Je t’inventerai des mots insensés, que tu comprendras

Tonight....

Tonight I wish to write a million words and yet each syllable sticks in my throat. I don't know whether to start with this or that or some other futile concern and yet I know that with every moment that I dally in this matter a piece of me breaks away, shrivels and dies.

I wish to open my eyes, to rejoin the human race and no longer play the role of the amusing friend and confidante, the dutiful and efficient daughter, the sister who sets the example and leads the way. I don't want to play at these things any more for I am none of these things.

I want to rage and explode my anger at myself, at the world, at those who failed to maintain the beauty that lies within and all around. Why they and I are so weak....

This post has not turned out as I expected at all....I wanted to ask why people stay in painful relationships? Are they afraid to be lonely? But sometimes loneliness is a blessing when contrasted against an existence of fighting and heartache, you can learn to savour your alone time and suddenly you are no longer lonely but alone and this is the start of a life-long romance.

Fear of leaving? The repercussions of leaving, what the other might say, what others might think. Life is too short for such trifles, we only get one shot at this existence

The fear of having notched up yet another failure...well whether you stay or not it is a failure and so why torment yourself by drawing it out. In hope of salvaging the wreck? Not going to happen....some things can not be mended 

I feel like throwing out a lot of random thoughts upon this page but somehow repelled by its chaos and haphazardness, almost like some beast spewing out its innards- each piece repulses me and yet also surprises me. 

Is there no way out of the mind?

Departure

There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go. ~Tennessee Williams

The Next Step

Looking back at this blog I have noticed in the few months that it has existed, it has mainly consisted of questions and theories and uncertainties. In short, it acts as one large question mark.

What to do? How? To trust or not to? To throw all the cards upon the table and just laugh at whatever fate has to throw?

I now know what the next step is and I'm afraid....am I really leaving Cairo? Will my beloved city no longer be home? But in fact the time draws closer and I'm behaving like a small child, holding her hands over her eyes- dreaming that if she doesn't look then it won't happen and life will continue as a dream of fairy stories and games and laughter.

 Tonight, I started bidding her goodbye, Cairo....my beloved, my tempestuous love affair that I will always go back to. As I raced back home along the Corniche after breaking fast my heart stuck in my throat as I breathed in the smell of Cairo, the lights of Cairo as they reflected back through the haze and humidity of the night, the reflections as they bounced off the waters of the Nile.

 I don’t wish to paint a cliché and over emotional picture. I have lived in many cities, seen many continents and yet I believe no city could ever compare.

Les Séparés

N'écris pas. Je suis triste, et je voudrais m'éteindre. Les beaux étés sans toi, c'est la nuit sans flambeau.

J'ai refermé mes bras qui ne peuvent t'atteindre, Et frapper à mon coeur, c'est frapper au tombeau.

N'écris pas !

N'écris pas. N'apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes. Ne demande qu'à Dieu... qu'à toi, si je t'aimais !

Au fond de ton absence écouter que tu m'aimes, C'est entendre le ciel sans y monter jamais.

N'écris pas !

N'écris pas. Je te crains ; j'ai peur de ma mémoire ; Elle a gardé ta voix qui m'appelle souvent.Ne montre pas l'eau vive à qui ne peut la boire. Une chère écriture est un portrait vivant.

N'écris pas !

N'écris pas ces doux mots que je n'ose plus lire : Il semble que ta voix les répand sur mon

coeur ; Que je les vois brûler à travers ton sourire ; Il semble qu'un baiser les empreint sur mon coeur.

N'écris pas !

Marceline DESBORDES-VALMORE

Do not write. I am sad, and want my light put out. Summers in your absence are as dark as a room. I have closed my arms again. They must do without. To knock at my heart is like knocking at a tomb.

Do not write!

Do not write. Let us learn to die, as best we may. Did I love you? Ask God. Ask yourself. Do you know? To hear that you love me, when you are far away, Is like hearing from heaven and never to go.

Do not write!

Do not write. I fear you. I fear to remember, For memory holds the voice I have often heard. To the one who cannot drink, do not show water, The beloved one's picture in the handwritten word.

Do not write!

Do not write those gentle words that I dare not see, It seems that your voice is spreading them on my heart, Across your smile, on fire, they appear to me, It seems that a kiss is printing them on my heart.

Do not write!

What makes an Arab an Arab?

A repost of something I wrote a long, long time ago.....

No…this is not a riddle or some lame joke but actually a serious question and does not only apply to Arabs but to every other nationality, ethnicity, culture or race out there. The question is what is it that defines you in that awkward box that you tick on a census or equal opportunities form?
Al-Jazz has been running a series of articles surrounding Arab Unity and one of these was What makes an Arab?

Sati al Husri seemed to think that:

Every individual who belongs to the Arab countries and speaks Arabic is an Arab. He is so, regardless of the name of the country whose citizenship he officially holds. He is so, regardless of the religion he professes or the sect he belongs to. He is so,regardless of his ancestry, lineage or the roots of the family to which he belongs to. He is an Arab.

That seems to be a very cut and dry explanation for what it is to be something and seems to lay everything at the door of langauge. But what about those living abroad who don’t speak their original language or indeed those living in the Arab world who haven’t mastered the language properly?
In the Al-Jazz article one of the contrubutors gives an anwer which certainly expands the question beyond its ordinary boundaries

Khaled Bahaeldin, Surgeon- Egyptian

I believe that Arab identity is the product of a historical interaction among people sharing a geographically unpartitioned area. This interaction comprises theological, cultural, linguistic and political components, each of which takes precedence in a particular historical era. But I have to stress that the ‘intra-actions’ between Arabs have never been due to a singular component. Indeed, the Arab inhabitants of the Middle East, despite the obvious chauvinisms, could claim communality with each other.”

I believe that the root of this identity lies also in values, religion, habits, attitudes etc. Also a certain unconditional love for a place that seems a little crazy at the best of times.

The Decay of Arabic

For me this is a very topical post. Many intellectuals are lamenting the decline of the Arabic language...but what do they mean by that? From observation I see more books than ever being published in the Arabic language and enjoying a huge success amongst audiences all over the Arab world. So this leads me to believe that the intellectuals mean we are witnessing the destruction of classical Arabic, fusha, the standardised Arabic .

Sadly this is indeed the case, perhaps for the mere fact that schools have been unable to provide the kind of education their students needed to achieve a real mastery of the language. For instance, those who attended language schools with me in Egypt during the 80s have most frequently finished school without mastering either English/ French nor Arabic. Indeed a sad state of affairs. A recent conversation with the Principal of Choueifat also revealed that even those willing to pay out thousands are not achieving the kind of standards needed to really be called a linguist.

But in anycase do we really need to be clinging to fusha? As potent as the ideology of a single unifying language has been for centuries, there are growing indications that it may finally be falling by the wayside. But as Layla Ahmed this may be lending a greater excuberance to the texts being published:

"I had always felt that English was somehow close and more kin to Egyptian Arabic than was standard Arabic. Until now this had seemed to me to be a nonsensical, unreasonable feeling. Now I realized that in fact English felt more like Egyptian Arabic because it was more like it: both are living languages and both have that quickness and pliancy and vitality that living spoken languages have and that the written Arabic of our day does not. I have yet to hear or read any piece of Arabic poetry or prose by a modern writer that, however gorgeous and delicate and poetic and moving, is not also stilted and artificial. There is a very high price to pay for having a written language that is only a language of literature and that has only a distant, attenuated connection to the living language.

I am not, I should say, implicitly arguing that we should do away with or stop teaching standard Arabic, for of course I recognize its usefulness as a lingua franca. And I know too how complicated the issue is, among other reasons because Classical Arabic (albeit different again from Standard Arabic) is the language of the Quran, and I know that many major writers of literary Arabic — including Naguib Mahfouz — consider literary Arabic, the Arabic of the educated classes, to be the only acceptable vehicle for literature. So I am certainly not arguing against our continuing to teach, study and learn literary Arabic. I am, however, making a plea for a recognition of the enormous linguistic and cultural diversity that makes up the Arab world. And I am arguing for our developing a creative approach that, instead of silencing and erasing the tremendous wealth that this diversity represents, would foster it and foster the development, on at least an equal footing with standard Arabic, of written forms of Moroccan, Gulf, Egyptian, Iraqi, Palestinian, and other Arabics, and also of the non-Arabic living languages of the region, such as Nubian and Berber. European nationalists have devastated their own local languages — Welsh, Scots, Breton — languages now struggling to make a comeback. Let us avoid that history. Let us find a way to celebrate, and rejoice in, this wealth and diversity that is ours, instead of setting out to suppress it."

Meanwhile the Lebanese government is doing what it can to save the language. 

In the Gulf, with the scores of English speaking expats flocking to their shores for economic purposes and English remaining at the front of business, economy and more and more in everyday life, Professors are becoming alarmed that Arabic may disappear all together. This would render Sati el Husri's definition of an Arab meaningless.

Every individual who belongs to the Arab countries and speaks Arabic is an Arab. He is so, regardless of the name of the country whose citizenship he officially holds. He is so, regardless of the religion he professes or the sect he belongs to. He is so,regardless of his ancestry, lineage or the roots of the family to which he belongs to. He is an Arab.

The Mandatory Silly Post

So I was recently flicking through my reader when I came about this post on National Sterotypes, as you can see it includes Brits, Brazilians, Mexicans but no Arabs- unless you incled the heading 'any Muslim nation'. So I thought I'd feature some of my own little sterotypes of Arab nations

The Egyptians: Well being one of them, I would tend to say Egyptians should be characterised by sheer awesomeness, but the reality is that we're known for our sense of humour and a deep sense of honour and generosity. Unfuortunately we are known also for being somewhat materialistic...ah well, can't be perfect :)

The Lebanese: Well the Lebs are known for being very attractive...particularly their ladies (though their men also....la ba2s ya3ni) and for being party animals. They are also known for being rather crazy- this country has seen more civil wars than peace since it was created.

The Palestinians: Tough, rough, idealistic and most certainly the underdog.

The Syrians: An old Egyptian joke went that in Syria the first to wake up in the morning made a coup d'etat. Generally they are known for their business-savyness....the quality of their domestic intelligence and in my humble opinion, their complexity.

The Iraqis: Definitely a tough and rough people and known for being a little bit blood thirsty. More recently seen as the abused under-dog much like the Palestinians but much admired for their bravery and resiliance.

The Saudis: Hypocrites, who think they can buy anything. Also for those who have lived there, I think all agree that it has to be the most boring country on earth- hence no picture.

The Algerians: Well the recent football debacle between Egypt and Algeria fuelled the idea that the Algerians are very hot headed. A very long civil war has fuelled this theory. Ha...and when looking for a picture I felt myself needing to add that many are not in Algeria- though that applies for many Arab countries.

Gulf Arabs: Yuck

disclaimer: this post was just for fun and meant no disrespect to any of the mentioned nations

Maturity is not measured in years, or by gray hair, or by lines on the face: it is measured by scars on the heart. To never have suffered heartbreak is to never truly have lived. To expose one's heart repeatedly is an act of sacrifice, kindness, and hope, not one of regret and shame.

Is this the case? Is it truly the case? Or does it display weakness and a poor judgement of character? When I think of the destruction I've seen, I feel a large part of me has shrivelled and died. I'm no longer the laughing child I once was in those old photographs I sorted through. Nor am I the melodramatic teenager, who waited with such hope for life to begin. Nor even that girl in her early twenties who embraced the trials and adventures life had to offer with such a devil may care attitude. In fact I feel more cautious and afraid than I ever felt before.

Frustration

A new day and yet i felt grumpy and despondant.....i think because of too little sleep but i also felt so angry! Angry at myself for being such an idealistic fool, angry at those who took advantage of that and again angry at myself for allowing that to happen. I feel always as though I am two women in one; the sweet innocent but gullible little fool and the worldly, capable but not so nice woman....I wish i could bring them togethet to bond together.
To compound this anger, i was contacted by all the people I had no desire to hear from....I smiled and laughed and wished them all the most pleasant of Ramadans, then felt like banging my head because of my stupidity.....why oh why do I always try to be nice???? I once thought this was stronger, to smile at those who had wronged you- turn the other cheek if you will but no, I think this is just an inability to do otherwise.
I know I said it would require small steps to get over this but this is ridiculous!!!

But then it just struck me...it takes very little to be civil for somone one cares nothing for.

Ramadan

The inevitable Ramadan post and yet I'd like to believe that this is with a slight difference. For me, Ramadan is the best month of the year, though not for the reasons one would imagine.

Perhaps from habit, from example or genuine spiritual awakening/ reawkening, I find Ramadan a chance to take stock of what has happened throughout the year, a time to contemplate and review what has gone wrong and right. What needs to be rectified etc.Of course this happens throughout the year but Ramadan always seems a bit more intense.

Over the past few months, I feel I've had ample time to reflect, perhaps much needed and whilst I have arrived at a few conclusions and been stronger for it, I can not be 100% sure that these are all correct.

I still stand by the statement though that at every moment of our lives we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss and oh how very true that has proven to be!

I feel like these are the obscure ramblings of someone who's mind is jumping from one thought to another and that is in part true, but these thoughts are interconnected.

I need to be stronger and stick by my convictions, regardless. I need to be a bit more selfish and care more for myself. I need to stick to 'the plan' and most of all I need to be rid of this blame I heap upon myself each time I consider the past.

On that note I should sleep before I become even more arcane :)

Egypt's Future

I find the articles of Alaa Al-Aswany compelling and yet singularly depressing but not in a way that can make me turn away or stop reading them for they speak the truth. The painful truth.

There is not a single rule in Egypt which really applies to all, from traffic offences to bank loans to the sale of state land and property and public-sector companies. Who you are, who your father is, how wealthy you are and how close you are to the regime in power – all these are decisive factors in determining which rules you will be judged by. Everything in Egypt now depends on the circumstances and every case has its own special rules. Causes no longer necessarily lead to effects. Hard work does not necessarily lead to success and a mistake does not necessarily lead to punishment. 
Those who lived in Egypt in the 1960s no doubt remember a unique phenomenon: hundreds of secondary school and university students used to do their homework in the street under the street lamps … they were too poor to study at home but they worked hard, confident that achieving success was a matter of time because their advancement in life depended on their efforts. That system of equal opportunities in education and promotion has ended completely.
Egypt’s problem is not poverty or shortage of resources or overpopulation. Its problem can be summarized in three words: lack of justice. The injustice has simply become more than we can bear. Egyptians will not regain their sense of belonging or their capacity to work until they recover their sense of justice, and justice cannot come about in the shadow of despotism. Democracy is the solution.

It is this that makes me sad, it is this that makes me lack hope and unfortunately I see no solutions....

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Okay, this is going to be a rant and a muddle of thoughts but do please hear me out. 

How long have we been wondering about President Mubarak's imminent decline? A few year's ago Egyptian newspapers speculated that he had gone, recently he went to Germany for a 'gall bladder operation' and now the Western media speculate that he may have terminal cancer. 

Surely we're missing the point here? Should Mubarak die tomorrow, the automatic result will be that his son Gamal will take over and the system will continue unchanged.  It is disappointing that government officials in foreign capitals are now concerned over the situation when  they could have been involved in making Egypt a better and more stable place by cracking down on the government and not allowing them to do whatever they want.

It is laughable that foreign officials are now worried about Egypt when the president dies. They weren’t worried when Egypt was beating, torturing and killing activists over the past few years because they got Egypt to support their policies in the region.

Hammam

I love Hammams!!!

HAMMAM: Spreader of Warmth from Mervyn Leong on Vimeo.

Talking about the French

Recently I have been getting back into French culture in a big way: music, movies, literature...the lot!

Perhaps this is because, as a language it is so much more descriptive of the human state. All aspects of the French dialectic is fashioned to answer the 'big questions'. Most of their films seem to address these issues and in my case never seem to fail to leave me a jibbering wreck, having hit too close to home such as in 'Coco before Chanel'.



The music also touches so close....check out anything by Noir Desir.



And literature.....ah, literature has consumed tomes authored by intellectuals and philosophers much more intelligent than I but just think Camus, Baudelaire, De Beauvoir, Sartre......

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.
Albert Camus

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
Albert Camus

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me.

Simone de Beauvoir

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
Simone de Beauvoir

Please Make Me Blog!

I miss blogging, I really do. I used to be addicted to it at one point and now..... Well even when I have more time on my hands than I know what to do with, I can't.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
Andrew Carnegie

On another note, I watched Audrey Tautou and Gad El-Maleh's film Hors de Prix or Priceless yesterday. It really gave me a new comprehension of relationships- a much more pragmatic and materialistic one, whereby one enters a relationship based on the concept of give and take but in a different sense- not the one I understood, of emotional and moral support but swaping time, effort and manufactured emotions for material gain. Depressing and yet I think more prevalent than I had previously suspected. But still....a delightful film!

A Question of Freedom

I returned. I thought to start with a new blog but I wish to keep this one- it chaos represents me well and I wish to be represented with my faults and my moments of inspiration (though these days they are few and far between).
I have been feeling for a while that I am unable to write, but that is silly- if there is a time to write, then this is surely it. So I will start slowly and just commit a little of what is on my mind to this blog- in no particular order or withy any particular mastery but simply for the fact of it being. Something concrete.

So first up is this article I found in the guardian which highlights one of the aspects of life in Egypt which perhaps most annoys visitors to the country and that is the lack of personal freedom. Though I find that Baher Ibrahim examines the issue from a very Western liberalist perspective and ignores the fact that it is not only Middle Eastern societies which do not allow for this freedom  but many other political systems as well and indeed the concept of personal freedom is extremely subjective.

The essence of personal freedom is choice. The more freedom we have to choose, the freer we are. Having said that, in our "modern" culture, where we have more choices than ever, many of us have our freedom limited because we are not the ones creating the choices before us.

In his great book, "Escape from Freedom," Erich Fromm suggests that we do not really want to be free. Being truly free also means being fully responsible for our lives and our decisions. Many of us would rather have others to blame for our lack of success or fulfillment in life.

Fromm identifies three ways that we escape from freedom. One he called authoritarianism. He saw this in its most viral form in Hitler's Germany. In authoritarianism, we choose safety over freedom. We are taught to be afraid and look to an authoritarian government to protect us. In America today, the Bush administration constantly uses fear of terrorism as an excuse for taking away our freedoms.

The other thing one can do is become the authority. This also makes you less free. Neither the prisoner nor the guard is free. The authoritarian leader must be constantly vigilant in keeping the people afraid. Such vigilance removes freedom from the dictator as well.

The second way to escape from freedom is to lash out at your oppressors. This he called destructiveness. Destructiveness is seldom successful in setting people free. In fact, it is often the case that when one authoritarian regime is destroyed, a second takes its place.

Gandhi and King represent non-destructive methods for obtaining freedom in both the political and personal sense.

Conformity is the third way to escape from freedom. You simply go along with the program and don't make waves. You give up your freedom willingly and allow yourself to be imprisoned as long as the prison is a pleasant one. In the West, conformity has led to the lack of freedom we are now experiencing. We have taken our freedom for granted for so long that we didn't notice when it began to slip away.

I do like the finale very much though "Egyptians need to realise there's a better way to live their lives than following others' dictates" and perhaps this should be applied globally.

True personal freedom requires a lot of personal courage. Freedom means taking risks. Freedom means defining ourselves and not being defined by others. If you affirm that you want to be free, you are affirming that you want to be responsible. It's just possible that freedom really is worth the risk. We haven't much to lose in any case.

Just because the road ahead is long, is no reason to slow down. Just because there is much work to be done, is no reason to get discouraged. It is a reason to get started, to grow, to find new ways, to reach within yourself and discover strength, commitment, determination, discipline.

The road ahead is long and difficult, and filled with opportunity at every turn. Start what needs starting. Finish what needs finishing. Get on the road. Stay on the road. Get on with the work.

Right now you’re at the beginning of the journey. What a great place to be! Just imagine all the things you’ll learn, all the people you’ll meet, all the experiences you’ll have. Be thankful that the road is long and challenging, because that is where you’ll find the best that life has to offer.

Ralph Marston

Take chances if you can handle the repercussions. You want to be an individual; can you handle it? Because it’s lonesome. That means not running with the pack. The pack don’t want you when you’re an individual. Pack wants you to be the pack. The phrase “to thine own self be true”: It’s real. But it’s hard.

Whoopi Goldberg, Glamour May 2010

She knows she’s lucky. She has good people around her. These people love her and care for her deeply. She has enemies, too. Which makes life all the more interesting. She indeed has the makings of an astounding and fulfilled existence. She acknowledges the fact that life has been good, and she’s been blessed. But it doesn’t mean that she cannot feel distressed, lonesome, and frustrated all the same. Losing her way has been her fault. This too, she acknowledges.

Guarantees? Who wants life with guarantees? Can you imagine life without the suspense and the hope and the change that takes place every day? The good surprises and even the bad ones?

وطني!!

كلمة يقشعر بدني عندما اسمعها
عواطف تختلج نفسي
واسئلة تروادني
هل وطني هو المكان الذي ولدت فيه
ام هو المكان الذي اعيش فيه
هل وطني هو الارض التي ابعدتني عنها
ام هو الارض التي استقبلتني
هل وطني هو عبارة عن ذكريات ماضية
ام هو الذكريات القادمة
والقائمة تطول و الاسئلة تتكاثر
و لا من اجوبة
وفي النهاية يستوقفني سؤال
تفوق حرقته حرقة كل الاسئلة السابقة مجتمعةً
هل حقاً لدي وطن؟؟

My Homeland!
A word that sends chills down my spine
Emotions that confound me
And questions that persist
Is my homeland the place where I was born
Or the place that I live in
Is my homeland the land that pushed me away
Or the land that welcomed me
Is my homeland just a collection of old memories
Or is it the memories in the making
And the list gets longer, and the questions multiply
But there are no answers
In the end, one question lingers
One burning more than all others combined
Do I really have a homeland?

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream

The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.


I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in a totalitarian state.

If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.

I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.

I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next day had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.

[W]herever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

How did I know that someday - at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere - the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?

"outcast on a cold star, unable to feel anything but an awful helpless numbness. I look down into the warm, earthy world. Into a nest of lovers' beds, baby cribs, meal tables, all the solid commerce of life in this earth, and feel apart, enclosed in a wall of glass."

Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call.

How frail the human heart must be - a mirrored pool of thought.

I am too pure for you or anyone.

I talk to God but the sky is empty.

Is there no way out of the mind?

Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.

Oh Wow! I think I'm going to be sick!

Deciding for our Belgian Egyptian child

At less than 100 days old, our son, Iskander, embarked on the greatest adventure of his short life when we visited family and friends in Egypt – his first trip to his other homeland.

Our sojourn in Egypt also got us thinking about where would be best to raise our son in the various stages of his life, and how our choice of location could affect the person he turns out be. It will influence not only his personality, but his sense of national, cultural and religious identity.

In Egypt, certain advantages and disadvantages became quickly apparent. Cairo is one of the world's great metropolises and possesses many of the benefits of a mega city. Even though Iskander has revealed to us a new level of warmth among normally-reserved Belgians, the culture in Egypt is more tolerant of babies and children in public spaces . Moreover, in the early years of his life, we'd be able to afford more childcare services.

Living in Egypt would enable Iskander to become closer to the Egyptian side of his family but, on the flip side, it would put greater distance between him and his Belgian relatives. It would also enhance his command of Arabic and awareness of Egyptian and Middle Eastern culture. But, again, on the flip side, it would have a negative impact on his Dutch and his knowledge of Belgian and European culture.

The major drawbacks of living in Cairo are the pollution and overcrowding, the massive socio-economic chasm separating those who make loads of bread and those who eat little but bread. That's not to mention Egypt's ongoing privatisation of all spheres of life, from education and healthcare, down even to open green spaces.

In fact, the white sands of the country's north coast have become a kind of luxury Club-Cairo-Med, the setting for a dystopic colony of the wealthy who have abandoned the poor (known as el-aghyar or "The Others") to their own devices, except when they need them for menial work or as game to hunt, as in Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq's futuristic novel, Utopia.

If we moved to Egypt and wished to live by our egalitarian principles and send Iskander to state schools and treat him on the public health system, we would be condemning our son to an extremely disadvantaged future. Providing him with a decent level of education and healthcare is not only relatively costly but would expose him to the kind of social elitism which, if it were to rub off on to him, we would find hard to square with our principles.

Even apparently straightforward things like finding space for him to play outdoors or take up a sport are a real challenge in a city which has planted concrete in pretty much all its green spaces, and most of what remains belong to exclusive private combined social and sporting clubs.

In contrast, Belgium – with one of the world's highest standards of living and also one of its highest taxation levels – possesses an abundant supply of high-quality state-run education and healthcare facilities. In addition, sports and other recreational activities are not solely the preserve of the well-off.

Although disparities do exist between the haves and the have-nots, most Belgians occupy the middle ground. In addition, the rule of law and principles of equality are more deeply established – which would enable Iskander to grow up in a context which is more egalitarian.

A major challenge in both societies is cultural and religious pigeon-holing. As I spelled out in an earlier article, my wife and I will raise Iskander a-religiously and it will be up to the adult him to choose his faith or lack thereof.

In Egypt, this labelling is even institutionalised. For example, a person's religion appears on their identity card and birth certificate, and both the bureaucracy and society at large assume that children belong to the same religious group as their fathers.

Although it is now technically possible to leave the religion field blank, this is generally not done, except when it comes to Egypt's small Baha'i minority, and I expect that "helpful" bureaucrats will resist our attempts not to burden our son with a faith when we come to register him in Egypt.

Ironically, Iskander's name, though most people we know love it, may label him as belonging to the minority faith in both countries. We chose the name – which means Alexander – partly because it predates both Christianity and Islam and belongs to a man who, despite being a ruthless military commander, allowed religious and cultural tolerance in his vast empire.

Nevertheless, in Egypt, unlike other Middle Eastern countries, Iskander is a rare name and is mostly used by the country's Christian minority. In the current climate of religious tension, this could cause people to discriminate against him.

In contrast, his name's exotic ring to European ears will lead many Belgians to assume that its owner is a Muslim. And although the country's institutional architecture does not force people to make professions of faith and everyone, in principle, is equal before the law and should receive equal opportunity, in reality, prejudices do exist. The demonisation of Muslims is not just limited to the far right, but extends to mainstream conservatives and even quite a few liberals and leftists.

Even if he is not labelled as belonging to a minority faith, he runs the risk of being viewed as a "foreigner" in both his homelands. This is probably more problematic in Belgium, where immigrants are treated by some with suspicion and hostility, whereas in Egypt, a hybrid European khawaga will be viewed with a mix of curiosity and awe.

Rather than lead him to become a victim of prejudice, I hope that Iskander's multicultural heritage will help him to lead a diverse, rich and fulfilling life, and will enable him to get the best out of his multiple heritage, while taking those who do not appreciate this in his stride.

The Gaurdian's Khaled Diab

Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset

Jesse: You know, I think that book that I wrote, in a way, was like building something. So that I wouldn’t forget the details of the time that we spent together. You know like, just as a reminder that…that once we really did meet, you know, that this was real. This happened.
Céline: I’m happy you’re saying that because…I mean, I always feel like a freak because I’m never able to move on like (snaps her fingers) this! You know? People just have an affair or even…entire relationships…they break up and they forget! They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals! I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with. Because each person have…their own specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost.
Each relationship when it ends really damages me; I never fully recover. That’s why I’m very careful with getting involved because…it hurts too much! Even getting laid (laughs nercously)- I actually don’t do that. I will miss of the person the most mundane things. Like I’m obsessed with little things.
Maybe I’m crazy, but…when I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees rolling on the sidewalk or…ants crossing the road…the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk…little things. I think it’s the same with people. I see in them little details so specific to each of them that move me and that I miss, and…will always miss. You can never replace anyone, because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details.
(Smiling directly at Jesse.) Like I remember the way your beard has a little bit of red in it. And how the sun was making it glow that…that morning, right before you left. I remember that and…I missed it! I’m really crazy, right?

11 Minutes- Paulo Coelho

“Despite her apparent freedom, her life consisted of endless hours spent waiting for a miracle, for true love, for an adventure with the same romantic ending she had seen in films and read about in books. A writer once said that it is not time that changes a man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone’s mind is love. What nonsense! The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin. Love was undoubtedly one of the things capable of changing a person’s whole life, from one moment to the next. But there was the other side of the coin, the second thing that could make a human being take a totally different course from the one he or she had planned; and that was called despair. Yes, perhaps love really could transform someone, but despair did the job more quickly.”

“Humans can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.”

"The art of sex is the art of controlled abandon."

"The power of beauty: what must the world be like for ugly women?"

“Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person. The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.”

“Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone. From that point onwards, things change, the man and the woman come into play, but what happens before–the attraction that brought them together–is impossible to explain. It is untouched desire in its purest state. When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing. When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second.”

“Original sin was not the apple that Eve ate, it was her belief that Adam needed to share precisely the thing she had tasted. Eve was afraid to follow her path without someone to help her, and so she wanted to share what she was feeling. Certain things cannot be shared. Nor can we be afraid of the oceans into which we plunge of our own free will; fear cramps everyone’s style. Man goes through hell in order to understand this. Love one another, but let’s not try to possess one another.”

“Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they’re not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or–such is the pleasure they experience–they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.”

If You Forget Me

I want you to know one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.


Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.


If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.


If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.


But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
Pablo Neruda

“In my lifetime I’ve come to realize that you can’t depend upon other people for what you want and you can’t be scared to go out there and get it. You have to dream hard, wish big, and chase after your goals, because no one else is going to do it for you. And even if things don’t work out, you’ll always be able to say you tried.”

Unknown

I just found it interesting to talk to adults I admired, and to discover that the path they took was never all that clearly defined. It was comforting to me when I figured out that you don’t have to know what you want to do with your life; you just have to take a few steps in one direction, and other opportunities will open up.

Anderson Cooper

I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works.

Louise L. Hay

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.

Winston S. Churchill

All we can do is make the best decisions we can with the best information we have at that time and place. And learn how to rebound, reinvent, and regroup. Remember—people who seem to move through life with confidence aren’t confident about the outcome of a decision; they’re confident that they can deal with the outcome, good or bad.

Stephanie Bond

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Ronald Dahl

Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty, but learn to be happy alone. Rely upon your own energies and so do not wait for or depend on other people--Prof. Thomas Davidson

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they go right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart, so that better things can fall together--M. Monroe

Revolutionary Road

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

T.S.Eliot

From this particular quote, you would think I have decided on what to do and yet I still find myself ricocheting between one feeling and another- total joy and delight to suspicion. A strange mix but I think one affirmed by tonight's film "Revolutionary Road". I even commented that it seemed strange how quickly a relationship could deteriorate. Really that is quite sad that one should be transported from total love and devotion to blind hatred but I suppose love and hate are two sides of the same coin and as I always like to quote Paulo Coelho "At every moment of our lives we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss". Life changes so fast, just a second can alter the very course of our existence.

I learnt many things this week which I think have changed my outlook- to lose my inhibitions, to live for the moment and not be tied down by the classic ideals- which brings us back to Revolutionary Road. 

Richard Yates's novel Revolutionary Road was published to considerable acclaim in 1961, just as the complacent Eisenhower years were giving way to the brief Kennedy euphoria that then modulated into that heady period of liberation, experimentation and destruction known as The Sixties. The book is set in 1955 and describes with great subtlety the breakdown of the seven-year marriage between Frank and April Wheeler, a middle-class couple approaching 30, living with their two small children in the Revolutionary Road Estates, a housing development in Connecticut inhabited largely by well-heeled commuters working in Manhattan. The book gives the Wheelers a detailed specificity and the reader comes to know them - their doubts, deceptions and ambitions - from the inside. They are individuals in their own right, suffering and inflicting suffering. They also represent a general malaise peculiar to the bourgeois world of the affluent postwar years, and are victims of what Yates sees as the human condition, a tragic isolation summed up in the title of his next book, a collection of stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness.

WH Auden called those postwar times The Age of Anxiety and, beneath the seemingly placid, self-satisfied surface, there was a seething discontent about conformity, social manipulation, consumerism and the future of a world threatened by nuclear extinction and environmental pollution. The bestselling cultural and sociological works that provided the intellectual fuel for the 1960s all appeared in the 50s: David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd, C Wright Mills's The Power Elite, William H Whyte's The Organization Man and J K Galbraith's The Affluent Society among them. Lionel Trilling described Riesman's study as "one of the most important books about America published in recent times", and there was a widespread feeling that sociology had taken over one of the key functions of fiction. Endless symposia were devoted to "the death of the novel". So it was some relief perhaps that a novel touched with greatness should have come along to dramatise these themes in personal terms, though in retrospect many would now consider Updike's Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy (that began in 1960 with Rabbit, Run) to be a larger achievement than Revolutionary Road

Sam Mendes's film, based on a faithful screenplay by Justin Haythe, is beautifully crafted, The handsome Frank, who's working discontentedly for the same company with which his father spent 30 years, believes himself superior to this lonely crowd. His wife, April, once had ambitions to be an actress. She now feels stranded out in the split-level house with its picture window she once loved. Like most people around them, they drink too much (this was the era of hard liquor and the two-martini lunch), smoke incessantly (socially, post-coitally, to counter anxiety) and drift into casual adultery.

The couple's frustration is registered from the start, with an explosive row driving home after a local amateur dramatic performance starring April has gone hopelessly wrong. It is evident that they hate each other, and everything thereafter is a cover-up, a sweeping of bad faith under the carpet. Then she has a plan to retrieve their lives. They'll pack everything in, move to romantic Paris, where she'll get a well-paid secretarial job and he'll think great thoughts and write them down. Like Billy Liar when invited by the alluring Liz to quit the industrial north and accompany her to liberating London, Frank soon gets cold feet. The offer of promotion and an enticingly luxurious corporate life prove irresistible. April, however, is hooked on her pipe dream, but tragedy lies ahead. They cannot confront their real problems, and neither can stand the accusatory words of the mentally disturbed John, the brilliant, intellectual son of middle-aged neighbours, a brutal truth-teller who's stepped right out of an Ibsen play.

Mendes's film is a lesser thing than Yates's novel, lacking the book's biting wit and larger resonances. For instance, it's never stated that the amateur production April appears in so disastrously is Robert Sherwood's pretentious 1935 pseudo-classic The Petrified Forest, where she plays an idealistic girl given the opportunity to escape to Paris during the Depression by an Eliot-quoting intellectual disillusioned with modern life. Nor do we get any sense of April and Frank being more than mismatched malcontents. In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which arrived a year after Revolutionary Road, Edward Albee called his sterile battling couple George and Martha to suggest a symbolic association with George and Martha Washington, who had no children together. Yates's title also takes us back to the 18th century, implying that in Frank (whose full name Franklin evokes the Founding Fathers) and April (Eliot's cruellest month) we see the search for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ending with the corruption of the American Dream.

Heavy stuff perhaps- though I like o think the message is much simpler, pointing to the dire implications of not following your dreams. Do you love me really? Do you just wish to enjoy me? Or is there some more practical end to all of this? Only time will tell but I will try and live my own dreams....

Thinking of going to Dubai.....but how to do it? Needs planning and cheapness....

Whats up in Sinai?

We were officially informed today that we are not allowed to cover the situation in Al-Arish. Any regular reader of the Egyptian Press will not know what I am talking about but it is common knowledge that things have not been good in Northern Sinai for a long time. And it is not Egypt and Israel at loggerheads nor Egypt and Hamas.

 A cousin of mine lives in Al-Arish and has told me that indigenous inhabitants of the area are quite detached from the rest of Egypt- not only because of the distance between Cairo and North Sinai but also culturally and linguistically. In addition to which the people have been badly neglected by the government, leaving a deep seated hatred of the establishment and sometimes even a greater affiliation to Israel.

The Bedouin complain of economic marginalisation, police harassment and limited access to jobs in the lucrative tourism and petroleum sectors in Sinai, which produces a significant share of Egypt's oil from offshore fields and is dotted with resorts popular with tourists seeking sun, sand and diving. Jobs at the few privately owned factories in the region and senior posts in state institutions are usually reserved for workers from the Nile Valley, as part of a policy to increase the population of Sinai and integrate it with the rest of the country.

In a huge number of cases, these Egyptians are barred from access to education, healthcare and basic public services. It is not surprise that hatred has been sown and it is from this background that a group of bombers emerged, killing more than 100 people between 2004 and 2006 in a series of three bombings at Sinai resorts frequented by foreigners.

Having covered the official state organised press campaigns promoting the national 1994-2017 plan for Sinai, I know that the government would protest its innocence and insist that all Egyptians are equal- however this is very far from the reality.

The most recent train of events took place recently and actually started with a family feud between two clans from Al Arish, however the situation was mishandeled by the police and it spiralled into a blood feud which quickly drew in most inhabitants of the city.

On the 3rd of January, Egyptian police clashed with thousands of demonstrators who attacked government buildings in North Sinai to protest the murder of a man by armed robbers. Police fired tear gas on the swelling crowds, which one security official estimated at 7,000 people, after they stoned local government offices in the coastal town of El-Arish. The demonstrators had gathered earlier to protest what they said was lawlessness in North Sinai after a 50-year-old man was shot dead by thieves who tried to commandeer a truck filled with food.

This is just another demonstration of the lawlessness that has been bred by extreme frustration at the injustices taking place on a daily basis.

Poverty of Sex Education

Bikya Masr's Baher Ibrahim, just posted this well written and extremely interesting piece on Sex Education in Egypt- or the lack of it. Clearly the topic is taboo for many Egyptians. But can this not cause problems?

With figures such as Egypt's most senior Islamic cleric, Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, rejecting the possibility of sex education courses in the nation's classrooms and Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa, vetoing the idea that children should be taught safe sex and how to avoid pregnancy and STDs on grounds that this kind of information should be on a need to know basis there seems to be little hope. Add to this the common view that "the bedroom is as a grave" -- no information should come out of it!

But why is sex taboo? Simply because in Arab societies, sex has always had bad connotations- being closely interlinked with honour and many believe that it is religiously wrong.

This would seem to be contradictory in a country where sexual harassment is rife on the streets- 83% of Egyptian women report being harassed despite Islamisation in all facets of life.  Indeed, basic education could very well cut the rates of abuse and rape as well as harassments. Victims would have a much clearer comprehension of the issues. Many women blame themselves for what has happened.

Kalam Kebeir (Serious Talk) -- presented by Heba Qotb, the first ever Arab sexologist and marriage counsellor -- took the nation by storm when it was launched. This is the first programme to discuss the issue of sexual education and culture in Egypt and the Arab world.

In an episode of her show, Qotb pointed out that ignorance of matters sexual and misconceptions relating to them are statistically rife in Egypt, with some 68 per cent of the population suffering from them. "A person grows up to be a blank page," she says. "Any misleading information indelibly marks them. I aim to provide the right kind of database, to give people the basic skill to tell right from wrong in the ethical and religious realm. But it is less ignorance than misconception that worries me, because it is usually taken for granted. On marrying a man will often apply such misconceptions to his wife, and when they don't match her he blames it on her ignorance -- the very same ignorance that he initially saw as a blessing as it is a mark of correct morality."

My Four Husbands and I

Regular Readers of Al Masry al Youm will have heard of the ruckus caused by Nadine Bedair's article calling for Islam to abandon polygamy by taking the bold step of imagining a world where polygamy was a woman's right. Khaled Diab comments in the Guardian:

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But it does: the roaring rage of injured male pride. This was amply demonstrated in Egypt when a female Saudi journalist had the audacity to apply logic and consistency to challenge an area of traditional male privilege.

In an article provocatively entitled "My Four Husbands and I", Nadine al-Bedair quite sensibly posed the logical question: if Muslim men are entitled to marry up to four wives, why can't women, in the spirit of equality between believers, have four husbands?

"I have long questioned why it is men have a monopoly on this right. No one has been able to explain to me convincingly why it is I'm deprived of the right to polyandry," she complains.

The outspoken Saudi then goes on to deconstruct and question the traditional justifications for polygamy, including that, in a traditional patriarchal society, it is a shelter for widows, divorcees and women who can't find a spouse; that men have greater sexual appetites than women and get easily bored; that women can't handle more than one man; and that, if women could have multiple husbands, determining paternity would not be possible (an excuse made obsolete by modern science).

"They tell me that I, as a woman, can't handle more than one man physically. I say that women who cheat on their husbands and the 'sellers of love' [ie prostitutes] do much more," she counters.

Unsurprisingly, the article's honest tone and irreverence has triggered a furious response from the traditional male establishment. Some Islamic clerics have denounced the article and promised the "blaspheming" author divine retribution, while an Egyptian MP has decided not to wait that long and has already brought a lawsuit against her.

While few have openly voiced support for al-Bedair's call for this kind of equality in the Islamic marriage stakes, some Islamic authorities have defended her by saying that her true purpose was to highlight how badly some women are treated by their husbands, especially those who take on second or third wives, despite Islam's demand that a man treats all his wives equally.

For her part, al-Bedair ends her article with a call that society either allows polyandry for women or comes up with a new "map of marriage". One Cairo imam, Sheikh Amr Zaki, believes the way to go is to confine polygamy to the scrapheap of history. "In our world today, polygamy should be unacceptable. There is no need for it and, besides, no man can truly love more than one woman and vice versa," he opined.

And his view corresponds with that of the Egyptian mainstream. Although Islam permits polygamy, most Egyptians are jealously monogamous, with men who take on more than one wife often mocked or marginalised by the community and the first wife often so full of shame that she requests a divorce. Nevertheless, the question remains: which is fairer and more equitable – monogamy or polygamy for all?

Even in monogamous societies, informal polygamy (and polyandry) are a reality. In Europe, for instance, though most people, myself included, are serial monogamists, many men and women have multiple partners or lovers simultaneously, and there is a growing tendency to be open about this. However, the law has not kept up.

"A man can live with two women in Britain perfectly legally, but if he marries them both it's a crime punishable by up to seven years in jail," Brian Whitaker observed on Cif earlier this year. "If a man wants to have more than one wife, or a woman to have more than one husband, and everyone enters into the arrangement openly and voluntarily, what exactly is wrong with that?" he asks.

Of course, traditional models of polygamy (and polyandry, in a minority of societies) tend to reflect social inequalities, both between genders, generations and classes. And assuming a 50:50 gender divide, polygamy not only means that women in polygamous relationships not only receive a small fraction of a man, but that some unfortunate men lower down the pecking order will get no woman at all.

But there are perhaps more equitable modern models of polygamy and polyandry emerging in which men and women who are largely social equals enter into complex relationships that go beyond the nuclear family through which they hope better to fulfil their emotional and physical needs.

Of course, as my wife points out, marriage is becoming, in many ways, obsolete, as fewer and fewer people choose to take that path, and European largely have the freedom to choose the living arrangement that best suits them. But to my mind, it's a question of principle. For example, gay people don't need to marry to share a life together, but that should not mean they have no right to.

In my view, if the institution of marriage is to survive, it should not be so limiting and be made flexible enough to enable people to customise it to their unique needs.

Rafah Clashes

Excellent and mych more through analysis of the Viva Palestina happenings than I can produce right now from the Arabist

Following up on the previous post about the standoff between pro-Palestinian activists from the Viva Palestina convoy and Egyptian security, the situation has escalated at the border with Palestinians clashing with Egyptian border guards, one of whom has been reported killed (the second in a week I think.) This is a bad development, for both sides, and Hamas is clearly flexing its muscle after the construction of the wall and the treatment of the solidarity campaigns. I wonder if Egypt has thought through pushing the Gazans against the wall (so to speak.) Below is a report from Al Jazeera English.

On the upside, Viva Palestina has come up with a compromise with the Egyptian government and trucks have started to very slowly make their way to Gaza. Some trucks will have to go through Israel first, and may be delayed there for a while, or not get in altogether. There a good blog post at the New Internationalist by a member of the Viva Palestina convoy.

As the sun went down on another unpredictable day yesterday, we were all here in El-Arish port, people and vehicles reunited and aid all intact. After all the delays and extra costs, Gaza is only 40km away, but there were more unpleasant surprises in store for us, when the local authorities walked out of negotiations about which vehicles and aid they wanted to allow into Gaza. Instead of returning, they sent 2,000 uniformed riot cops and non-uniformed provocateurs to surround the port, blockading us in and then attacking those protesting at the gates with paving slabs and more.
So instead of driving to Gaza, the convoy spent the first half of the night in a pitched battle with Egyptian police, who used pepper spray, water cannon, rocks and metal batons against a couple of hundred of our volunteers. Middle-eastern TV broadcast five hours of live coverage of the battle into homes across the region, exposing still further the
criminal role of Egypt in the siege of Gaza.
Fifty-five convoy members were wounded during the fighting, several of whom had to be taken to hospital for treatment, being beyond the scope of the ad hoc first aid station we set up within the port compound. Six brothers of various nationalities were arrested and held all night and most of today in a police van without food, water or toilet facilities.
This morning, Viva Palestina announced that negotiations at the highest level, between the Egyptian and Turkish prime ministers, had failed to persuade the Egyptians to let all our vehicles in, so cars and 4x4s requested by doctors and clinics will not be delivered to Gaza, but will instead be taken by Turkish drivers to refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon. All the people and aid have been agreed to, however, so now we are just waiting for the army to open the gates and then we will make our way to Rafah and on into Gaza this evening.

Interesting to see the Turkish role here, considering Turkey’s strong stance against Israel during and since the war as well as the extremely helpful and discreet role it is playing in inter-Palestinian negotiations. The Egyptians need Turkish goodwill at this point.

It’s worth remembering that, on average, on 41 trucks have been going into Gaza since the war, compared to a normal traffic of thousands of trucks. You can get this statistic and others from a short but informative report by Oxfam on the impact of the blockade on reconstruction.

A note to explain Egypt’s position on this matter, and why truck traffic is generally NOT allowed in through the Rafah crossing:

- Rafah is a passenger terminal, and the Egyptian government has always refused to upgrade it to a full commercial terminal. This has been the case even before last year’s war and the current version of the blockade in place since June 2007, when Hamas took control of Gaza. Passenger traffic has also long been restricted, and moreso in recent years.

- Aside for a limited amount of humanitarian traffic, trucks usually have to go through the Kerem Shalom crossing (its Hebrew name) where the borders of Gaza, Egypt and Israel meet, a few kilometers south of Rafah. Currently this path is open but since the war the Israelis have severely slowed the processing of the trucks and restricted the type of good allowed in (including most construction materials.)

- Rafah could be turned into a full commercial terminal pretty easily and without much cost. Egypt has refused to do so because its position is that it cannot have a fully open border without a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement that clearly delineates borders. Of course, this is rather ridiculous if humanitarian concerns were the priority, so what’s behind Egypt’s thinking? Aside from its current distaste for Hamas and US-Israeli pressure to maintain the blockade, it has an understandable fear that should Egypt become the main trading point with Gaza, which would not only work to facilitate Israel’s illegal attempts to severe links between the West Bank and Gaza, but also de facto dump the problem of Gaza onto Egypt. This is known in certain Israeli circles as the “Gaza is Egypt solution.” Egyptian officials insist Gaza is Israel’s responsibility as an occupying power (which is correct under international law), and therefore will not develop its own links with the territory outside of a wider framework of Palestinian integration and clearer borders between Israel and Palestine.

- Of course this does not mean Egypt’s hands are tied. It could continue making this argument while opening up border traffic to allow for the much needed humanitarian aid and construction materials, bypassing Israel altogether. It could also implement a system to allow greater passenger traffic. Some of this would take time for technical reasons (you need to set up the infrastructure to handle the added traffic). But this would have all sorts of consequences in terms of Israel’s behavior towards Egypt, its potential actions in Gaza, the peace process, and Quartet attitudes towards Egypt. Cairo would have to be prepared for some regional turmoil, changes in regional attitudes, American anger and more unpredictable surprises. It’s certainly not something Hosni Mubarak, whose best day is the day where nothing happens, would be prepared to do (never mind his ideological bearings).

- There is another technical element to Egypt’s position on Rafah. In 2005, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA), which stipulates a PA presence at the border. This document is endorsed by the Quartet, and also provides for . Since June 2007, Egypt has insisted that the PA return to the Palestinian side of the border, which is controlled by Hamas, and has used the AMA to justify its participation in the blockade. For now, the AMA (although it was not signed by Egypt) is a core part of any resolution to this problem as seen by Egypt and the Middle East Quartet. Full or partial Palestinian reconciliation could see a deal to return the PA to the border, of course, but that dossier is also in Egyptian hands.

A Long Affair

Egyptians are celebrating the contribution of their Leavntine cousins to Egyptian art and culture by publishing Mas'oud Dahir's book 'Migration of the Levant', this is at the head of the Egyptian - Levantine Cultural Festival which is to take place in Cairo.

Since the 19th century thousands of families flocked from the fertile crescent to Egypt, in the search of opportunity. Artists, Writers, Architects and Engineers were drawn by the possibility of making a fortune in building downtown Cairo and the Suez Canal. In those heady years, Egypt was on the up, described as the Paris of the Middle East and it would seem that any young professional, wishing to prove themselves at the time, would head for the heady metropolis.

Among them were some of the biggest names - families like the Nahhas, the Sednaoui, the Mitres, the Khouris , the Zidans and many others. Because of this background, Egyptians retain  a perception of Shamis as being more Westernized and sophisticated.

By the mid-twentieth century, while Levantine Egyptians existed in all walks of life, they dominated the production of culture. In 1881, two Lebanese brothers, Salim and Bishara Taqla, founded Egypt’s most prestigious daily, Al-Ahram. Levantine families dominated the publishing industry, owning major printing houses like Dar al-Hilal (est. 1892), which gave them enormous influence on the country’s cultural life.

After Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized most businesses ¬ including newspapers ¬ in the mid-1960s, Egyptians turned to Lebanon for a free press, in some cases moving banned publications to Beirut. Even today, while the quality of publications coming out of the state-owned firms frustrates many Egyptians, they admire Lebanon’s publishers and the relative freedom they have. When in 2000 the publication in Cairo of Syrian writer Heidar Heidar’s Banquet for Seaweed spurred riots because religious figures said it denigrated Islam, Cairo’s intellectuals rushed for the Lebanese edition that was smuggled in.

Acting and singing were other professions in which Lebanese artists had a foothold. The great crooner of 1950s Egyptian cinema, Farid al-Atrash, was Lebanese. His sister Asmahan rivalled Egypt’s own star singer, Umm Kulthoum, to the extent that Egyptians commonly believe her death in a car accident was a plot by the older Egyptian songstress. The most famous of Egyptian film directors, Youssef Chahine, was of Syrian origin.

Even the material culture of Cairo has been suffused by the Levant. The most prolific architect in Central Cairo between the 1930s and 1960s was Antoine Selim Nahhas, who is seen as the first modernist architect in Egypt. Nahhas, who built among other important buildings the Beirut National Museum, established a wildly successful practice in Cairo, where he designed buildings for the rich and famous.

This cordial and fruitful relationship may have been what prompted Gamal Abdel Nasser to embark upon the disastrous unification of Egypt and Syria, which very quickly collapsed, showing that Egypt and the Levant, though never synonymous will forever be complimentary.