to
do with them. It occurred to me that such problems only arise in
the friendly and moderate Egypt that is depicted in
some Western media.
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Biographical
Note: Keyvan Tabari
is an international lawyer, practicing in San Francisco. He holds
a Ph.D. in Public Law, as well as a J.D., and has taught at Colby
College, the University of Colorado, and the University of Tehran.
Also by Keyvan
Tabari: The Legal Context of International
Commerce
Please visit
our bookstore
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