Beyond the Mirage

CAIRO, Egypt—Cairo has not met my wildest imaginations. My “Erol of Arabia” dreams of racing across the desert on a black Arabian horse, scimitar in hand, screaming, wearing a kafiyya, then arriving in Cairo, making a cameo at a local protest, with bullhorn in my other hand, burning a few flags and finally sheesha-smoking the night away has not been realized. Instead, I unglamorously touched down in an airplane, took a cab to my bare hostel room and have spent most nights studying Arabic. I have not been on a horse, but have been on a stationary, probably sedated camel, with camera in hand. I have not raised any trouble, or burned any flags, but I did witness a demonstration where one guy was really angry and was saying “Israel” and “America” a lot.

Cairo is not the hornet’s nest of anti-American rage that I had deliriously imagined the night before I flew here. It is not the city of thieves that my Mom warned me about. It is not the mercilessly hot environment that everyone complains about (it’s more or less a dry heat). In other words, Cairo has definitely not been “keeping it real.” It is a place that is torturous to pin down, where you can buy your McArabia sandwich from McDonald’s, and enjoy it next door at a coffeehouse, with its sheesha pipes bubbling and its backgammon boards rattling.

Ironically, it was a belly dancing show that made me first realize Cairo was not the ethereal city of my “Arabian Nights” dreams. I sat in intense anticipation for the belly dancer, who in my mind would be buxom, with stomach flowing in rolls and waves, and with enough glitter on her costume to make me flinch. What emerged instead, after two hours of an Egyptian cover band, was a very thin woman. Belly dancers are not supposed to be very thin. Here was a woman with fake breasts, no waist to speak of and certainly no belly. She probably exercised and was on a strict diet.

These are taboos for real belly dancers. Real belly dancers cultivate and nurture their belly, feeding it and keeping it flexible. This belly dancer made her chest the star of the show, and that was just too slick, too packaged and too American for my sensibilities.

But that is show business, so maybe I can understand the belly dancers selling out. What really hurt me was seeing some Bedouin Arabs, noble inhabitants of the desert, pushing souvenirs, camel rides and water bottles at the many tourist sites around Cairo. Reading about Bedouins, dreaming about Bedouins, never did I imagine a Bedouin ensnaring me in a camel riding scam. But then there I was, at the Giza pyramids, atop a camel, begging its owner to let me down. The Bedouin who got me up there was telling me that he would only let me down for $20. I bargained it down to $1 (which is still a lot), but then, that’s not the point. The point is that in Cairo even some of the Bedouins don’t seem real, not when they are hawking “Halloween headdresses” (the name these salesmen coined for the traditional Arab headdress).

Politics in Cairo are not what I expected either. A distinguished member of parliament gave a lecture at the American University in Cairo where he criticized Yasir Arafat and the Palestinians more than he did Ariel Sharon and Israel. His lecture, save for a few jabs at the Israelis, could well have passed for a speech by Colin Powell or President Bush. I knew Egypt was at peace with Israel, but I was surprised by the amount of sincerity and energy the Egyptian government devoted to the peace process. The politician genuinely felt it was vital that there be a general peace between Israel and the Arab world, for the sake of both Arabs and Israelis, which was pleasantly surprising to hear straight from an Arab politician’s mouth, in an Arab country.

I have not found too many people simmering with hatred of Americans—in fact I have found none. On the contrary, I have found quite a number of people who love America and its people. One teenager at a street cafe told me that if he couldn’t go to America he would kill himself. While I am sure he was just exaggerating, it was startling to see someone loving America to the point of suicide, running in the face of American fears of “Arab terrorists” hating America so much they would kill themselves to oppose it. Most people I have met make the clear distinction between Bush and American foreign policy, which they oppose, and the American people, whom they like. Some have even made that distinction regarding Israel, reserving harsh words for Ariel Sharon, but having only good things to say about actual Israeli citizens.

So it is difficult to generalize a place like Cairo, where things are pulling in so many different directions. There is no use talking about the so-called “Arab street” because people here are refreshingly diverse in their political opinions, and are unafraid to criticize both themselves and others for the problems of their region and the world. It is this frankness and honesty that really stands apart in my mind, and I think it is grounded in people’s firm understanding of who they are and where they stand in the world. Most Egyptians I have talked to make no illusions about it: they are living in a Pax Americana, in a region beset with strife and economic hardship, and they want two things: jobs and peace. Getting there won’t take an “Operation Egyptian Freedom”— it will take cooperation between us Americans and the people of this region.

But while these heady issues of international affairs are certainly central to my cultural exchange this summer, there are, of course, other pressing matters that need attention—I need to go find a real belly dancer.

Erol N. Gulay ’05, a Crimson editor, is a social studies concentrator in Kirkland House. He thoroughly enjoys the fact that, in Egypt at least, Arabs get to profile and search Americans at the airports.