Najaatee

Post-Mortem

2009-01-11T22:44:00.005-05:00

As I near the finale of my six-year quest for a Ph.D. and head off to a tenure-track job in the great Northeast next year, I think it is time to shut down Najaatee. The two years I spent in the Middle East, many experiences of which are documented on this blog, were the best of my life. Thank you for following along and sharing them with me; I can only hope that they will be surpassed by future visits as I move on to the next phase.

I will be opening a new blog at http://chance-spectator.blogspot.com within the next couple of weeks. I hope that you will follow me there!

Life in Virginia

2008-12-07T12:24:00.005-05:00

I wanted to share some pics from the past couple of months in Charlottesville.

I live here:

There is a hookah on my front porch:

There are horses in my backyard:

There are also friends in my backyard:

N and R, friends from Cairo, came for a visit in October. Here they are on the Lawn:

N took some glamor shots:

I also ran into Roomie M in DC for the MEI conference several weeks ago:

And A, also from Cairo but now living in DC:

This is the coolest person I know:

I know, right?

We went to Florida last week:

And also found some non-beach activities:

I am not a very good shot.

Selling Myself

2008-11-20T17:14:00.003-05:00

Hello patient readers! I apologize for my long absence. You see, I have been pawning myself on the academic job market. It's a bit risky for me to provide too much detail on my personal situation, such as what my own preferences are and where I am interviewing, but I wanted to give you all an idea of what pure and utter hell this entire process is. Let me start by evoking Dante:

"The infernal storm, eternal in its rage, sweeps and drives the spirits with its blast; it whirls them, lashing them with punishment. When they are swept back past their place of judgment then come the shrieks, laments, and anguished cries; there they blaspheme God’s almighty power."

(The Whirlwind of the Lustful, Second Circle of Hell, The Inferno)

There is not much worse than sitting before a complete stranger who holds your job in his hand as he asks, "So just how far along are you on your dissertation?" It is difficult to be judged, and it is even more difficult when you've spent a month on your application and 2-3 days at each school in face to face interviews. If you don't get the position, you can't say, "Well, they didn't really know me or understand my work," because after all of that, they do know you quite well and they've read about 100 pages of what's you have judged to be your best quality writing.

Actually, there is something worse. There are two to four other candidates for the same position, all of whom have been flown out and received the same royal treatment to a nice hotel and nice dinners and faculty one-on-ones that you have. You don't know who they are, but they might know who you are, depending on how well plugged-in they happen to be. You typically don't know where you fall in the sequence of interviews, and you don't know much about when you will hear the hiring committee's decision. At most, it's "Sometime after Thanksgiving!"

In the meantime, you constantly check your phone and your e-mail and fester over memories of your job talk. You check the job blogs, a reliable source of spotty and unreliable information.

The whole process of being on the job market has also forced me to reflect on classifying myself as a Middle East area specialist; I've realized in the past couple of months that we have a pretty bad reputation in the profession of political science. We're pinned as historical, socio-anthro types who roam around the region learning Arabic and camping with Bedouins and/or working for the CIA on the side. At job talks and in everyday conversation we often aren't put to serious theoretical tests that non-specialists would be, but are asked to tell stories of our travels in the Middle East and to address tribalism, culture, and religion as causal variables. This stands in contrast to "political scientists" who study Western Europe or even Latin America, many of whom use advanced formal methods and build on a larger body of political science theory in their work--and whom most political scientists would no longer dream to ask, "But what about culture?"

Of course, non-ME specialists pardon the ME specialists for their alleged lack of methodological and theoretical knowledge, saying, "Well, you have to learn a difficult language and we still need to know about this region," as if learning a hard language should excuse one from meeting the standards of the profession.

This distinction between "real" political scientists and Middle East specialists is utter BS. I've taken the same methods classes as non-Middle East specialists, I use advanced qualitative methods (with the capability to use stats if I choose to do so in the future), and my work builds on broader theory. I've got an article coming out in a top journal where non-ME specialists publish all the time. I also engage in policy on the side. Lots of other young Middle East specialists are in a similar place. Yet we are lumped in with specialists of an older generation who, while still making a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the region, didn't exactly keep up with the profession of political science and often used the classroom as a pulpit to preach the ills of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

I've had to address these perceptions of my field quite a bit during the past couple of months. I'm not sure how convincing I was. But to all would-be ME specialists I say: you can do it all. Learn Arabic, learn political science, learn how to do field research and write good academic articles, and keep yourself grounded and your ideas relevant by providing policy input. It's not as difficult as other people seem to think.

I am gone!

2008-08-21T01:37:00.001-04:00

Stand - R.E.M.

Postcards from J-Town

2008-08-19T15:52:00.008-04:00

A couple of days ago I finally got to head over to Israel for a few days' vacation before I leave the Middle East. Yo was also in residence and showed me around the Albright, Jerusalem, and Haifa.

THE ALBRIGHT

For almost two years I have been hearing tales of the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research from archie friends Yo, Mo, and Chris. Run by Sy Gitin, the Albright is the oldest American research center in the Middle East and, combined with ACOR in Amman (run by Barbara Porter, and my home base on and off for the past two years) and CAARI in Cyprus (run by Tom Davis), it is part of the American Schools of Oriental Research. The Albright is a bit different than ACOR because its sole focus remains on archaeology, while ACOR has moved towards contemporary anthropology, art, and political science. Its library has many of the old texts that newer libraries cannot afford, and the attic is full of old pots and animal bones from digs (in addition to a pile of gas masks from the First Gulf War and God knows what else).

The library:

The courtyard, facing the Director's wing (where the Director no longer lives but which is leased out to NGO families):

One of the many cats-in-residence:

JERUSALEM

Jerusalem is quite a small city, East and West combined, and I had the chance to see many of the tourist sites during my visit last year. This time Yo took me a little off the beaten path. Our first stop was Mamilla Cemetery, which dates to the Umayyad period. The cemetery has turned up in the news quite a bit recently because the neighboring construction for the Simon Wiesenthal "Museum of Tolerance" has uncovered more of the cemetery. While the Muslim Awqaf has largely let the cemetery fall into ruin, and Islam does not forbid the disturbance of bones as in Judaism, the Awqaf has decided to take issue with this. The protests of the Awqaf have been echoed by Israeli archaeologists, who see the site as a great project for someone who studies the period. The courts have stayed the plan for the museum several times, and it is due to be completed in 2009.

Mamilla has also been threatened by real estate development. Check out the facade of the nearby Waldorf Astoria: they gutted out everything but the facade, which has a beautiful Arabic inscription on it.

We also went to a nice park with a good view of the city. In this picture you can see a snippet of "The Wall" between Israel and the West Bank.

Here is a better view of the Old City:

On Day 3 we did some wandering around Ben Yehuda Street, one of my favorites.

Yo got a haircut following a very, very hairy Israeli man (that guy's folicular remnants are on the floor). I had to sit and watch.

Yo also showed me around Hebrew Union College, where a lot of his stuff is stored.

EIN KEREM

We drove several kilometers Southwest to the village of Ein Kerem, an old Arab village-come- Shabbat getaway for Jerusalem's dwindling secular-minded Jewish population. It's open all day and they have Leffe beer. John the Baptist is said to have been born here. It's green and full of little restaurants, as well as the "Fountain of Mary." I made some friends, named Daniel and Danielle ("We're not brother and sister, we're just friends but not THAT kind of friends, you know.") by putting my feet in the spring with them.

Only now did I read that the spring water is contaminated by water running off from the nearby Hadassah hospital. Good thing we didn't drink it!

HAIFA

On Day 2, we drove to Haifa, mostly to see the famous Baha'i Gardens. A place of pilgrimage for the Baha'is, the gardens go straight up the side of Mt. Carmel and have 1400 steps. Here is the Shrine of the Bab:

Here is a view from the middle:

A view from the bottom:

And a view from the very top:

We also tried to go to the highly recommended Museum of Clandestine Immigration but we were turned away because I had Arabic stamps in my passport and Yo said he lived on Shari'a Salah Eddin in East Jerusalem. Way to go, AMP and Yo.

We were so pissed off that we skipped town, missing the gondolas.

Overall, great trip! Thanks, Yo!

Driving in Jordan

2008-08-19T13:22:00.013-04:00

During the past week I have hopped all around Jordan and Israel following the conclusion of the Arabic program for which I have been working this summer. Last Monday H, art historian friend from Cairo, arrived in town. We rented a car (aka the Chevy Freedom-mobile) and hit almost everything between Amman and Petra. This was my first time driving for an extended period in Jordan. I have several tips for those who might follow in my footsteps.

1. Avoid stopping in the Ghor Al-Hadith without male "guardians." H and I had spent the day at the Marriott Dead Sea, and then decided to head along the Dead Sea Highway until we hit the Ghor, from which you can pick up the King's Highway through old-guard tribal towns like Karak, Shobak (both of which have great castles), and Tafileh. Tafileh really has nothing great, and its residents are analogous to Cletus in bad Northeastern Brahmin humor (i.e. Why does the Tafilan Navy sail in glass-bottomed boats? Too see the rest of the Tafilan Navy.). Anyway, back to my original point. The Ghor Al Hadith is GHETTO. It's one of the poorest areas in Jordan. I've only been down there with Yo (a very tall man), and even then the shebab (young sex-deprived men) and the wild dogs that roam the area emerged from the woodwork to see what we were doing there. I normally would not have stopped with just one other woman in my company. But by then, H and I were running out of H2O and we needed to pick some up. I stopped at the first dukan I saw and went in to pick up some water. The galabiyya-clad shopkeeper was sitting at the counter with his wife and a baby. I busted out my Islamic greetings, a real exception to the rule, but I realized I was not in Amman anymore. All three looked at me listlessly, then the man got up to exchange the warm water bottles I had taken for two colder ones, for which I was grateful. I smiled at the baby. Then, as the man was changing my five pound note (he didn't even overcharge me for water like a lot of Jordanians do to tourists) I looked outside and saw our car, with poor little art historian H still in the passenger's seat, being rocked by 5 or 6 12-year-old boys who were yelling, "Money, money, money!" I turned to the shopkeeper and asked him with dismay, "Hathool awladukumm (Are those your children?)?" "Yes," he responded, then corrected himself, "Actually, just two of them." He did nothing to stop them. The car alarm went off. I rushed out and we beelined it down the highway, children trailing behind us, as I tried to figure out how to disarm the car alarm. A good half mile elapsed between us and the hellions, and I stopped to inspect the alarm further. No sooner did I get it turned off than they appeared again, and we sped towards Karak.

1.a. Similarly, when you reach Qadisiyya, go LEFT at the detour, not RIGHT or STRAIGHT.
Keep doors locked when you see Children of the Corn approaching.

2. Be careful on the road to Azraq. It is full of large rocks and Saudis returning home. They both drive like bats out of hell.

3. Watch out for animals on the King's Highway.

4. Count on paying an arm and a leg for gas. It's about JD 40.000 to fill the tank of a midsize car (about $60.00, way more than the last time I drove, which was in the States before oil prices skyrocketed).

Otherwise, it's pretty easy to get around and Amman, though full of windy, un-gridded streets, is pretty difficult to get lost in. We had a great time on our trip. Here are some photo highlights.

AMMAN

Jafra Cafe, across from the Post Office downtown:

Hashem:

RGB (which has a reputation as a gay club but which draws a wider crowd due to the fact that it has the best dance music in town):

Tannoureen:

Starbucks Drive-Thru:

Best peaches ever:

Near Rainbow Street:

Some very interesting graffiti:

DEAD SEA

CASTLES

Karak:

Hallabat:

Azraq:

Amra:

Harraneh:

PETRA

MADABA

It was great fun to have a friend visiting in Jordan (ahem, other friends minus H, this is supposed to make you feel guilty). All of the tourist stuff suddenly became fun again.

Hopefully this post makes up for my lack of posting all summer.

Diving in Aqaba

2008-08-04T05:50:00.002-04:00

I recently returned from a six-day-long trip to the South of Jordan. As a newly certified diver, I decided that I should continue my training with a shipwreck dive in Aqaba. Unfortunately, we only made it down about 8 mteers before my diving buddy got a squeeze in his sinuses that he couldn't quite work out (never dive with a cold, folks). Instead we did a shallow dive (never deeper than 12 meters) across a site called the "Japanese Garden." It was nothing compared to Dahab. The coral bleaching is terrible, and many of the corals seems to have had chunks knocked off of them by boats. The fish population is still pretty impressive, however, and I got to see (1) a needlefish, by absolute favorite fish due to its seeming curiosity in people; (2) a school of squid.

I cannot recommend the Royal Diving Club. We had an instructor from Karak named Omar who was terrible. He was very haughty, not interested in looking at things while we were underwater (so we had to rush to catch up with him instead of enjoying ourselves--and it's not like we were running short of air or anything), and tried to sell us on stuff we didn't want. Terrible.

Diana Krall Live in Amman!

2008-07-09T02:13:00.010-04:00

I have been imposing a one-night-per-week-out limit upon myself since I arrived at ACOR so I can finish up my paper for APSA. Aside from a detour back to Egypt last week, where I spent two days sunning my pale, sun-starved body on the man-made shores of Al Gouna, I've been pretty good at enforcing this.

So last night when some VIP tickets were freed up by a friend of C, the two of us found ourselves in the fifth row of the Diana Krall concert at the Citadel. This concert marked the opening of the first annual Jordan Festival, which has subsumed Queen Noor's Jerash Festival of years past. While all the English-speaking Ammani elite were at Diana Krall in Amman, the northern city of Jerash hosted several Arabic artists (including the fabulous Elissa).

I took forty-seven pictures documenting the experience. I love Diana Krall, though I have only seen her live one other time (in Rome about 6 years ago). I was hoping for "Skylark" or "Besame Mucho," which she did not deliver, but I was still over the moon to hear most of her usual staples. She actually did a cover of Jewel's "A Case of You," which I hate when that ratty hippie chick sings it but which induced pure joy when sung by Diana Krall.

C and I gloat over our tickets at ACOR:

Arriving at the Citadel-- the best secured concert I've ever attended. There are advantages to a police state, you know (particularly when former state security employees open private security companies that staff concerts and VIP events).

Waiting waiting waiting (while C regales me with tales of seeing Queen perform at Live Aid in 1985):

While we were waiting, we got to see four rows of Jordanian political figures and socialites mingle in front of us. Aside from one woman who was dressed like Tammy Faye, it wasn't that interesting to watch. We saw the Minister of Social Development and the Mayor of Amman (who I admire for his Greater Amman Master Plan PowerPoint presentations that, with a click of a mouse, cause twenty towers or more to rise out of the squat, sandstone buildings of the downtown).

Overall, it would be nice to see some of these social elites "cut loose." I can't really think of any overly flamboyant or controversial characters in this country... everyone fits the mold and is very polite. It must be nice not to ever piss anyone off. On the other hand, I feel like this is the reason that there are very few unique, path-breaking Jordanian artists, writers, and politicians-- a small group of conservative, status-quo elites hold all the power, and nobody seems to really make an effort to support creative minds from a variety of backgrounds. I wondered if any of the Jordanians in the audience, as we listened to this very talented group of jazz musicians, were also wondering why so few of their own find themselves on stage.

Then the band came, and I could stop pondering Jordanian society and being disappointed that Freddie Mercury died before I could go to a Queen concert!

Here are some video clips:

I thought that Diana Krall was a very classy lady. Not many Western artists come to Amman (and vice versa), which is a pity, and I can't imagine that many of them would make an effort to respect local traditions if they did come. Krall really made an effort to connect with the audience, expressing gratitude to be in Amman, praising the site of the Citadel, and saying "Shukran" instead of "Thank you" after each piece. The most striking part of the concert, however, was when the call to prayer started. Nobody in the audience even heard it, but Krall and her trio immediately stopped playing and the lights onstage went off until the call was over. I thought it was a very nice gesture.

There was no photography, by the way.

Last Shots From Cairo

2008-06-24T11:21:00.002-04:00

Me, H, and E at our Fulbright Farewell Reception, Zewail House

Me, H, and E enjoying more wholesome activities along with J (i.e. a sweet, sweet rendition of "Sweet Caroline" at the Bull's Eye Bar in Mohandiseen):

With H at Mena House:

Clubbin' one up for Dad at the Mena House driving range:

Adios, Cairo. It was a good run.

لا آنسى آيامي بكم

2008-06-07T01:55:00.003-04:00

I've laid off of blogging for the past several months, mostly because I have been busy with work and I figure some of you might not be able to tolerate more pictures of monks, parties, old buildings, and concerts, however much they might entertain yours truly. Still, with only slightly more than 48 hours left as an Egyptian resident, I feel compelled to reminisce not only upon my time in Egypt, but on my time in the Middle East in general. When I left for Jordan last January, I was a bit of a reluctant visitor, terrified that I would not be able to overcome the difficulty of the Arabic language and everyday living. After several months, I shed my fear of the language and developed a hard shell (and even a sense of humor) towards being treated as a second-class citizen on the street. I knew I would be living in Egypt for another year as well, and the notion that I would call this place home for awhile started to sink in. It seemed like such a terribly long time that I really did make an effort to make Egypt and Jordan feel like home, as evidenced by the heavy boxes I've just sent back to the States and the slightly lighter friends that I would rather be shipping with me instead.

The past week has been an important one for me because I have found myself finally comprehending Arabic without translating it first into English in my head, and there have been a couple days where I have spoken only Arabic. Just as my lack of French makes me feel distant and alienated in France, this new skill makes me feel much more integrated into Egypt. As I was walking around Zamalek last night taking pictures of my favorite buildings so I won't forget them, I suddenly felt very sad. Coming home from the Middle East is not like coming home from Italy or France or even somewhere in Latin America. My experiences here, which have changed me to a great degree and are some of the most important in my life, are not something that most Americans can identify with, mostly because they haven't visited the region or they have pigheaded notions about it (this is why it was so important to me when my family came to visit). In short, I am afraid of returning to my own country because I don't want to lose this very important part of my life.

I know that I will be back, and I would love to return to live here if the circumstances permit, but in the meantime I need to keep up on the Arabic news and language and with my friends here because I am afraid that I will simply forget and revert to reading the New York Times every morning and then rushing off to work. So, just as I promised myself I would get through my first stint in Jordan, I now promise myself not to neglect these activities. For those of you still here, keep me posted on everything new with your lives, with Cairo and Amman, with anything! I can't tell you how betrayed I felt last week when I visited Amman and found entirely new streets, shopping malls, and boulevards that had popped up in my absence. :-)

At the same time, I am eager to go home. This final year of dissertation work marks a new beginning for me, and a chance to push forward; I know that I have to do this in the States, at least for a couple of years. In addition, living in two developing countries (one of which displays flagrant abuses of human rights) has also precipitated a new love affair with my own country. There are lots of things that I do not like about America: a pervasive sense of superiority and entitlement; a lack of knowledge or sympathy for the condition of non-Americans; and generally poor taste in clothing. However, our relatively free and open society, administered by a strong and capable state, has produced some of the best writers, artists, musicians, scientists, politicians, and academics of the past century. Yes, we have poverty, we have corruption, we have closed-mindedness and religious zealotry-- but it isn't as bad as in some other places. If someone commits a crime, chances are they'll be captured and punished (that is, they cannot buy off the judge); if a store rips you off or a product results in injury or death, consumer protection laws assure that you will be compensated (that is, phones will be answered and you wont' have to bribe policemen or members of the judiciary to hear your case and rule in your favor); and if a religious group were to call for the death of all Jews, be assured that the group would face widespread social castigation, not to mention legal action if their words could provoke and imminent lawless action.

I am also returning to the States during a historic period, when I can cast my vote in the presidential elections for a black senator from Chicago, whose words and charisma invoke my own mother's memories of politics during the 1960s, when a broken people united to change for the better. I think it's a good time to be an American.

As for you, sisters, get ready for some Big Buck Hunter. Big Sista's back in town.

There is an AUC Gossip Girl blog

2008-06-04T11:12:00.000-04:00

And it's lame as hell.

$3 trillion shopping spree!

2008-06-03T09:13:00.001-04:00

I bought the following gifts for you at 3trillion.org, the web site that gives you 3 trillion dollars - the money American tax-payers are spending on the Iraq war - and uses it in a virtual shopping spree for your friends and family.

You could give all of this to 1 people!
...or you can spend the money occupying Iraq and killing over a million people.

Universal Health Care for Every American (300 million of us)
1 purchased for $920,100,000,000.00 each

Give every school teacher a raise
1 purchased for $1,000,000,000,000.00 each

Harvard University
2 purchased for $35,000,000,000.00 each

New York Yankees
1 purchased for $1,027,000,000.00 each

Microsoft Corporation
3 purchased for $262,260,000,000.00 each

Buyout and Early Retirement for Alito, Rogers, Scalia, and Thomas
1 purchased for $80,000,000.00 each

Porsche Carrera GT
1 purchased for $400,000.00 each

300 Bugatti Veyron 16.4's
1 purchased for $300,000,000.00 each

Chicago Cubs
1 purchased for $8,200,000,000.00 each

Wave Pool
1 purchased for $30,000,000.00 each

Send Someone to College
1 purchased for $80,000.00 each

Trust Fund for my children
1 purchased for $21,095,000.00 each

The Hope Diamond
2 purchased for $250,000,000.00 each

Every Song in the iTunes Library
1 purchased for $7,000,000.00 each

US Constitution, Pocket-Sized Edition, in 50K lots
1 purchased for $33,250.00 each

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (for every household on the planet)
1 purchased for $27,151,600,000.00 each

Pat the Bunny (Touch and Feel Book)
1 purchased for $4.65 each

Nureyev: The Life
1 purchased for $23.33 each

Permanently endow every orchestra in the country
2 purchased for $50,000,000,000.00 each

The Baltimore Orioles Baseball Team
2 purchased for $359,000,000.00 each

World's Tallest Hotel
1 purchased for $650,000,000.00 each

Private concert with Bob Dylan
1 purchased for $50,000,000.00 each

Bone Suckin' BBQ Sauce Thicker Half Gallon 64oz
1 purchased for $19.00 each

1000 Pigs for Heifer International
2 purchased for $120,000.00 each

Private Jet - Challenger 605
1 purchased for $30,100,000.00 each

Electrolux 2005 Model E51NK60ESS Icon 51-Inch Stainless Steel Natural Gas Grill
1 purchased for $3,299.99 each

Help Iraq Children
1 purchased for $500,000,000.00 each

Universal Preschool
1 purchased for $35,000,000,000.00 each

A Maid for everyday for 100 years
1 purchased for $2,400,000.00 each

Hearst Castle
1 purchased for $500,000,000.00 each

Personal Helper Monkey
1 purchased for $3,789.00 each

Apple Inc.
1 purchased for $24,000,000,000.00 each

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
2 purchased for $10,000,000,000.00 each

Prep Work

2008-06-02T18:26:00.001-04:00

....

Hey, don't forget to send me and dad your flight information. One week. Can't wait to see you. Know you must have mixed feelings. Overall been a good run, hasn't it?

Love you,
Mom

Cairo Countdown

2008-06-02T13:05:00.005-04:00

I have exactly one week left in Cairo before returning to the States for several days. Since I blogged last, I've been able to knock several more items off of my checklist:

1. One last visit to Alexandria. Me, T, and M made a 1 AM trip to Agamy and then spent the weekend there and in Alexandria. My favorite part of the weekend was eating ritza (sea urchins) on the beach with a spoon.

2. You are looking at a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, which means I am certified to dive down to 30 meters. While in Dahab, I did additional courses in Deep Diving, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Night Diving, and Underwater Navigation. All were great except for navigation (I still remember failing my navigation skills course for Wolfridge in 5th grade).

The night dive was slightly terrifying because one's senses are so incredibly limited... and there were tons of lionfish (very poisonous) perched out on the seaweed looking at us as we swam towards the reef. We saw a very beautiful, shell-less mollusk called a Spanish Dancer, called such because it ungulates its red, wavy body to move throughout the water. Diving is definitely something that I'd like to keep up, and I've already found a club in Charlottesville. If I get into it, I definitely need to get my own wetsuit. I don't like this idea of renting a wetsuit; who knows what issues its prior wearers had?

Dahab was a nice place. On the quality scale, it's somewhere between Sharm (ultra-luxe) and Nuweiba/ Basata (huts), with small hotels (the exception being the gorgeous new Meridien that lies slightly south of the city and where our dive center had one of its two locations). The only creepy thing is that the damage from the Dahab bombings are still there...you can see the shrapnel marks in the ground and also big craters on either side of a pedestrian bridge where the bombers clearly detonated themselves.

There are still a couple of things that I'd like to do before I leave:

1. The Cairo Tower AKA "Roosevelt's Erection:" I tried this one this morning, but alas it is still closed. It was supposed to open up in April. Osman's Arab Contractors group is in charge of the tahseenat for the Tower, of course. This company "wins" most of the building contracts with the government, and chances are if you see a half-built structure from the 1970s, AC is the contractor that is working on it. The most depressing is the "New Egyptian Museum" down in Giza. Never heard of it? I rest my case.

2. Karaoke at the Bull's Eye in Mohandiseen.

3. Cairo Zoo: I want to pay the zookeeper to let me hold a baby lion. Yes, it can be done.

4. Driving range at the Pyramids/ Mena House Oberoi: Because I need another excuse to eat at the Moghul Room...

A Night (or Five) in Tunisia

2008-05-02T04:12:00.011-04:00

I just returned from a five-day trip to Tunisia, and thought I would post some pictures and general impressions of Tunis. I spent the first three days in the Northeastern suburb of Sidi Bou Said attending a regional Fulbright conference, then the last two days in Tunis with two friends, J and S (and E, though she left on the first day).

Sidi Bou Said is actually an old village built into the hillside, but has turned into a posh resort for Europeans in recent years. there are some excellent restaurants, though none of them stay open very late and the little town is virtually dead by 10 pm, even on the weekends. It reminded me a bit of Taormina in its design, but without many exigencies of human life. Everything is perfectly clean and neat as a pin, and all buildings in the town are required by law to be whitewashed with blue windows and trim. President Ben Ali's house is also in this area, though it has the traditional Tunisian green accents. The US Ambassador's residence is smack in the middle of Sidi Bou Said, with a nice view of the bay.

Here are me and E at the conference, by the pool we never got to swim in:

Here is a view of the bay from a very famous cafe in Sidi Bou Said called Cafe Sidi Chaabane:

Here are me and E outside the U.S. Ambassador's residence:

And me and S on his back terrace overlooking the bay:

A street in Sidi Bou Said at night:

A cool door in Sidi Bou Said:

An interesting bar called Plaza Corniche in nearby La Marsa:

This is the local beer, called Celtia. It is the best, aside from Luxor Weizen, that I have had in the Middle East:

During the conference we were also taken to the ruins of ancient Carthage and also to the Bardo Museum, which is renowned for its collection of mosaics.

I was under-impressed by Carthage: the Romans did a thorough job of destroying everything, it appears, so we had to amuse ourselves in other ways:

The Bardo was more interesting:

The Bardo has a huge collection of tomb mosaics (people were buried under the floor of a church and the mosaic was placed on top). This is one for a four year-old girl:

Downtown Tunis is divided into two parts: the old medina in the West and the Ville Nouvelle in the East. The West has Islamic architecture for the most part, the East French colonial. Both are immaculately clean, and despite the beauty of cleanliness following a year in Cairo, there is something spooky about it all.

The main artery of the Ville Nouvelle is rue Habib Bourguiba, which is a tree and cafe-lined boulevard.

Here are two interesting sights: St. Vincent's Cathedral (2% of Tunisia's population is Jewish or Christian), and a cable car. The cable cars are dangerous since I'm not used to looking for them!

The clock tower on the easternmost side of Habib Bourguiba:

A man taking down French and Tunisian flags following the visit of President Nicholas Sarkozy:

We ate dinner and drank too much of a local liquor called Bukha at this restaurant. Called "Al-Mazar," which means "grave" in Turkish, it was full of men and paintings of naked redheads.

Some men in one of the cafes on Habib Bourguiba:

The croissants were "real," by the way. If you have eaten a croissant in Cairo, you know what I mean.

Trouble in the Ville Nouvelle:

The old British Embassy at the gate to the medina. Scenes from The English Patient were filmed here (I will marry you, Ralph Fiennes).

Here is the gate itself:

Here is the souq, most of which is covered. Some of the stores have really terrible tourist junk, but there if you are looking for leather goods, Berber rugs, or cool silver jewelry, Tunis beats Cairo and maybe even Damascus. The style of things is much more understated and the quality is much better.

Here is the Zaytouna Mosque, a center of Islamic learning:

Here is a chichi little cafe in Dar El-Medina, the nicest hotel in the city:

The' au pignon (tea with pine nuts):

I would go back to Tunisia, though you don't need more than a day or two in Tunis. There is a lot more to see that I didn't if you go into the desert or over to Djerba. It is important to get out of the city, where life feels so artificial: it's not a city like Cairo or Damascus, and I feel like it's here that the nature of Tunisia's authoritarian regime really displays itself. Like Egypt or Syria or Jordan, posters of Ben Ali are everywhere, but the press is much more censored, and certain websites are blocked (porn and opposition stuff). We had to watch BBC World with delayed audio.

Here is a view of Libya on the way home:

Egyptian Nihilism

2008-04-26T06:07:00.002-04:00

Lately I've taken to watching a new AMC series called "Mad Men," which is about the lives of Madison Avenue advertising executives in the early 1960s. I love it. The thing I love most about it are the subtle jabs that the writers make at safety standards of the 1960s, such as:

1. A gynecologist who smokes while they give an exam.

2. A child who is admonished not for wearing a plastic bag over her head, but leaving the dry cleaning that came in it on the living room floor.

3. Pregnant women who smoke and drink, and friends who offer them ciggies and whiskey without batting an eye.

4. Unbuckled children flailing around the backseat of a car

5. A man bidding his insanely drunk colleague farewell from his front stoop, after directing him verbally to the proper car.

These are things that most people in the United States do not do anymore (and if they do, it draws condemnation) because there has been a combination of scientific study and public advocacy to stop these practices. In the 1960s, we really didn't know any better. Knowledge of the consequences, we assume, helps us advance.

Not necessarily so in Egypt. I am still surprised by:

1. The level of smoking, especially around pregnant women and children.

2. Seeing people swim laps in the Nile.

3. Drive like insane people, using only fake seat belts to avoid a ticket (if even that)

4. Crossing the street with a seeming death wish, coming within inches of cars speeding by at 50 miles and hour.

We (and surely the Egyptians) know that you can get cancer from smoking and that it can cause birth defects and asthma in children; that the Nile is highly polluted, not to mention teeming with bilharzia; that Egypt has a high rate of traffic-related deaths; and that seat belts reduce chances of death or injury.

I always ask, then: do Egyptians have some sort of death wish, or, at the very least, a nihilistic view of life (i.e., it's all going to end, so who cares?). It's not like they are too poor to be safer. Cigarettes cost more money; you don't have to swim in the Nile; and you don't have to drive like an insane person.

The awful thing is, whatever the origins of this mindset, it is rubbing off on me. I smoke shisha even when I know TB is spread through old shisha pipes. I don't use a seat belt, even if one is available. And I sit in smokey cafes every single day almost.

Pics from Birthday Bar Crawl

2008-04-20T06:13:00.004-04:00

Seven of us were in it for the long haul (picture taken outside Cafe Horreya on Midan Falaki)

Horreya:

Horreya:

Heading to the Stella Bar on Hoda Sharaawi (it was closed!)

So we went to the Odeon instead:

Cap d'Or

Pentagon Media Plays

2008-04-20T05:32:00.004-04:00

“The strategic target remains our population,” General Conway said. “We can lose people day in and day out, but they’re never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen.”

Today the NYT ran a terrific story on an organized effort by the Department of Defense to use former military officials-cum-media analysts to disseminate a positive view of the Iraq War to the American people. This was done through some combination of business incentives. brainwashing, and coercion, and extends to dozens of analysts working in a wide variety of venues, from NPR to CNN to Fox News. It's amazing. Check it out.

Even as they assured Mr. Rumsfeld that they stood ready to help in this public relations offensive, the analysts sought guidance on what they should cite as the next “milestone” that would, as one analyst put it, “keep the American people focused on the idea that we’re moving forward to a positive end.” They placed particular emphasis on the growing confrontation with Iran.

“When you said ‘long war,’ you changed the psyche of the American people to expect this to be a generational event,” an analyst said. “And again, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job...”

“Get in line,” Mr. Rumsfeld interjected.

The story is here. The interactive is here.

Jimmy Carter at AUC

2008-04-20T04:29:00.005-04:00

Jimmy Carter gave a little-publicized talk to a packed Ewert Hall at the American University in Cairo last Thursday. He spoke for about fifteen minutes, framing his visit to the region as a private citizen, founder of the Carter Center, and the man who successfully orchestrated the Camp David Accords.

After discussing the activities of the Carter Center (which include eliminating the "Guinea worm" from the Third World), Carter said, "This trip is a follow-up to my close friendship, almost brotherly love, with Anwar Sadat."

The highlights of Carter's talk were not the logistics of engineering an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in the near future, but little vignettes he provided on Camp David. He mentioned, for example, that negotiations had failed after Begin said he could not, having taken an oath before God not to dismantle any Israeli settlements, retract a settlement from the Sinai. As everyone was getting ready to go home, Carter delivered some photos to Begin's cabin of the three leaders standing together several days earlier. Carter has addressed them individually to Begin's eight grandchildren. Begin looked at the photos and read each child's name aloud, then began to weep, saying that his grandchildren would never see peace. Begin then decided to try again, and arranged to have the agreement, which included dismantling the settlement, approved by the Knesset so he wouldn't have to break his oath.

Carter's central point was this:

"In the last thirty years very little progress has been made...In order ot have peace in the Holy Land, you have to involve Hamas...and also Syria...but it's impossible under the circumstances for the US to talk to Hamas or Syria. They've laid down the rules, to which I consider myself immune (laughter)."

This is why Carter is here in the region, talking to parties that the US government has refused to engage in a failed strategy to make them irrelevant or to force them to change their policies. While a noble effort, several questions came to my mind:

1. I see nothing wrong with negotiating with Hamas as a democratically-elected party. However, I wonder if at this point either Hamas or Fatah is capable of negotiating a final agreement. With significant help from the US, the Palestinian state is weak and factionalized, and the people of Palestine are engaged in their own civil war. How could any leadership make the credible commitments that are necessary to uphold a peace agreement that will surely face significant opposition from some parties, let alone enforce it??

2. I think that bringing Syria into the fold is a really bad idea. It should be done in the future, but not before the Palestinian issue is settled. In the case of the Egyptian and the Jordanian peace negotiations, efforts made to include an agreement for the Palestinians were always the sticking point, and to advance the negotiations, these provisions were dropped. It's always easy to drop the Palestinians in favor of concluding an agreement with a legitimate state that actually poses a military threat.

After the talk, Carter took about 30 minutes of questions. This was wonderful, though many of the questions were not. Most of the Egyptians at the front (all the ministers, consultants, businessmen) asked really poor questions preceded by a short speech.

I found this comment that Carter made on U.S. aid to be interesting. An Egyptian AUC graduate student asked if US aid originating from Camp David was intended to be conditional. Carter danced around the question, and ultimately made it seem like a peace dividend was not really part of the discussions at Camp David. I find this hard to believe.

Here's the video:

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

2008-04-15T14:31:00.003-04:00

Three interesting things happened to me yesterday, my 27th birthday:

1. The New York Times ran the following story:

"A City Where You Can't Hear Yourself Scream"
Michael Slackman

This is not like London or New York, or even Tehran, another car-clogged Middle Eastern capital. It is literally like living day in and day out with a lawn mower running next to your head, according to scientists with the National Research Center. They spent five years studying noise levels across the city and concluded in a report issued this year that the average noise from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train 15 feet away, said Mustafa el Sayyid, an engineer who helped carry out the study.

But that 85 decibels, while “clearly unacceptable,” is only the average across the day and across the city. At other locations, it is far worse, he said. In Tahrir Square, or Ramsis Square, or the road leading to the pyramids, the noise often reaches 95 decibels, he said, which is only slightly quieter than standing next to a jackhammer.

“All of greater Cairo is in the range of unacceptable noise levels from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” Mr. Sayyid said.

By comparison, normal conversation ranges from 45 to 60 decibels, a chain saw registers 100 decibels and a gunshot 140. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, every 10 decibels equals a tenfold increase in intensity.

Just as I was about to buy a paintball gun and start taking out taxi drivers from my balcony, the National Research Center has provided the necessary research that could inform a new policy that efficiently targets urban noise pollution. Yeah, right!

2. My mother did not call me. Little Sister S did, however, both call me and send me a wonderful, wonderful e-card.

3. K humored a poor soul who misses gardens and good food, and took me to Al Azhar Park in the evening. Mwah!

Adventures in Abouna Land

2008-04-13T13:55:00.009-04:00

Yesterday I made a trip with my friends and Fulbright colleagues, H and D, to the Red Sea monasteries of St. Anthony (انطونيوس) and St. Paul (بولا). These two monasteries are home to some beautiful Byzantine monastic paintings, which is the academic focus of H in particular (coincidentally, USAID has funded the restoration of the paintings in both monasteries, so I guess this was kind of a field work trip for me, too). Both are still fully functioning monasteries, and we got special tours from the monks at each. The Coptic Christians call their priests and monks "Abouna (ابونا)," which means "Our Father" in Arabic.

These monasteries are about a three hour drive from Cairo, past Ein Al-Sukhna on the way to Hurghada. We went to St. Anthony's first, where we were greeted by Abouna Maximus, who is not only a monk in residence at St. Anthony's but also the mastermind behind the restoration of much of Egypt's Coptic heritage sites.

Abouna Maximus took several hours out of his very busy schedule (Coptic Easter is soon approaching) to make us lunch and show us around. He made a killer salad that I am going to re-create, name the "Abouna Salad" and serve to my children ten years from now.

Silas, the son of D, is slowly warming up to Abouna Maximus with the help of some crayons and ping pong balls.

Here are some pictures from the monastery complex.

This is a trap door through which protection rents (i.e. food and water) were lowered to the Bedouins outside the walls of the monastery. According to Abouna Maximus, they still come and hang out, waiting for food.

The new church was built on top of an old one, so Abouna Maximus had the idea of making the floor out of plexiglass.

The Refectory:

Here are the paintings from the main church, which aim to teach the teachings of the Bible through monasticism. I love them because (1) they are gory as hell (note the hellfire and cannibalism below);

and (2) there are lots of little animals in the detail. Sometimes they are being killed, in the case of Satan (in the form of a snake):

Here is some disgusting demon-looking creature that looks like it stepped out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting:

This guy is my favorite:

Next we went on to St. Paul's Monastery, which is less well-known (so not many tourists at all, as even St. Anthony's is not well-known to tourists).

Here we were shown around by Abouna Thomas, who I think took a (perhaps improper) liking to me, but I got a chocolate wafer out of it so that's fine with me.

Abouna thomas explained that the Copts think that St. Paul's grave is under this stone, though they've never opened it.

Abouna Thomas encouraged us to stand closer to get a better shot of his colleague-- though the subject seems a bit reluctant.

Yesterday we took a very long hike up to St. Anthony's cave, where he lived in solitude for his final years (he was the first monk in Christianity). Here is the church on the way up:

There were lots of Russians there on pilgrimage:

Lesson of the trip: there are two kinds of Russians in Egypt, hookers and borsht-cookers.

And After the Odeon...

2008-04-04T16:11:00.002-04:00

"Everyone will wonder what happened to you, dear. You shouldn't just leave us with you sitting inebriated on top of the Odeon Hotel!"

In short, the parents have been bemoaning my lack of posts. Don't worry, the research has picked up again, which is why I haven't been posting. I've had a couple of good professional developments come along as well.

First, my introductory chapter to my dissertation has been accepted by "Rethinking Old Perspectives on Foreign Aid" panel for the American Political Science Association's (APSA) annual meeting in Boston. This will be my first big conference paper, as I've always said I wouldn't present anything until I really had something to say. The meeting is August 28-31, 2008. If you're in town, stop by and heckle me and then we'll go out for a beer at the Plough and Stars. Here's a description of the paper:

"Special Relationships, Dollars, and Development: U.S. Aid and State Institutions in Egypt, Jordan, South Korea, and Taiwan "

Large-scale economic and military assistance has been the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy in Jordan since the mid-1950s and in Egypt since the mid-1970s. While U.S. aid is intended to jointly support friendly regimes and produce some degree of development, most academic studies have deemed it an economic failure in both of these countries. Blaming patronage networks, weak and overburdened bureaucracies, and U.S. commercial interests for aid’s shortcomings, above all Middle East regional specialists have argued that external rents inherently produce disincentives for rulers to craft developmental institutions, which are key to sustainable growth but which nevertheless have high political costs. However, a longstanding literature on the “developmental state” in the field of political economy suggests that U.S. aid to South Korea and Taiwan played a key role in the construction of those state institutions underpinning the so-called “East Asian economic miracle.” Large-scale foreign aid, then, is not sufficient to determine institutional and developmental outcomes; other factors must be important. Drawing on the cases of Egypt, Jordan, South Korea, and Taiwan, this paper will identify factors that condition the ability of foreign aid to effect institutional and economic development, with a particular focus on the nature of the regime coalition in the recipient country. The paper largely serves as an overview of my dissertation, which I am writing following a year-and-a-half of fieldwork in Egypt and Jordan.

I was also invited to speak on a panel at a conference hosted by the Partnership on Middle East Democracy in Amman at the end of May. I am going to speak about USAID's political reform initiatives in Jordan. Here is the conference website.

Other than that, I've just been really busy with reading. The interviews are winding down-- there are only 4 or 5 people I stil need to talk to, and I've repeatedly tried to contact them. The Counting Crows' new album (and all their old ones), as well as a steady supply of coffee, has been assisting me in my efforts... I think I am developing some sort of strange crush on Adam Duritz...

Tomorrow I'm taking a day-long riding trip to the Saqqara Pyramids, which are quite close to Cairo though I've never been there. I'm booked to get my PADI certification along with Roomie M in Dahab in May.

And my 27th birthday is coming up.

Such Trying Times

2008-03-12T03:59:00.003-04:00

I had an incredibly frustrating day yesterday with research. Suffice it to say that I found myself at 2 pm sitting on the 10th floor terrace at the Odeon Hotel, drinking a Stella. Alone. Staring at the skyline and loathing it. Worse: listening to Marlene Dietrich.

gli spiccioli... و البقية

2008-03-11T11:02:00.006-04:00

My time in Cairo is well past its halfway point, and I am already thinking off all the "leftovers" of my stay in Egypt-- things I'd like to do but I haven't yet. Aside from diving and another trip to Alex, which I will do in April-May, there are a couple of random things around Cairo that I want to do before I leave. I did three of them this past weekend.

The first was a trip to the ballet on Friday with the fabulous R in honor of her birthday. We saw "Bolero," a short piece first danced by Bronislava Nijinska (then modified in the 1960s by Maurice Bejart); some pas de deux from Le Corsaire, Carmen, and Swan Lake; and finally Zorba, a new-ish Greek creation inspired by the movie. The pas de deux were performed by third-rate Spanish dancers, but the Serbian woman featured in Bolero was wonderful. Zorba was all about extravagance and not technically creative, but amusing nonetheless. Think of a Ballanchine-style chorus three times the normal size doing Martha Graham-style choreography, flanked by two choirs, and occasionally interrupted by a mezzo soprano on stage and that's about it. Overal, it was the perfect Egyptian ballet: lots of jobs requiring repetition and little individuality were required, although the Egyptian dancer who danced the role Zorba was actually quite good. Actually, we are still lusting after him.

Here's a Bolero I found on YouTube (this one has both a male and a female dancer):

Then on Saturday I visited the October 1973 War Panorama in Heliopolis with H. I had driven past this place in Orouba Road on the way out to the airport many times, but had never paid it a visit. It's a memorial to the 1973 war, which--mind you--the Egyptians lost overall. Still, being here makes one feel like they won. The panorama is a cylindrical building with three theaters, and the grounds are surrounded by statuary and old Soviet technology used in the war.

Inside, you have to watch three shows. The first is a moving, glow-in-the-dark diorama of the invasion.

The second is a film reel.

The third is the best, a 360 degree rotating platform that depicts the war.

Oh, and we also went to Villa 55 in Maadi for some brunch. I love Maadi.

Then M and I went yesterday to what its owner claims is the oldest restaurant in Cairo. It's at Attaba, very near Midan Opera and about a block away from the Ministry of International Cooperation. We were the only ones eating there, and we wondered how it stays open (I went back today around lunchtime out of curiosity and found it quite full). I loved it, though they do not serve alcohol. The interior reminds me of the Greenbriar, oddly enough. I think it's the high moulded ceilings and strangely-colored walls.

Which is faster, ACS or the Mogamma?

2008-03-04T06:03:00.002-05:00

Today I had to visit American Citizen Services (ACS) to get some additional pages pasted in my passport. It turned into a 2.5 hour long production. First you have to go through security, where you will be relieved of your cell phone, computer, and almost anything else electronic that might entertain you during your wait. This is because ACS is located within the main Embassy compound. Then you have to take a little number in the reception area. The machine is so well-hidden that most people walk in aimlessly and need to be directed to it by someone else. Then they call your number. Then you get your form. You take another number. You go back with the filled- out form (if you have the fortune of having a pen or borrowing one, or else you're fucked because they won't lend you one). Then you wait for 1.5 hours while they paste pages in your passport. Pity me for thinking it was going to take 20 minutes. Let's just say I had a lot of time to think.

If I need something from the Mogamma, I use a fixer. I don't even have to go there. Much faster!

Buy Organic, Support Global Capitalism and Egyptian Regime Stability

2008-02-29T11:29:00.007-05:00

....well, in a very small way...

Yesterday our Fulbright group took a trip to SEKEM village, a privately-owned community in the Eastern Desert that integrates the production of pharmaceuticals (we're talking natural remedies here, not anything high-tech), organic foods, and textiles along with education, community activities, and social services for its workers and their families. SEKEM is seen as an ideal corporate model for the 21st century, combining an essentially export-oriented business with corporate social responsibility and community values. SEKEM is comprised of three entities: the SEKEM Holding Company, the Egyptian Society for Cultural Development, and the Cooperative of SEKEM Employees. The SEKEM Holding Company is composed of six companies:

ATOS: produces and markets phyto-pharmaceuticals and health products

LIBRA: works with farmers to cultivate fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs
HATOR: produces and packs fresh fruit and vegetables from Libra
CONYTEX: manufactures and sells organic textiles to local and export markets

ISIS: production of processed organic foodstuffs
SEKEM: prepares and pre-processes herbs and spices.

Let me give you a short history. Now a huge complex housing several textiles and pharmaceuticals factories, training areas, schools, herb fields, pigeon houses, a hospital, and an amphitheater, SEKEM village was founded in 1977 by Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish, an Egyptian pharmacologist who had lived in Austria for many years. According to our guide, Salem, when Abouleish returned to Egypt in 1975 he was mortified by the country's socioeconomic deterioration. He bought 70 hectares of land from the government in the Eastern Desert, and after striking an employment deal with the area's recalcitrant Bedouins, in 1981 Abouleish produced his first "biodynamic (it's not clear what this term means, but they like it at SEKEM)" herbs to be sold in the United States. Since then, SEKEM has grown by fantastic proportions, adding on textiles, food crop production and processing, and pharmaceuticals, as well as establishing the Egyptian Biodynamic Association, which instructs farmers throughout Egypt on organic farming methods. SEKEM village now employs about 2,000 locals and provides social services to their families. The focus is on sustainability, and many of the goods and services consumed by SEKEM, from uniforms to playgrounds to computer repair, are produced by the SEKEM workers themselves.

A sign for the technical high school:

Display corner of a needlework training room:

Some very nice sculptures produced by a now-deceased disabled student:

A performance by a traveling theater group:

Children's pictures in the elementary school:

Dolls in a kindergarten classroom, all produced by the SEKEM textile factories:

Roomie M in front of a plot of wheat being grown by the kindergarteners::

The hospital:

At the end of every Thursday, all the workers gather in a circle and report to Abouleish, who then shakes everyone's hand as they leave:

So what's so interesting about SEKEM? Let's look at it first in terms of some political-economic problems in Egypt:

1. Unemployment is high, especially among the university-educated, though there is a dire shortage of technicians who can participate in the production process.

2. Most Egyptian manufacturing industries are low value-added and labor intensive, which means they can face lots of competition from economies that have lower wages. This "race to the bottom" causes a degradation of social conditions.

3. The Egyptian state has always had trouble extending its authority over the Bedouin of the Eastern Desert.

SEKEM has killed all three of these birds with one stone. Headed by a powerful figure who is obviously well-connected politically, SEKEM has co-opted the local Bedouin population by providing them with secure employment and social benefits. This isn't just any old job, mind you-- not only is SEKEM the cleanest place I've ever been in Egypt, the wages are high, all the education workers need is provided, and they are integrated into a community where everyone knows each other, participates in cultural activities (only the Western classics, though, according to Salem), and seems very well-treated. The whole operation is sustained by the development of a niche market in the West, where hippies and health nuts making higher salaries will dole out a large amount of money for organic products. Usually the development of a niche market requires some sort of monopoly on global production or the production of very high-tech goods, neither of which Egypt is capable of right now. However, organic foods from Egypt are price-competitive because most of the organic foods market is composed of Western producers with higher production costs-- few developing countries have gotten in on organic foods (if they do, SEKEM will be in trouble). Even better, the feel-good Europeans have noticed SEKEM and have started to provide them with financial and technical assistance. So has
the Egyptian government.

So you, as an American hippie-granola, support fair wages and good living conditions for people in the SEKEM community. However, you are also supporting global trade (which I think is fab but most of you hippies seem to hate), and you are also supporting the co-optation of Egyptian bedouins. Here is a list of SEKEM products and where you can buy them.

I Want To Be Blonde, I Want To Be Blonde

2008-02-25T15:39:00.006-05:00

I woke up yesterday morning longing desperately for some major yet very superficial change. I hate really deep changes, like aging, death, and the end of relationships, but I like changing small things-- moving furniture, changing residences, and bestowing half of my closet on my sisters and friends before replenishing it.

I decided to do something about my hair. Usually I just change the length, alternating between something long and a wedge cut. I usually do not have it dyed, extensively highlighted, or otherwise treated with chemicals. Why not?

This is my mother, a clotheshorse extraordinaire who, though rarely found without red lipstick and heels, generally despises women who substantially alter their appearance through artificial means. These include lots of makeup, hair dye, plastic surgery, hard-core exercise, dieting, and eating disorders. She taught me to view these women as vain and weak. She usually refers to them as "affected," "trying too hard," or "superficial bitches."

Mom, I am throwing this teaching out the window, and this country is entirely to blame. Beauty here is based on the cash and the effort you put into it; it has nothing to do with nature. I don't know what else to say. The slide started long ago-- take, for example, that I haven't done my own nails in over a year, and I actually started permitting stylists to flat-iron my hair last spring.

Furthermore, I felt the need to return to my so-called "blonde roots." I deliberately avoid sunlight here as it bleaches my hair, which indirectly draws me more unwanted attention on the street. In the Middle East, I remain a dirty blonde, which I don't like. I started thinking about this as I was laying in bed, also angry that my body is in the best physical shape it's been in since I was sixteen and I cannot show it off. I felt repressed!

So this morning I hopped over to Mohammed Al-Sagheer in Zamalek, the three-floor beauty emporium where I (and most of my friends and Zamalek-area females of a certain class) go to get my hair and nails done. Once caped, I was plopped down in a chair next to an aging Egyptian prima donna who was interrogating her colorist ("Why don't you call me by my name? Don't you remember it from last time? My name is Madame Fatin). To the other side, my usual manicurist, Sabah, was crouched on the ground next to another middle-aged woman. This woman was speaking intently to the stylist, though only making eye contact with herself in the mirror in front of her. To a non-Arabic speaker, it might have looked like she was angry at the man or describing her reaction upon walking in on her husband in a compromising position with the 16-year-old Saidi maid. But no-- she was talking about something much more trivial. I don't even recall what it was.

After several minutes the manager, a red-haired man who usually doesn't pay me much attention, came and asked if I had anyone in mind to do my color and cut. Inspired by the two pretentious bats sitting on either side of me, it occurred to me that I should act catty and irrational. I decided that I must--not maybe, but MUST-- have a Lebanese man do my hair. During all of my time here, the guys from Lebanon have never fucked up my hair. Since I couldn't bring myself to ask if they had any Lebanese men, and I cannot in principle be catty to service staff, I said, "Oh yes, there was a wonderful man from Lebanon who did my hair last time, but I have forgotten his name." Voila', a small, alert Lebanese man named Jacob was assigned to me.

I let Jacob and his assistant do their work for an hour, not worrying about my own work that I had to do. I thought about the weekend, the iced mocha I wanted to get afterwards, and how I am going to start training for a race in April. To the right, Sabah produced a cigarette for her client and lit it for her so as to not muss her nails. To the left, the prima donna gabbed on her mobile phone in Arabish. From Saint Paul, I think my mother frowned in her sleep.

They did a fantastic job. I highly recommend Jacob for color and Hebba for cuts. Blonder than ever, I proudly walked over to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to join the other well-processed women. I have never been harassed so much in ten minutes as then. It's definitely the blonde that does it.

Wadi Al Hitan

2008-02-24T07:33:00.005-05:00

On Friday, I went with Roomie M and some friends to go off-roading around Lake Qaroun and Wadi Al Hitan (which means "Valley of the Whales"). T, who I have known since my Edinburgh days, was the driver and his friend S was the GPS navigator. This was their first try going off-road without a guide. We had a narrow escape getting out of Wadi Al Hitan before sunset, and almost ran out of gas in the evening, but luckily we made it back without having to spend the night in the desert.

In high spirits at the beginning of the day:

T driving/navigating:

Safina Al-Sahra':

Sand terraces:

T and M relaxing after lunch:

Lake Qaroun:

Wrangling with the gas tank:

Getting stuck:

This sediment, which contains innumerable quantities of fossilized sea creatures, is what earns Wadi Al Hitan its name:

Wadi Al Hitan at sunset:

We had trouble getting over the plateaus that surround Wadi Al-Hitan, as the park entrance was closed by the time we arrived. Luckily, T's wicked driving skills and S's GPS skills got us out before sunset.

Me, M, and M2 ended the night over some beers at Al-Horreya to calm our nerves. It was really a close call!

It's Picture Time!

2008-02-23T12:53:00.007-05:00

I realized that I never posted any pictures of the family visit in December/ January, for those of you not on Facebook. Here are my favorites.

E and I on New Year's Eve:

Everyone riding by the Pyramids at IEC:

Mom and I at the Greek Club:

Felucca in Luxor:

Mom and Dad in Luxor:

S and Dad in the Valley of the Kings (Japanese TV van in background):

Mom at the Temple at Karnak:

Me, S, and E, New Year's Eve:

E at the Mohammed Ali mosque:

Everyone at the Mohammed Ali mosque:

E and S, Al Hussein mosque:

Mom and E at Al Fishawi:

Dad in Luxor:

Mom, E, and S in Zamalek:

Me, S, and E in a garden:

Me, E, and S, Alexandria:

Mom and Dad at the Citadel:

Sad News

2008-02-21T10:43:00.001-05:00

You can no longer visit the Greek Club and Ayman Nour's law office in one go.

The view from the World Bank...

2008-02-21T09:32:00.003-05:00

...(literally) is beautiful, though not in the traditional sense. The World Bank offices in Cairo, which I have recently visited, are on the 15th floor of the World Trade Center, which is right up against the East bank of the Nile facing Zamalek. From here, the afternoon sun hits the Nile at such an angle that the river looks like pool of blinding white light. The intensity washes out the color of dirt caking the city's pervasive cement and glass apartment buildings, lined up from as far back as Imbaba until they cast themselves at your feet. You cannot see the traffic in the distance, nor the small white birds that flit across the water. For a couple of minutes each day, this optical illusion veils the city, which seems vast and neverending.

Unfortunately I had to wait a little longer for my appointment to begin. Since my mind is feeling active today, I made some more observations about the space:

You can't see any trees looking across the river to Zamalek, only the villas along the water, which seem almost pushed forward by the tide of cement buildings that populate the rest of the island. Beautiful up close, Zamalek looks pretty ugly from afar.

While USAID has its own 5-story building in New Maadi, the World Bank field office has half a floor in a downtown office building. The walls are decorated with original paintings by Egyptian artists, which their names prominently displayed. The couches in the reception are leather and have a small bar code on the legs.

The World Trade Center tower is right next to the large, sickeningly pink Conrad Hotel, which is where most of the big economic research conferences and workshops are held (ECES and ERF, for example). All you need to do is walk across the courtyard that divides the two buildings.

The view from the WB reception looks out on the Saudi ambassador's residence. His villa appears to be the only one in the neighborhood with direct access to the Nile, and a small yacht is docked out front. A large cement barrier divides the Nile from all the other villas on Mohammed Mazhar St, like the Swedish ambassador's residence next door.

I could see lots of fishermen below casting their nets into the river from small rowboats. Not far away were two rusty, unused barges full of scrap metal. They sit in front of Sangria, a once-popular restaurant and nightspot.

Lost Battle With My Mekwagi

2008-02-20T02:57:00.003-05:00

In the States, I feel for the most part we really dislike letting people into our homes. People who can afford nannies, maintenance people, and maids generally do not have them unless their house is so huge that they cannot handle it themselves, and even then these people only show up once and awhile.

Not so here. There are a string of characters that end up in my apartment, on my phone, or outside my door several times a week: the security guards, the maintenance men, the women who clean the hallways, the gas man, the electricity guy, the Drinkies delivery man, the maid, and the Metro delivery man.

I've been forced to relinquish some of my coldness to people who knock on my door after I have retreated to the safety of my apartment after a long day out in the city. There is one notable exception: the mekwagi (the dry cleaner).

We have a very conveniently-located dry cleaner on the first floor of the building next to us, and before the little fucker figured out where I lived, I would just drop by and pick up my things every couple of days. Then one day the delivery boy, Mustapha (Al-Sagheer, Al-Kabeer actually runs the store) followed me back when I had a larger load. I didn't mind. He seemed like a harmless 12-year-old boy, and I figured it wouldn't be so bad to have him do my pick-up and delivery.

Not so. This kid is insane. I now think that he is actually a perverted 30-year-old man with some sort of developmental disability that makes him look like a kid. He comes by my place at like 11 pm, and he comes ALL the time (either wanting to visit or wanting his tip, I am not sure which). I've told the kid like 10 times to not come after 8, and each time he responds, "Maa lish, maa lish." Finally, after the little bastard spent like 10 minutes ringing my doorbell last weekend while I was getting ready to go out and in no form to answer the door, I opened it and told him that under no circumstances should he ever come again, and I would pick up my laundry in the future. Then I went downstairs and, for the fifth time, told the guard not to let the kid upstairs if I don't answer the buzzer.

All was fine. No Mustapha for days. Peace. Quiet.

Then I went to pick up my laundry yesterday and the kid owed me 15 LE in change, which he claimed not to have. When his boss sent him to get it, he just wandered around in the street, probably knowing that I woud get pissed off waiting for him. And I did.

Time for a new dry cleaner.

"Do Not Be Nice to the Criminals"

2008-02-18T08:49:00.007-05:00

Alaa Al-Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building, has a reaction to The Times' story on Egyptian youth that I linked to below. He writes,

Finally, in my opinion, you were too nice to the Egyptian political regime. You presented the victim but not the perpetrator.

This young man, Ahmed, did not come from the moon and we did not find him in the desert. He is an Egyptian who was deprived of all his rights as a human being and as a citizen and he was deprived of the right to chose the leaders who can represent him and he was deprived of the fair rule of law. He was deprived of free healthcare. He was deprived of his right to find a respectful home and job. He was deprived of all his rights. You did not talk about those who are responsible for this tragedy. Those you talked to from the government appeared as though they are truly concerned individuals who are doing respectful things, which is not the case at all. Do not be nice to the criminals and the corrupt people who are responsible for the tragedy of Ahmed and others.

I think this is an interesting statement. As my more faithful readers know, I do blame the plight of the Egyptian poor on developments in Egyptian politics. Despite strong GDP growth in Egypt during the past couple of years, Egypt's new wealth does not accrue proportionally: this is nothing new. Worse, as they live in what is essentially a police state, Egyptians who do not benefit have really no means to protest this or to take action to better their own circumstances. I think this is wrong. The state should be the implementer of policy preferences that are expressed through a democratically-elected government with universal suffrage for all citizens.

However, Al-Aswany also sees another role for the state, which is to provide for the economic well-being of all Egyptians. I don't agree with this. Don't get me wrong. I agree with some degree of social safety net, and I agree with the notion that underprivileged groups should be given an extra boost so that everyone can play on an even field. Yet Al-Aswany seems to think that the state should follow a socialist model, providing jobs and health care to everyone.

This is an experiment that Egypt tried in the past, and it didn't work. Granted, some crony capitalists are now benefiting disproportionately from Egypt's wealth-- but the plight of Ahmed and the Egyptian economy more broadly is not solely their fault. It is also a legacy of socialism that is the problem today. Consider the enormous level of public employment that weighs down the government bureaucracy, discouraging proper planning and scaring away business. Consider the state subsidies (and again, public employment) that have distorted the Egyptian labor market. Consider the country's decaying (physically and intellectually) universities that have been weighed down by 40 years of free tuition. In a sense, it is also the Egyptians who benefit from these state transfers that are weighing down the economy. In a sense, their dependence on handouts hurts their own livelihood because it undermines the developmental capacity of the state. The government can't build or maintain infrastructure without foreign aid because it spends a large portion of its revenues on salaries and subsidies. The government can't encourage private sector growth because it (1) provides more secure employment, discouraging people to work in the private sector; and (2) is full of unqualified bureaucrats that stifle business with red tape. Yet we cannot ask these people to relinquish the government goods and services that form the basis of their livelihoods, either, as there is no place for them in the private sector, at least in the short term. It's a terrible conundrum with no easy solutions.

The Egyptian Competitiveness Report 2005-2006 states, "less-educated workers, especially illiterate people who can hardly read and write, do not suffer from unemployment problems," and, "graduates with intermediate diplomas constitute more than 66 percent of the total unemployed people in 2004." So basically people like Ahmed received a free education from the government, which costs money, and are now doing nothing with it because there is no demand for the jobs they were trained for in the market. Even worse, as Huntington pointed out 30 years ago, heightened aspirations for social mobility that are thwarted can be catastrophic.

Who is really to blame for the woes of the Egyptian economy? The answers are more complex that you would think.

Things I Learned Today

2008-02-17T13:38:00.002-05:00

1. Using voice-over internet protocol (i.e. Skype) to make calls originating in Egypt is against Egyptian law.

2. Henry Kissinger was a little tipsy when the decision was made to put U.S. forces on Defcon 3 status during the October War.

3. My favorite building in Minneapolis, the Foshay Tower, is being renovated into a hotel.

Busted!!

2008-02-16T08:35:00.002-05:00

Not that I usually pay attention to these things, BUT...

My sister's friend tells me that the vast majority of so-called "designer" handbags at AUC are fake. I think that this is funny on so many levels. Why would you buy a fake label, especially when the designs that these rip-off artists are copying are so boring? Maybe it would be worth it to buy a replica of a nice Chloe bag with some design value-added, but to buy a rip-off of these dime-a-dozen Louis Vuitton or Gucci logo bags is pretty ridiculous, and seems to suggest very intentional status-seeking without the income to back it up. These things drive me crazy about the middle/upper classes here.

Bittersweet Symphonies

2008-02-16T07:15:00.002-05:00

Remember that song that The Verve did like 10 years ago called "Bittersweet Symphony," which samples from "The Last Time?" In the video, the lead singer of the band is walking along a London street with music playing really loud and pushing everyone out of his way like he doesn't even notice them. I love this video. As much as I love cities, from New York to Cairo, the daily troubles of commuting often drive me mad. When I used to visit BGT in Manhattan, I would often have the days to myself. I would walk just about anywhere, usually before getting exhausted and plopping down in a park somewhere to read. Anyway, it was at this time that I started popping my headphones in my ears and blaring out classical hits as I walked down the street. There's something slightly comforting in the notion that you can walk down some of the busiest streets in the world and hear nothing but a concert hall in your head.

As much as I think it is important to observe my surroundings while I am in Cairo, I have tired of listening to subway chit-chat and nasty men on the street, and I have reverted to my old practice. Here is the list I recommend to drown out Cairo street noise:

1."Serenade in G, K. 525," Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart)
2. "Solomon HWV 67," The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (Handel)
3. Renee Fleming, "Quando men vo," La Boheme (Puccini)
4. Renee Fleming, "Ebben? Ne andro lontana," La Wally (Catalani)
5. Danielle de Niese, "Lascia ch'io pianga," Rinaldo (Handel)
6. "Air on the G String" (Bach--adaptation)
7. Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars, "Miserere" (Allegri)
8. "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" (Bach-- the full orchestral adaptation, not the organ solo)
9. Luciano Pavarotti, "Amor Ti Vieta," Fedora (Giordano)
10. Cecilia Bartoli, "Ah, non credea mirarti," La Sonnambula (Romani)

The louder the better, especially with noise-reducing headphones. :-P

Happy Valentine's Day, Cairo

2008-02-14T10:27:00.003-05:00

It turns out that Valentine's Day in Cairo is an even bigger to-do than in Amman. Nearly every storefront has some sort of Valentine's Day decoration in it, from pet shops to newspaper stands. The Costa Coffee next to the AUC library, my haunt from around 9-10 am daily, was not empty this morning but full of couples armed with balloons, flowers, and red polyester teddy bears. Fairouz, Celine Dion, and Bryan Adams replaced the usual soundtrack of Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, and Michael Jackson as an uncustomary level of hand-holding and across-the-table gazing took place. I suppressed my near-impulsive reaction to vomit up both my chocolate croissant and a number of profanities that ranged from the faults of commercialism to the sexual repression of Egyptian society to the ephemeral nature of romantic love. Instead, I walked across the street to the Radio Shack, bought myself some new sound-reducing headphones, and returned to my table to listen to three standard icons of feminine bitterness: Nancy Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, and Edith Piaf.

I have always disliked Valentine's Day.

But I've decided to make a change. I started thinking about all the people and things that I love in Cairo, and to list them here in no particular order.

1. Maison Thomas in Zamalek. This place plays to my two great loves, pork products and nice old people. I went there today and ordered my usual medium-sized Monaco (read: piles of ham) with black olives. Today the manager, who is the most darling human being I have ever come across, came over with his usual smile and said, "Happy Valentine's Day! How are you?" He wears a neat little white apron and always has his gray hair immaculately combed. His friendliness is not rooted in the typical source of sexual repression that usually compels Egyptian men on the street to be (overly) nice to me, but genuine politeness and respect. Every time I see this man I have the urge to give him a big hug and thank him for being so nice to me.

2. Taxi Drivers. Sometimes when I walk through the streets of Cairo, especially in the poorer areas, I feel like I am surrounded by sleepwalkers. Unalert, tired, and broken bodies clad in galabiyyas and burdened with the weight of life slowly drag, schlump, and heave themselves through alleys, under metro tunnels, and over piles of rubbish--that is, until a taxi comes barreling down the road, honking, shouting, and shaking his fist at passers-by. Despite the tedium of their work, they have spunk and their own set of rules.

3. Townhouse Gallery. Off of rue Champollion, this gallery is not only a nice space, but runs foreign films on every Tuesday night. I like going to see them by myself after I go to the gym.

4. Any number of the gardens along Aboul Fida Street that face the west bank of the Nile. Although they are most popular with teenagers who want to snog, I first went with my mother and sisters came to visit. The one across from the "Fish Park" is the best kept and is home to a number of friendly cats. I love going here to read or to think.

5. Matt and Rana. My two favorite people, what else can I say?

6. Assorted Cairo bars, especially one called Cap d'Or near Midan Mustafa Kamel. It has big, red shutters that are left open in nice weather, not to mention excellent snacks. The best part is the restroom. There is only one, and since women are rarely found in this establishment, the bartender makes a big deal out of the occasional female who needs to use the facilities. First he makes sure that nobody else is inside. If there's not, he lets you in, stacking up old beer cases in front of the door and standing guard like your modesty is Buckingham Palace itself.

7. My iPod. We've become even closer nowadays with my daily commutes to AUC, which seem to take longer and longer. Basically, I got sick of listening to music and have now filled it with news podcasts and audiobooks.

Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Following Up On Elevators

2008-02-13T05:39:00.001-05:00

Friend Jon added a comment to the post below that contains a link to a recent film he did on Cairo's elevator prayer devices. I love it! Keep 'em coming!

AMP hits the jackpot this week

2008-02-12T06:30:00.000-05:00

I've found two major obstacles to my project so far, and they are (1) an unwillingness on the part of government entities to provide simple documents without a long string of acrobatics with their legal departments; and (2) a really bad indexing system for books at the AUC library, which means that typing in "USAID Egypt" will often not bring up all books related to "USAID Egypt," or if is does, the books are often missing.

In the past 24 hours, I've gotten some of the documents I wanted AND I stumbled upon an entire shelf full of USAID status reports from 1975 to 2003 or so, none of which appear to be listed on the library's online catalog. Nobody would be excited about this in normal conversation except me, so I am posting it here.

Weeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Seen and Heard

2008-02-11T15:42:00.000-05:00

Today I walk into my building with my friend Heather after having tea in Garden City. We realize that one of the two elevators is again being repaired, and this time the extent of work requires the maintenance men to build a small wooden ramp going up the stairs to wheel in supplies.

I remark, "The elevator is broken again? It seems like they are repairing these elevators once every couple of days or so."

Heather responds, "I know, it makes you nervous, doesn't it?"

We sit there tapping our feet and admiring the Valentine's Day decorative tree that has been placed in the corner of the reception, complete with small, heart shaped balloons and white rice lights on its branches. I try to avoid the gaze of the creepy security guard with the large head, who sits behind the desk watching us with a blank stare. The lighted numbers above the elevator come down, 7-6-5.... Finally the door opens. A short, round man who looks German steps in behind us.

Not used to having others understand my English, I ask Heather, still facing the door, "Do you know what you are supposed to do if an elevator falls while you are in it?"

She pauses. "No."

"You are supposed to throw yourself flat on the ground to spread out your body mass and reduce the force with which you hit the ground. If you keep standing, your legs will be broken."

At this point, the man standing next to us bursts into laughter.

"Be optimistic," he says with a light accent that I recognize as Arab, "At least they have maintenance men in this building. You should see some of the elevators in other buildings in town."

I look at the ground sheepishly, recalling one doorless elevator in Zamalek which had a bawab riding on top of it and a prayer recording that automatically began to play when the elevator started up.

Heather gets out at on the second floor. "Happy birthday," I say cheerfully. The man chuckles.

Finally I exit at the eighth floor, leaving the man alone in the elevator.

"Remember," I say as I step out, "throw yourself down when it falls. Have a good evening!"

Question Answered?

2008-02-11T05:49:00.000-05:00

It looks like the U.S. is not going to renege on its pledge to withhold $100 million in military aid to Egypt unless it beefs up its efforts to secure the Rafah border. According to Haaretz, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch (also a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt) told Israeli officials "about progress on the extension of U.S. aid to Egypt to fight smuggling at the border. He said the U.S. and Egypt agreed on the introduction of various technological measures to locate smuggling tunnels, which will be provided to Egypt in the near future."

I had suspected that the Egyptians would use the Hamas border breach to demand that this condition be dropped. The publicity from Welch's visit seems to indicate the opposite. However, I still don't think I'm wrong. The Egyptians seem to want to use the breach towards two ends:

1. to marshal significant foreign assistance in securing the border (see the Egyptian consul general's op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle two days ago). This could include the technical assistance that the U.S. wants to provide for border security, in which case everyone wins. Egypt really wins if it can get outside help to extend state authority over the Sinai's rebellious Bedouin population. The Sinai Bedouins have played a major role in helping to smuggle weaponry and black market goods through the Gaza tunnels-- and have generally had a rocky relationship with the Egyptian government.

2. to demand more aid as compensation for its efforts to re-secure the border and to compensate locals in Al Arish for the inconvenience of the Palestinians and the higher prices they brought with them. The consul general's op-ed seems to indicate that the $100 million conditional aid should be dropped in light of this. This sounds a bit like Jordan's appeal for compensation for the Iraq War in 2003 and for the burden of Iraqi refugees in 2007. It worked both times.

Scobey Testimony

2008-02-11T05:08:00.000-05:00

The Arabist has the full Margaret Scobey congressional testimony posted.

And rumor has it that the rumors printed in Al Masri Al Youm of an early Ricciardone departure are false. Readers in the U.S.: can you imagine having to speculate over whether or not what news your papers print is true or false? It's unbelievable what Egyptian readers put up with here. Of course, we can't blame the newspapers solely-- the government doesn't give them much real information to work with. There's also something on that from the Economist, via The Arabist.

I'll stop screeding now. Two screeds a week is quit enough.

Update

2008-02-10T06:45:00.000-05:00

The Egypt Daily News has an article on the U.S. primaries and the press event. I am finding myself increasingly reliant on this online source for news in Egypt, not only because English is easier to read and it's updated more frequently than the weekly Al Ahram English, but because Al Ahram is all about Mubarak and the other dailies are pretty unreliable in the information they provide (consider them op-eds, mostly).

Speaking of the primaries, I shelled out twice as much as I would have in the US to buy a copy of Obama's Dreams From My Father at Diwan the other day. I'm about finished, and I highly recommend it. The introduction was so touching and so eloquently written that it almost made me start bawling into my cappuccino on Friday. The book is about Obama, and it's about racial tension in the U.S., but he presents a whole different way of looking at things. He questions old assumptions and methods, particularly in the area of race relations and community organizing, which is something that I don't see even among today's civil rights leaders. This is someone who is a real thinker-- and who is honest about it, to boot.

I particularly enjoyed Obama's depiction of radical activists, his subtle chiding of those who dismiss any action that involves working within the system-- those who mostly earn a living by sitting around and screaming about how unfair the world is, rather than taking the time to understand the opportunities and obstacles posed by the status quo. To these individuals, any question about feasibility marks you as a brainwashed sheep, marching in time with capitalist white imperialism. This dogmatism is present in all spheres of policy, from race relations to economic organization, and it angers me greatly. Here's an excerpt from the book that really struck me:

In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and Black Power fame, speak at Columbia. At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature and arguing with each other about Trotsky's place in history. Inside, Toure' was proposing a program to establish economic ties between Africa and Harlem that would circumvent white capitalist imperialism. At the end of his remarks, a young woman with glasses asked if such a program was practical given the State of African economies and the immediate needs facing black Americans. Toure' cut her off midsentence. "It's only the brainwashing that you've received that makes it impractical, sister," he said. His eyes glowed inward as he spoke, the eyes of a madman or a saint. The woman remained standing for several minutes while she was upbraided for her bourgeois attitudes. People began to file out. Outside the auditorium, the two Marxists were now shouting at the top of their lungs.

"Stalinist pig!"

"Reformist bitch!"

It was like a bad dream. I wandered down Broadway, imagining myself standing on the edge of the Lincoln Memorial and looking out over an empty pavilion, debris scattering in the wind. The movement had died years ago, shattered into a thousand fragments. Every path to change was well-trodden, every strategy exhausted. And with each defeat, even those with the best intentions could end up further and further removed from the struggles of those they purported to serve (pp. 139-140).

I can't tell you how often I've been that woman in the Toure' lecture during the past two months, and I'm really tired of being criticized for asking people to do solid research and to consider the feasibility of their ideas before they just go barking them out. It drives me crazy. This little passage also reveals a phenomenon that seems to take root in any sort of advocacy or aid issue I've ever dealt with. Movements. like the civil rights movement, start out with a small core of committed people who deal with very applied issues. Their goal is to provide clear and immediate benefits to the people they are advocating on behalf of. Think MLK and the Civil Rights Act. Think aid workers building bridges and providing mosquito nets.

Then the "bourgeois-intellectual-hangers on" become involved, and the debate moves from the applied to the theoretical, and often a lot doesn't get done. Take, for example, these Marxists Obama mentions, who claim to be about helping the poor or the disenfranchised. They aren't helping at all. They are holding conferences, writing books, and fighting outside auditoriums. Their ideas are so crazy and so unfeasible that nobody ever applies them, and nobody benefits except for the aforementioned overinflated egos. Or, in the case of international aid, we become embroiled in quantitative studies that nobody ever reads, or flying people out to seminars whose proceedings will never be published. People go hungry while consultants or workshop participants hole up in a five-star hotel. Intellectuals surely have something to offer, and their ideas should be respected, but it seems to have become more of a racket than a serious pursuit in recent years.

SCREED.

Scobey Backs Human Rights in Egypt

2008-02-07T12:14:00.000-05:00

According to the AP, President Bush's nominee to succeed U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone will back human rights in Egypt. Margaret Scobey, who once served as ambassador to Syria, "pledged to pressure the Egyptian government to release Ayman Nour from a five-year prison term."

I'm curious to know to what extent U.S. policy on human rights in Egypt comes from the ambassador versus from the White House. I have the impression that it is the latter, in which case Scobey's own personal convictions don't matter a whit.

Earlier this week, the daily Al Masri Al Youm ran a story claiming that the Bush administration had wanted to pull Ricciardone out before his 3-year term ends in May due to statements he has mad ein the past that praise Egypt for its human rights record.

Embarrassing Confession

2008-02-07T03:56:00.000-05:00

I think my level of homesickness has peaked out. I was walking on Road 9 in Ma'adi several days ago, admiring the lawns, the quiet, and the American SUVs parked alongside the road.

(Note: Ma'adi the southern suburb of Cairo is where a lot of the American expats who are here working in the short term for the military or businesses--and who have no desire to learn Arabic or become assimilated--come to live)

Anyway, I saw a brand new Jeep Cherokee parked on the west side of the road in front of a nice, single-family home with a real lawn and flowers in front. And it had.... a Texas A&M window decal. The window decal was what did it: I had a sudden urge to find this Texas A&M grad, who I would probably never socialize with, let alone date, if I were in the U.S., and make him take me out dancing and buy me a Budweiser. Who IS this girl and where has AMP gone?

I think I might be regaining my senses.

US Elections Through an Egyptian Lens

2008-02-07T02:37:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of enthusiasm within the American expat community in Cairo over the primaries for the U.S. presidential election. In the past couple of days, I have participated in three events dealing with this issue. On Tuesday, I was part of a panel of both Americans and Egyptians conducted by videoconference to Charlottesville, Virginia (what can I say, one of my committee members, Bill Quandt, is in town for the AUC Board of Trustees meetings, and he won't miss a class). Then yesterday I attended a press event at the U.S. Embassy for Egyptian journalists and after that a Democrats Abroad meeting in Zamalek (all Americans, of course).

What did I learn?

First of all, I learned that while the U.S. presidential primaries seem to have captured much of the world's attention, Egyptians don't really think that they are very important. The first question posed to the Tuesday panel by Bill was, "How do Egyptians view the primaries and the general election in November? What are they saying?" I didn't really have an answer with regard to the primaries, but on the general elections my general sense is that they, of course, hope the Republicans will be out because it will mean a less offensive foreign policy in the region. However, when it comes to support for Israel, which many view of the source of all the trouble, very little change is anticipated. The same appraisal came from the Egyptian members of the panel.

Had I been to the Embassy press event before the panel, my answer would have been slightly different. The press event was divided into two parts: a live videoconference with two political analysts from Washington, one Republican and one Democrat; and then a panel with the Deputy Chief of Mission, a professor of political science at Cairo University, a professor of American Studies from AUC, and the New York Times Cairo Bureau Chief.

Most of the event was taken up by reporters' questions, and they were almost all about Barack Obama. Not his policy stances. Not his popularity among Americans. Not his clashes with Hillary.

They wanted to know if Americans will not vote for Barack Hussein Obama because he has an Arabic name. They REALLY think that this is a big issue for the man who has electrified American youth, pushing them into political activity ever since his 2004 convention speech, and who has achieved immense popularity even among whites in the South, provoking some pundits to state that "Obama transcends race."

This makes me pretty angry. Not only does it show a fair degree of ignorance about American politics (especially since they didn't have many more substantive questions beyond this and calling for American elections to be internationally monitored), it also reveals that many Egyptians view Americans as racist, ignorant bigots who hate all things remotely to do with Arabs, their culture, and their language. I am so sick of hearing this. I think that the panelists are as well, with Michael Slackman, the NY Times correspondent, and the two political analysts emphasizing that the groups who are spreading rumors that Obama somehow has terrorist ties or is a Muslim who cannot be trusted are very small fringe elements-- and if Hillary were to utilize any of this false information, she would be clobbered by the media and civil rights activists (one reporter in the audience even claimed that she had). Hopefully that was made clear.

The members of the press also seemed to think it is a big deal that Obama is black. They, and many of my own non-American friends, have asked recently, "Is America ready for a black president?" I think a lot of middle-aged Americans still get off by railing on the race issue, but for me and many of my generation I think it's an issue that has faded out. I went to school with kids of all races, and we were all brought up being told that we were equal. I don't define people by color. And while there certainly is still racism in America today, I don't think it's as big of a deal that some people are claiming it is. I certainly don't think Obama's life is in danger purely by virtue of his race. The Egyptian media seemed to think it was still 1966 or something.

The Democratic analyst had an interesting point about Obama, though. He mentioned many studies that have been conducted by pollsters show that white Americans view African American descendants of slaves less favorably than African Americans of continental African descent (which is Obama's heritage from his father--his mother is white).

"So technically Obama is really a half-continental black African," he concluded.

I thought about this for awhile. As a white person, do I care less about race when the candidate in question is not a descendant of slaves? Would I claim that race is not important if Jesse Jackson or Cornell West were running for president? I probably would not, but I think that the difference is socioeconomic and cultural rather than racial. If Colin Powell ran, race would seem less important to me because I identify more with Colin Powell's background--or how I perceive it. He doesn't speak in slang, namely.

These nuances are something that I think would be extremely difficult for a foreign audience to understand. They just see Obama as a black man and they know that blacks have generally been discriminated against in the US, and that they still are.

The claim that U.S. elections should be monitored is just ridiculous, and I am sure that it was probably some reporter from Al Ahaly au hayk who asked it, thinking they were being smart (the US has worked a lot on election monitoring in Arab countries in the past couple of years). Slackman made clear that this idea was pretty crazy, outlining the procedures by which votes are counted and elections boards appointed. Then he pointed out the role of the U.S. media as a check on corruption and elections fraud, which, if you think of the impotence of the Arab media in this regard (as I am sure everyone else in the room was), was a really nice, subtle middle finger of a response.

The Embassy had some really nice pamphlets on Super Tuesday and each of the candidates, in both Arabic and English. I even learned something about out confusing primary system.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything about the event in the more psycho newspapers, which actually probably needed the information (believe me, if someone had answered in the affirmative to the question of Obama's Arabic name, it would have been all over the crappy opposition tabloids). There is a piece in Al Ahram on the primaries, though.

I thought it was odd that the media didn't seem to care more about Obama's foreign policy stance: he seems to be a truly internationalist American, someone with a diverse background who has lived abroad, who is willing to have dialog with countries we've been freezing out for the past 20 years, and who people trust. One friend recalled a quote from a world leader to a past U.S. president's promise ot do something (JFK, I think): "I trust you because you are the President of the United States of America." When is the last time a world leader said that???? But I doubt that the generally lazy members of the Egyptian media have actually been following Obama that closely.

One member of the press was, in fact, indignant about all this enthusiam, asking why Egyptians should even care. Abdel Moneim Masha'at, the Cairo University professor, hit that one, screeching, "The U.S. is the only superpower. What the American president does affects all of us." Had it been me, I would have screeched, "Who the hell pays your rent and buys your weapons and delivers your wheat, punk?"

Finally, the Dems Abroad meeting: same group of college-age and middle-age Americans expats. Most seem to be for Obama, and we went around the room trading stories from friends and family at home about his campaign and impressive takings in the primaries. Here's a snippet from my mom:

Obama won Minnesota with like 64 percent to 34 percent for Hillary. So cool. You would not have believed the mob scene. People were lined up around the whole block at Ramsey. It will be tomorrow before we know the full story, but he certainly has kept himself in the run. He had won 8 states to Hillary's 6,but she got more delegates, but not by much.

Still waiting to hear about California.

So exciting. People were just electric.

Other people's stories were similar. Everyone's Facebook friends have pro-Obama status updates. Pro-Obama family members are not speaking to pro-Hillary family members.

So what we wanted to know-- if everyone loves Obama, who the hell are these Hillary voters cramping our style???

US-Egypt Relations: Commodity Imports

2008-02-06T03:03:00.000-05:00

I had a very interesting day yesterday, the highlight of which was learning more about USAID's Commodity Import Program, which commenced in 1975 and will be phased out in July of this year. From 1975 to 1992, the CIP allowed Egyptian public sector enterprises to import U.S. commodities, raw materials, and capital goods, and after 1992 only "private sector" companies could use the CIP (the privateness of some Egyptian companies can certainly be disputed, either because they are still partially state-owned or are forced to do business with a fully-owned SOE). Egyptian importers would place an order with a US company to import their product. Then USAID would arrange to have the US exporter immediately paid in dollars. Then, after a certain period of time, the Egyptian importer would start paying back the amount of the "loan" plus interest taken to pay the US exporter. However, they pay it in local currency (Egyptian pounds) to an Egyptian bank, which then passes on the amount of the loan (keeping a small amount of interest) to the Egyptian government, which then uses the local currency for budget support.

I found this program to be really interesting. It provides a lot of benefits to multiple stakeholders:

1. Egyptian companies have foreign exchange to buy US products, something that they didn't always have access to. After 1992, private sector companies had privileged access to this benefit.

2. Profits for US businesses.

3. Egyptian companies could buy products they they might not have been able to in the 1980s and early 1990s, allowing them to grow and provide more job opportunities.

4. Egyptian banks get some business.

5. The Egyptian government gets budget support.

It's amazing how many different products were imported under the CIP. One item I found very interesting was resin, small plastic polyethylene pellets that are then used to make packaging material in Egypt (packaging is one of Egypt's major export industries). Also interesting are the small steel pellets that are extruded into larger and larger cylinders to make soda cans (the tops come from Saudi Arabia, which is now known to produce oil, snack foods, and soda can tops). Because the material is good old U.S. steel, Egyptian soda cans are heavier than American aluminum soda cans. Also, many Egyptian air conditioning parts, irrigation equipment, buses, garbage trucks, and even breeding chickens are brought in from the US. Most importantly: one of the two decompression chambers in Sharm Al Sheikh was brought in under the CIP, so if I get the bends while I am diving in April, I will have a very intimate connection to my dissertation project.

After the Egyptian foreign exchange regime was fixed, and obtaining US dollars at market rate was no longer a problem, many argued that CIP should be phased out. Although the program also provides numerous other benefits, the decision was taken to cancel the program. I wonder why, given the number of stakeholders involved, there was not more protest. Ideas, anyone?

"Al Farq..."

2008-02-04T17:03:00.000-05:00

... means "the difference."

I just returned to Cairo after two days in Amman, the official purpose of which was to attend a conference regarding globalization, foreign aid, and democracy in Arab countries. Overall, I was pretty disappointed by the conference itself, not so much because of the quality of the papers but an apparent lack of intellectual curiosity by those who presented them. Given that all the attendees are academics, I found this most troubling. I attended all of the first day and only two hours of the second day, figuring that I would benefit more from tooling around Amman and seeing friends.

Four months in Cairo has afforded me a greater ability to compare Egypt and Jordan. But first let's discuss the most important difference:

"Ma huwa al farq bayn habeeb wa sadeeq?"
("What is the difference between a lover/beloved--however cheeky you want to be-- and a friend?")

This question was posed to me by my very forward taxi driver this morning after I responded to the common question "Anti mutazowwajeh? (Are you married?)" with the usual "Ana mashghuleh, ba'ada sana au sanatayn insha'allah (I am busy, maybe after a year or two, God willing)." I thought about it for a second, and having no answer appropriate for a graying male stranger who had cornered me alone in his car, I punted and told him he was too old not to know the answer to that question. It's actually a pretty good question if you think about it more carefully, though, and I somehow think he knew that.

Difference number 1: While Jordanian men on the street are much more forward, they also seem a bit more sure of themselves around women, and they are more polite in their dealings with them, and a little bit more knowledgeable and introspective. An Egyptian man on the street (I don't mean to generalize--- to be more specific, the average guy I encounter on the street in my neighborhood in Dokki) will whistle, ask you how much you cost, and make chimp noises until some poor fool gets confused and throws him a banana, but if you call him out on it, or, as I did in one case last week, follow him around making similar noises, he will retreat like a reprimanded child, his face white as a sheet. Egyptian men are also much more likely to steal your cab from you, not hold open doors, or push past you on the street. These guys seem to have some pre-conceived notion of what masculinity is, but it's pretty much a facade. In short: I prefer the Jordanian men. Especially the taxi drivers who tell me I am beautiful and give me bon bons while regaling me with stories of their girlfriends in every corner of the globe.

Difference 2: The smell of the air. The air in Jordan was crisp and without smell, but for a touch of ozone due to the snow. It was lovely. Back in Cairo, I could smell the car exhaust and the other pollution as soon as I got off the plane. The air feels thicker and more still. When the plane to Jordan took off, I could see a thick green-gray film hanging even above the cloud cover.

Difference 3: The shopping. Although Egyptian business tycoons are much richer than their Jordanian counterparts, most of their families go to Europe to shop. There seems to be a larger upper-middle class and upper class contingent that likes to shop locally and is growing in Amman, creating demand for better retail clothing stores. By US standards, shopping in Jordan is no great shakes, but after Egypt I felt like I was in heaven. E and I zipped right from the conference to City Mall, which opened about a year ago. Among other delights, it has a MAC cosmetics shop, Body Shop, Oysho lingerie, Paul's, Starbucks, Aldo, Topshop, and Zara, as well as several fun Turkish stores geared towards teenage/ young adult clothing (for instance, I guiltily purchased a purple tank top with Jolly Rogers printed all over it, planning to wear it to the gym). There is no mall like City Mall in Cairo. City Stars is bigger, but it is not as nice-looking and while there are more stores, I don't find any of them to my taste.

Then again, there's no Beymen in Amman.

Difference 4: Enunciation. I can understand the Jordanians.

Difference 5: More women in Jordan seem to wear the hijab, and the decision seems to fall much more along socioeconomic lines: you don't usually see women in Abdoun sporting the veil, while I have yet to see an unveiled women at the University of Jordan. But in the Cairo metro, which is frequented by the lower-middle class, there is a mix of veiled and unveiled women, and so is there in Zamalek and at the more upscale restaurants (though I hear that some clubs, like the Buddha Bar, will not allow veiled women inside).

Difference 6: Cleanliness. Amman looks neat as a pin compared to Cairo. When explaining to friend L as I rode an elevator that I cannot bear Cairo right now due to "too much dirt and so much traffic that it's impossible to move" one eavesdropper exclaimed, "I second that!" before exiting on the fourth floor. Cairo has singlehandedly destroyed every pair of shoes that I brought with me here-- and I brought a lot.

Difference 7: Lack of good newsstands in Amman. I have often heard Jordanian friends say, "Jordanians don't read." I am not sure this is entirely true, but there does seem to be a lack of good reading material readily available. There aren't many plain old newsstands in Amman. Most people pick up one of the three big papers at the local market or grocery. Contrast this to my preferred Cairo newsstand, which stocks the latest Economist, Time, Forbes, regional business mags, weekly tabloids, and all the Egyptian and regional Arabic dailies. And these newsstands are common everywhere in the Downtown and Zamalek.

Difference 8: Construction. The construction is crazy in Amman these days. The progress seems questionable, though. Is it just be or does the Abdali Project look the same as it did a year and a half ago? And is the "Jordan Gate" getting any taller?

Difference 9: Food. Food 100000000x better in Amman.

Difference 10: Jordanian society is much smaller than that of Egypt-- everyone seems to know each other or know of each other. There are disadvantages, namely that you have to be really careful of what you say, but there are also advantages, namely that it's pretty easy to track someone down through a mutual contact.

I am sure I will think of some more. In the meantime, it is late and I actually have a full working day ahead of me tomorrow. I'll leave you with some pics.

E at the Meridien "Nyphaeum"

View from my hotel room of the Third Circle and the looming cranes of the Abdali Project

Terrible crack in an otherwise beautiful Porsche Cayenne Turbo. We heard the cracking sound all the way in Cairo!

Or maybe that was MK cracking his knuckles...

While headed to the conference, I drove past the Royal Scientific Society, which was the center of much of the economic planning during the time of King Hussein.

Last but not least, going out with a bang at the Duty Free. Apparently you can have 2 bottles in Amman, 4 in the Cairo airport, and then another 2 in Cairo's downtown duty frees. I admit that I did not come anywhere near this limit, but did indulge in a little "yellow bag shame" with the rest of the khalijis.

SNOW and Amman

2008-02-02T16:55:00.000-05:00

I used to do a lot of flying with my family when I was a girl, and, more often than not, we were taking long flights out West that landed in the evening, long after the sun had set. As I fly more and more, and am increasingly away from home and family, I have started to find the view of city lights from the sky to be comforting. In the dark, from thousands of feet above, Cairo doesn't look that much different from New York, and Amman doesn't look much different from Minneapolis. As long as the plane hovers between the city lights below and the stars above I feel like I could be returning to my parents' house, where I will find my mother in the kitchen doing work and drinking tea, or coming back to my apartment in Charlottesville, where Hilde and Baree and Kyle will be watching Grey's Anatomy in the TV room.

I felt that way when we were about to land in Amman today, and expected the euphoria to evaporate soon after the wheels hit the ground. It didn't. Instead, as we drove past the various locations between the airport and my hotel in Shmeisani, I realized that I had my own memories of friends and occasions in these very places. It's not a strange town to me anymore, but kind of a home-- at least more so than Cairo. Or maybe I am just desperate for a home right now-- I never thought I'd find one here, for sure.

And there is SNOW. The Black Iris has some beautiful pictures of it before it reached the slightly gray and cake-y form it has taken this evening.

Hiya Fawda?

2008-02-02T04:52:00.000-05:00

The word "fawda" (فوضى) is commonly invoked around these parts to mean a situation of total fucking chaos. It can mean a traffic jam, a confusing situation, or a complete mess of anything. "Hiya Fawda?" is a new-ish Youssef Chahine film that came out around December or so. At first I thought it was another one of those bad Egyptian romantic comedies, since the title could be interpreted as either "She's a mess?" or "It's a mess?/ Is it chaos?" It turns out the movie is a sociopolitical commentary centered around a corrupt Egyptian cop (thus the question mark at the end of the title so as to not be too politically controversial). I was secretly hoping that the protagonist would be a Zamalek socialite with an AUC degree, a husband working in the bourse, a couple ladies on the side, and a whole lotta blow in her Chloe handbag... but life is full of disappointments.

Anyway, the post is not about the movie but the everyday "fawda" I've been experiencing in Egypt the past two weeks. Nothing seems to work. The metro is late and overcrowded, then the turnstiles seem to have collectively decided to stop working. It rained like hell all of last week and the city's streets appear to have no drainage system, permitting the water to form large swimming pools until taxis come racing through it, transferring the water to another puddle or to the new navy blue trenchcoat of an innocent passerby. Since dryers do not seem to exist here, non-dry-cleanable items take at least three days to dry outside due to the damp weather, during which they absorb the Cairo aroma of inorganic chemicals, cardamom, and street child. And the Internet died from Wednesday to Friday, after a ship appeared to have severed two cables servicing the region's internet off the port town of Alexandria (see my friend Nadim's blog on "The Lede").

How am I working through the frustration (aside from my strict 9-5 work schedule Sunday through Friday)?

Mid-day Bloody Marys at R's place:

Playing with props at After Eight:

And proudly supporting global capitalism:

Internet Rehab

2008-02-01T08:46:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday a cargo ship apparently dropped anchor and cut two of the three undersea cables that provide Internet to much of the Middle East and South Asia. Since then, I've only been able to access Facebook and Google, and it's nearly impossible to actually send an e-mail, though I can receive them (very slowly). It sucks.

So if you want a response, send me a Facebook message or just call me!

Around Town

2008-01-30T15:33:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to get around to some of Cairo's lesser-known sights the past couple of weeks. A couple of weeks ago I visited Roda Island ( روضة means garden), which is located on the Nile between Giza and Garden City. It's now mostly a residential area for middle class families, full of apartment buildings and trees, but it is also home to the Umm Kulthoum Museum and the Nilometer (مقياس النيل), a Mamluk-era device that measures the depth of the Nile.

Some friends and I walked over to Roda Island from Dokki, which took a good half-hour or more. From the bridge linking the island to Giza, you can see how terrible the pollution is. That is not dewy morning mist.

Here is the building that houses the Nilometer.

Here is the ceiling of the Nilometer.

Here is the Nilometer itself. You can climb down here-- it's pretty steep. Count on getting vertigo. See the notches on the pole? This whole basin would fill with water as the Nile flooded, allowing it to be measured.

Next to the Nilometer are some old steps that lead down to the river. It reminds of some of the river access points from old buildings in London... well, mostly the prisoner drop-off point for the Tower.

And here are some of Umm Kulthoum's personal effects.

I was not a big fan of the museum. It has some of Umm Kulthoum's dresses and a small reading room, but most of the items on display are her medals and there is minimal commentary about the woman herself. I wasn't that disappointed as I don't really like her music (much for the same reason I don't like listening to an entire Radiohead CD-- it makes me feel heavy, sleepy, and slow, not to mention inducing a horrible headache).

The best part of the island is the fact that it's southern tip is pretty isolated and green!

On Wednesday I went to the Cairo International Book Fair out at the fairgrounds in Heliopolis, where I stocked up on Egyptian political essays, AUC econ books, and some choice titles like "International Terrorism," which appears to be a conspiracy theory about USAID activities in the region. E had trouble choosing between the Jenny McCarthy pregnancy book and the Khaled Meshal book about Hamas. After reminding E that much of Jen's time the past couple of years has not been posing for Playboy but campaigning on behalf of her autistic son, E decided in favor of Mr. Meshal, whom all of our female friends agree is surprisingly easy on the eyes despite being a middle-aged, bearded Hamas leader.

I was thrilled to find the book of one of my committee members in abundance at the AUC booth.

But when I sent him these photos I received the response: "but it's right next to 'books for dummies! ! !'"

Sometimes I am definitely not as clever as I think I am.

By far the best thing about the book fair was the fairgrounds topiary-- a Toyota and a pyramid.

There was also rumored to be a food court that serves Levantine-style felafel, which we were all lusting after. We were disappointed to find an Abu Shakra, Pizza Hut, KFC, and... a Nathan's hot dog stand. BOO.

Back for New Year

2008-01-26T14:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm 26 days late. But the family came over for a very long (and very lovely) visit, and I've been picking up various pieces of my life ever since I returned from a week-long trip to Jordan mid-month. It was odd being back in Jordan. My first reaction was, "It is so wonderful and clean here! And it is raining! And the buildings are beautiful!" Seven days later, after my fourth trip to Petra and a terrible visit to the utterly abominable Movenpick Aqaba and I was a bit less enamored. However, it was great to see old friends, and the Marriott Dead Sea was absolutely wonderful. And the food was so much better! Thank you, shami immigrants, for your tabouleh, chicken balls, hommous beirouti, kibbeh nayeh, and kebab halabi.

It also gave me the chance to reflect a bit on the year, since it had been exactly a year since I had arrived at ACOR for my first stint of field research. 2007 was undoubtedly one of the best of my life, full of adventure, new friends, and a lot of personal growth. Looking back, I think I made a lot of good decisions in 2007, many of which, though sometimes painful, changed the course of my life and how I want to live it--for the better. My one regret is that it was a bit of a lonely time-- when I am abroad, I am always concerned about losing or altering the relationships I have with family and friends back home, and I am pretty terrible with personal correspondence. I am hoping to do a better job of it this year. I am also hoping to stay on track, as I have gradually come to realize that, while graduate school is wonderful, I am also burning up some of the best years of my life inside books and classrooms. I need to get it all done, get it all done well, and start a real life.

I also need to get back to the first world, at least for a little while, so I can wear a black minidress and spike heels before my boobs drop to my knees and my ass disappears into the back of my thighs (oddly enough, my month-long holiday from the gym has resulted in five pounds of weight loss, which I can only attribute to high stress, a dire hatred of most Egyptian foods, and laziness in my own kitchen).

Some Thoughts on Gaza from Egypt

2008-01-26T13:54:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, hundreds of thousands of Gazans poured over into Egypt after a portion of the security wall dividing the border town of Rafah was destroyed. Hundreds of kilometers away in Cairo, the government has arrested at least 87 members of the Muslim Brotherhood for illegally protesting the Israeli blockade of Gaza in coordination with leftist groups. These protests occurred on Wednesday afternoon in Tahrir Square, which is the focal point of the downtown (AUC, the dreaded Mogamma, the Egyptian Museum, and the Nile Hilton surround it, and the Parliament and Council of Ministers are just blocks away up Qasr al-Nil Street). I was in Ma'adi at the time, but received a message from a friend saying, "nice police brutality now in Downtown." Later that night, traffic from Tahrir was backed up all the way into Dokki.

As far as I understand it, the protesters included both the MB and the Kifaya movement, and, as is common, the protesters used the journalists' syndicate as a forum. However, there is a rumor that this is caused a problem because the different groups involved in the protest have not been sticking to guidelines laid out in advance (i.e. coming a bit too close to an anti-Mubarak message). This could jeopardize the livelihood of the journalists' syndicate.

Back to Rafah. After riot police stood by and watched Gazans come over the border with President Mubarak's blessing, now they are having trouble herding them back inside. It's not clear if the Gazans just want a couple extra days for their shopping spree or if they want to stay longer. I have seen pictures of cows being lowered over the broken wall, and friends who visited the provincial capital of El-Arish tell me that demand for goods is so high that prices are skyrocketing (i.e. a pack of cigs, normally 3 LE is going for 10 LE). I haven't seen any interviews with Gazans that indicate that they plan to stay. Most seem to be treating it as a brief but pleasant outing, sounding like they will return to Gaza. If don't think I would return to Gaza if I were them, but at least the Israelis have turned the gas back on.

If some of them do decide to stay, who knows what will happen to them? UNRWA doesn't have operations in Egypt, and the Egyptian government has traditionally told UNHCR to stay away from the Palestinian issue in Egypt, seeing UNHCR's resettlement mechanism as detracting from the focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Three interesting questions come from this whole incident:

1. What will happen with the $100m in US military aid that Congress threatened to withhold earlier in the month pending greater Egyptian attempts to secure the border? Now there is no border. How the hell are they supposed to secure it now? And will the Congress expect them to? Letting the Gazans across might have been not only a good PR move on the part of Mubarak, but also a good fiscal choice.

2. What is going back over the border to Israel? My guess is food, cigs, building supplies, and... a whole lotta weapons. I haven't seen any storied describing the border police inspecting the volume of goods headed back into Gaza from Egypt.

3. Some sort of dialogue between the Egyptian government and Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip and seems very unwilling to close the border, seems inevitable. How will this affect Egyptian relations with Hamas? With Israel? And with the Egyptian MB, which seems to be empowered by this whole debacle?

Merry Christmas to Everyone

2007-12-25T16:39:00.000-05:00

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1797571906

Thanks for the idea, Yo and Mo!

Strange Fact

2007-12-23T02:14:00.000-05:00

So every once and awhile I get to Googling random things. This week I've been downloading jazz vocalists like crazy, and I was wondering who had composed "Strange Fruit," the anti-racism song that gruesomely describes the lynching of blacks in the American South. It is most famously sung by Billie Holiday.

It turns out that "Strange Fruit" was composed by an American Jew named Abel Meeropol, who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Allen. The father of two stillborn children, he and his wife later adopted the orphaned sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage in 1953.

Drool...

2007-12-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

WaPo's review of Sweeney Todd. It's good. Don't let me down, Zara Center. You, me, and my sister: January 12th.

Thoughts on Tipping

2007-12-20T05:13:00.000-05:00

Egypt, more so than any other Middle Eastern country I have visited, is home to a culture of tipping. As many of my previous posts have indicated, class stratification here is intense and income disparities are really quite high. While there appears to be a larger "middle class" here than in Jordan, there are also a hell of a lot more poor people who either (1) do not have jobs; or (2) make ends meet through odd jobs like carrying bags, adjusting your doormat in the morning, or bringing you a sandwich while you are on the treadmill at the gym-- jobs that Americans see as somewhat superfluous, small tasks that could be performed by one person with a more general job description than five muwathafeen (employees), each of whom wants a small tip for his services and who impinges on your personal space.

Wealthy people, either foreign or Egyptian, are expected in this culture to support the street-corner beggars and holders of odd-jobs. Every time they leave their apartments, they leave a stream of largesse in their wake. Ten pounds for the man who brings the electric bill, five pounds for the security guard for collecting a package, five pounds for the wizened old lady sitting on the corner screaming "Ya Rabb!", five pounds for the woman who always sits with her two children in front of the McDonald's.

Then, at Mohammed Saghir, the upscale Zamalek hair salon: ten pounds for the hair-washer, five pounds for the hair-comber, ten pounds for the hair-dryer, twenty to thirty pounds for the stylist himself.

Then, during Eid: fifty pounds for each of the two security guards, twenty pounds each for the three ladies who clean the hallways, twenty pounds for each of the two handymen (this is not that much different from practices of apartment-dwellers in the States around the winter holidays, though my family has always had its own house, so I am still not used to it).

Americans here have a reputation of being bad tippers, and therefore being cheap. However, I think it has less to do with an unwillingness to provide large tips, but an unawareness of who you tip. In the States, many extra services-- such as car service for groceries-- is considered included in the workers' salary already. In Egypt, Americans don't realize that most of these guys have no salary but the tips they earn. It's not an ideal system, especially from a Western perspective. Many Westerners simply do not like the type of personal interaction arising from situations where they have to tip a number of people in person. I am one of them. Let me tell you why.

While Egyptian women (especially the older, motherly types) seem to enjoy distributing tips to their various minions, complete with honey-laced niceties, I hate it. I don't mind delving out large tips, regularly hitting the 30 percent mark; however, I prefer the exchange to be cold and impersonal, like filling out the tip box on a credit card receipt. I don't want to look the person in the face, making them feel like they are reliant on my charity and goodwill for a living. I think it is demeaning.

And I also do hate it that it takes four or five Egyptians at Mohammed Sagheer to produce a hairstyle of lesser quality than that which can be produced by one American stylist at any old Aveda in St. Paul. Quite simply, you can't have five people do one haircut. It's important for ONE stylist to observe how your hair falls when before it is washed, what kind of clothes you wear, how you carry yourself-- to give you the appropriate style. So not only do you get a less-than-ideal outcome, you also have to make sure that you go into the salon with enough small change to tip everybody-- and this in a country where nobody will give you change. So it actually puts a lot more stress on me as a customer. I'd rather just hand the cashier a huge chunk of change and have them distribute it to the various service staff. I don't want to walk around the salon and address the washer, the stylist, the dryer by their names (which I can't remember, nor do I care to) as I pass them largesse and exchange pleasantries.

As I was thinking about this, Marx's failed prediction of proletarian revolt came to mind. I wonder if this is why no powerful labor movement has ever taken root in Egypt (though this seems to be changing given the breadth and number of labor protests over the past five years). Is the working class content to live in an economy that is structurally biased against more evenly distributed income growth and social mobility so long as the bourgeoisie delivers tips and sweet words to them in person? Every time I see the well-kept wife of a businessman give money to a beggar in the street or a large tip to a building employee, I feel like telling her to go home and tell her man to work on changing public policies in such a way that the working class might be empowered to improve their lot. That kind of assistance is a lot more sustainable than a mere 10 LE tip.

Christmas at City Stars

2007-12-19T15:30:00.000-05:00

City Stars, located in the northeastern suburb of Nasr City, is the biggest shopping mall in Egypt. Whenever I meet a new Egyptian, I am usually asked, "Do you go out at all?" I am pretty sheepish about telling veiled Egyptian college girls that yes, I do go out, mostly to bars and clubs with my Americans friends-- including my male roommate. So I answer with great reserve, creating the impression that I really don't go out at all. The next question is, "Have you been to Citystars?" This is the same thing I got in Jordan: lots of Jordanians I met wanted to know if I had been to Mecca Mall, as if I would hang out in Western-style shopping malls purely by virtue of being American.

The City Stars complex is enormous. It contains a shopping mall large enough to get lost in, an Intercontinental (which is largely residential, home to Khalijis and Lebanese businessmen), and office space. Here is the Intercon.

N claims that City Stars is trying to "deconstruct the social fabric of Egypt." It certainly seems like a place where only the rich would frolic, and as the poor watch the rich consume and consume limitations on social mobility would become clearer and clearer.

But oddly enough, it is not really the rich who come to City Stars-- they go shopping in Europe or the States. On the contrary, City Stars seems to be frequented by the relatively small Egyptian middle class and lower middle class. Although it's cleaner than any other place I've been in the entire country (with the notable exception of the Beymen department store in the Four Seasons), its clientele is not very posh. With the exception of some Western chains like FCUK, Esprit, and Benetton, the rest of the stores are no different than the sha'abi clothing stores that line Qasr al-Nil Street in the city center, selling Egyptian, Chinese, or occasionally Turkish-made generic clothing in a range of colors (think quantity over quality).

At City Stars, I am a fan of the Virgin Megastore and Nike, but otherwise think the place is the largest repository of ugly things in the country. I went there this evening with N, R, and H with the intention of seeing "Hiya Fawda (no, not a romantic comedy, but a story about a corrupt Egyptian cop and the repressiveness of the country's security apparatus)." Here we are.

Alas, we ended up just wandering around, so I am going to have to see this movie on my own. But I got some good pictures... looks just like the American suburbs, doesn't it?

The selection of things that you do not want to buy is quite large, especially in the area of shoes.

But the sunnies are always good.

The Opus

2007-12-17T12:57:00.000-05:00

I got sucked into watching "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" on MBC2 tonight. One commercial caught my eye. As the camera follows a hot-looking Arab businessman from his Bentley to his modern, polished office to his desk to his spa, a female narrator says something to the extent of:

"Can you drive a precision-designed vehicle?"
"Can you sign your documents with a gold-tipped pen?"
"Can you work in the most efficient space in the world?"
"Can you relax while receiving a hot stone treatment?"
"Can your business be located in the most prestigious building in the world?"

"Yes."

Then this picture comes on the screen:

I am usually disgusted by in-your-face, over-the-top materialism and status-seeking. I like designers, but I hate logos and labels. I hate it that people write with gold-tipped pens while most of Africa starves. And I hate it that many of the people who live these lifestyles come from the Gulf, meaning that their wealth is purely due to the presence of oil-- and is therefore unearned.

But DAMN. This building--called "The Opus"-- is HOT. It's designed by architect Zaha Hadid, it's in Dubai, and it's going to be completed by 2010. Let me get in a little bit more khaliji- bashing: of course the designer is not from the Gulf. She's Iraqi-British. The day the Gulfies can design and/or manufacture some of the things they pay for I will show a little more respect.

Free Zone Problems

2007-12-17T02:38:00.000-05:00

The New York Times ran a story today about the passage of counterfeit pharmaceuticals through free zones, of which Dubai's Jebel Ali free zone is a key link between East Asia and Western Europe and the United States.

The article also mentions that Pfizer is scrutinizing Jordanian free zones (read: Aqaba). I wonder if this news will appear in the Jordanian media, or if any investigative accounts will surface in any of the business or lifestyle magazines. That could make a great story-- and I bet it could be extended beyond counterfeit pharmaceuticals. But the Aqaba project has so much political backing that I doubt anyone will touch it.

More Funnies

2007-12-16T10:06:00.001-05:00

I swear I am not a cat lady, but I think that this website is hilarious. Some samples:

The Greek Club has Christmas, too...

2007-12-16T06:01:00.000-05:00

I guess that makes sense.

They also have Greek salad with real feta (read: not "Egyptian feta," an unidentifiable substance that tastes like something entirely unmentionable). That makes Santa happy!

It occurred to me to ask our party that night why there is no "American Club" in Cairo. Then Roomie M informed me that there is in fact an American club in Ma'adi, where "they watch football and eat grilled cheese."

What a let-down. Why must Americans continue to propagate boring, lower-middle class foods and pastimes as "American culture" abroad? With the exception of ACOR in Amman, I have generally been pretty disappointed by American cultural/research centers abroad, which seem to be sparse in decoration and low in class, not to mention lacking in activities. In short, they have fewer bells and whistles than various European research centers, and tend to project a very cold, institutional, and uncultured picture of the United States. For a country that is so omnipresent in world affairs, it's a shame that many foreigners only think of McDonald's, "Friends," and grilled cheese (in combination with world hegemony, of course) when the USA is mentioned.

Perhaps we are too diverse as a nation to advance one "culture" abroad... but that could make an American club all the more amusing. Why not mix up football and grilled cheese with mint juleps, barbeque and steeplechase, for example? And play Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie in a restaurant/ club that has everything from Maine lobsters to low-country greens to Tex-Mex to Kansas City T-bones? Don't stop at the restaurant. Have weekly screenings of classic and contemporary American films, not the action-adventure crap that the Egyptian cinemas bring in. Also broadcast those wonderful live performances that the Met is now doing across Western Europe, Australia, and Japan but which expats in the third world are missing! Make one room into a library full of American classics, like Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Dorothy Parker, William Faulkner, and Rita Dove--and make the library have full bar service.

And put some American-style statues out front of it--I'd rather be fondling Lady Liberty or Thomas Jeffreson than Aphrodite!

NICE

2007-12-14T17:17:00.000-05:00

From The Onion:

"You don't want to know what's behind these eyes. Nothing but pain, baby. Pain and anguish and an intimate knowledge of the positive effect microloans can have on the farming families of eastern Sudan. Dark things. Things you could never understand. So go on home before you get hurt. This is my world, and it's only getting worse."

Read the rest here.

Mommie Dearest

2007-12-14T02:43:00.000-05:00

Following up on my post entitled "Reflections on a Childhood," my mother says, "I hope your friends won't be disappointed when they don't see Joan Crawford, but I guess we can let them judge for themselves."

****Joan Crawford was a delicious tart, mom! Forget the whole "Mommie Dearest" thing-- lies, all of them! You're right, though; she probably wouldn't have indulged in multiple readings of "Goodnight Moon" and "The Runaway Bunny," of which I have very fond memories and will post on sometime in the near future.****

Interestingly, for those of you who wondered, she also writes, "I also ran across a letter I will have to show you sometime when I was cleaning out grandma's place. She wrote it to her dad and in it she says she was unsure whether it was her or your grandfather that provoked the FBI investigation. Given the questions the agency was asking, it seemed to be Grandma but I had forgotten that dad was a union organizer and a rabble rouser in his own right."

You learn something new every day.

Sweeney Todd Opening Credits

2007-12-13T08:14:00.001-05:00

I love Tim Burton. He is the man. I hope I can get this movie bootlegged when I go to Jordan (sorry, Tim, I will make up for it when I come back to the States and buy the real thing). I will not be denied!

Here are the Sweeney Todd opening credits:
http://www.broadwayworld.com/videoplay.cfm?colid=23667

I've been thinking for the past month or so that Burton would do well to come to Cairo; it's full of beautiful decaying things (buildings and people), and there's no shortage of gore in the streets.

The Public Sector

2007-12-13T06:48:00.000-05:00

"Qitaa'a 'Aam," or "Public Sector"

Did you know that the Egyptian government and public sector entities currently employ about six million people, or roughly seven percent of the population? There is one civil servant for every four children in the country. One of the things that I am interested in is reform in civil service hiring procedures. From 1960 to 1974, the size of the public sector ballooned as Nasser implemented the socialist model, the cornerstone of which was a policy providing for free education and a guaranteed government job for all university graduates. As universities became bogged down with too many students, education declined. As the public sector employed more and more people, salaries dropped in tandem with the minimum wage. By the time Sadat started reorienting the Egyptian economy towards the capitalist model in 1974, the public sector was huge, inefficient, and a burden to the central government budget. Things haven't changed much since then-- the one difference is that today Egypt can draw on outside technical and financial support to execute more technically demanding projects. These highly capable "parallel bureaucracies" exist alongside their lumbering Nasserist counterparts.

But here is a puzzle: what would happen to all of the superfluous public sector employees if the bureaucracy is streamlined? Will the private sector absorb them? Will they be unemployed? Will future generations have the necessary skills for work in the private sector? Positive answers to these questions require a huge boost in private sector growth and substantial changes in the educational system that will equip graduates with the necessary skills. It's very interesting.

Western Commercialism... Masri Style

2007-12-12T17:04:00.001-05:00

This is my first holiday season outside of a predominantly Christian country, and I wasn't expecting to see much in terms of Christmas paraphernalia around Cairo. Just as was in case of Valentine's Day in Amman, I was totally wrong. A trip to Citystars Mall in Nasr City last weekend revealed the Virgin Megastore decked out in enormous fake blue Christmas trees, with matching silver and blue presents hanging from the ceiling. Then a six foot tall fiberoptic tree appeared in the lobby of my building, complete with presents beneath it. Finally, when I went to USAID for an interview on Tuesday, I found the normally drab, cubicle-lined second floor decked out in slightly tattered tinsel fringe and little glass balls (my host smiled, saying, "I think someone bought these like five years ago and now we just put them up every year").

There are also real Christmas trees for sale in Zamalek... except they come in pots (Do you want one, family? Cast your votes now).

Despite my non-religious tendencies, I decided I needed to do a little decorating of my own. Behold the sparkling Nasser portrait and the Christmas plant. So it looks more like a Santeria shrine... but whatever.

I got the Nasser pic at the Friday Market (souq goma'a) with K down in Muqattam last weekend. I was hesitant to take pictures at the time because it is a pretty rough place, but I'm going back this weekend and have decided that it will probably be okay to do so. The animal market is the best-- namely the 60-year old grandmothers toting around sedated geese by their feet, two in each hand.

Back Into It

2007-12-12T08:55:00.000-05:00

Okay, I admit it. For the past month, I had fallen off the bandwagon-- the bandwagon being a rigid schedule of reading, researching, interviewing, running my 5 K at the gym, and posting substantive blog entries.

I realized the extent of my decline when I returned to the Intercon several nights ago for dinner, and felt overwhelmingly guilty when I realized that I hadn't been there for my "daily" workout for about three weeks and I was about to head on up to Sabaya and stuff my face full of kebab (no chicken balls, alas, so I still recommend the Jordanian-owned Tabouleh for Lebanese fare). I then came home and realized that my closet was a mess, I had about 15 reports to read, my family is coming in a few weeks, and that I needed to finally drag myself out of the house for some interviews, some Arabic-language books, and holiday shopping.

On the research side, I had basically spent 3 weeks reading English-language resources, writing grants, and searching the web for reports. It's necessary work, but I tend to lean on it as a crutch when I do not feel like doing the more difficult stuff-- making contacts, reading Arabic books, and braving terrible traffic and street-corner perverts to go outside. When you don't mix up this work with anything else, such tedious labor can force even the most intrepid intellectuals into ennui. It is so incredibly boring I cannot even begin to explain it to you.

I'm like this: there are about three things that can distract me to such an extent, and two of them have happened in the past month. But, like always, I pull myself together and embark on a large-scale spree of work-aholism, giving 150% to various areas of my life that I have neglected.

Consider it done. After engaging in a day of retail therapy, which seems more gratifying in Cairo than in the U.S., my closet is clean. I've got a plan for my family when they come to visit. I've done five high-level interviews in the past week, and they've all been fabulous. I raided the Medbouli and Al Ahram bookstores today, with much success. Casting off my three-week long resignation to the fact that I will always be an upper-intermediate speaker of Arabic, I again started writing down new Arabic vocabulary words again and making an effort to have conversations in Arabic. I wake up at 8 a.m. instead of 10. And the gym routine starts again today.

So will some more Egypt-related posts.

Reflections on a Childhood

2007-12-10T15:17:00.000-05:00

My earliest memories are of angry voices. My grandmother's was usually deep and velvety, and her convictions, while causing the most minor sprouts of opposition in her midst to whither up and die in a sea of chaos, seemed to freeze a look of genuine serenity on her brow, an expression that only those who never regret their actions can maintain--no doubt these same convictions also supported the steadiness of her voice and the posture of her back, which never seemed to bend. Looking like Ingrid Bergman, with a thin smile stretched demurely under deceptively small eyes, my grandmother was a regal woman, and she knew it. Her steady bearing was rarely disturbed-- except when she became pinned into a corner by her interlocutor, who was usually my mother. When this happened, her shoulders curled forward and she knotted her fists as she shook her head up and down, and her mouth surrendered short, clipped shrieks. For all ten seconds of her discontent, her brow would furrow and her white bobbed hair would shake, similar to a porcupine baring its spines or a skunk lifting its tail. Anyone in her path would run for cover--except my mother.

The most popular subjects of disagreement between my mother and grandmother were my father, who my grandmother detested for years after my mother married him; the "right" way to conduct a household chore; and politics, in roughly that order. Equally unbendable, the two of them would duel most often in kitchen: two immaculately dressed and coiffed chessboard queens with stiff backs and one raised eyebrow each. The ultimate prize was elegance, pride, and self-preservation, which could be broken by the slightest digression into shrieking, the smallest furrow in the brow, or leaving the room altogether, rather than presenting the most practical way to chop apples, the most accurate account of the Oliver North hearings, or the most compelling reason that I should stay at my grandmother's house that weekend.

My grandfather, long confined by cancer to a large leather chair in the living room where he sat sedately watching Tom and Jerry with me, used to be the one who would argue. However, since he had long resigned his desire to speak for himself by the time I came along, and his voice was buried along with him before I turned five, I only knew of him through his wife and daughter. A lifelong Republican, all of his attempts to restrain my mother and grandmother from League of Women Voters rallies, Democratic causes, and civil rights protests were to little avail. He couldn't even keep the FBI out of the house, seemingly emasculated by the fact that his wife was out disturbing the House Un-American Activities Committee in addition to baking apple pies, cleaning houses, and hosting dinner parties. I don't know if he was a religious man-- my grandmother had practically forbidden the family to go to church after being lectured on her subservient role relative to her husband by several Washington area priests.

I grew up then, enamored of strong women, afraid to show my own weaknesses, and largely unsocialized in mainstream male-female roles within a marriage. My mother and grandmother taught me to be proud of my independence, of the equality that they said I shared with boys and men. I hated dolls and played on the boys' soccer team; I debated anyone and everyone that I could in and outside of class; I challenged the authority of my parents. My mother, who referred to a large chunk of women in Houston, where I was born, as "chocolate-covered spiders," often took to saying things like, "Act nobly and wisely, never abandon your convictions, and everything else will come around." Combined with a critical mind, my mother's love of candor could often turn into a particularly nasty kind of venom--brutal honesty-- despite the good intentions that brought it forth.

Today I often wonder where all this has gotten me. My attention to perfection, comfort among men, and willingness to challenge ideas that I see as ill-founded have often served me well, planting me firmly in the world of politics, in which only the hardest men and --very few-- women can survive. I've left my friends and family-- and promising relationships-- to come thousands of miles away, a quest for knowledge, professional success, and perhaps --just a little bit-- to test my own strength. Yet it is a difficult life. The same outspokenness--which in women is more often perceived as aggressiveness-- that has served me well professionally often alienates me from others. As I grow older, and I see things that I want beyond winning an argument or proving my worth-- like having someone to love or even a close, ever-present circle of friends-- I often find myself wondering if I would be happier had I stayed in the city in which I grew up, been a good girl, threatened and challenged nobody. In my heart, I know the answer: to have done so would have been the ultimate symbol of weakness, a total contradiction to how I was raised. As long as I have this heart and mind, I will not be content with such a life. But sometimes I wish it were not so.

Al Ajnabiatain

2007-12-09T12:23:00.000-05:00

There are advantages to being a foreigner.

For example, there aren't a lot of foreigners that frequent my dry cleaner on the corner (transliterated as "Dray Clean"). As such, the young man who works the counter always marks my clothing with the word "Al Ajnabiah" or "Al Dibloomasi" ("the foreigner" or "The Diplomat," the latter of which is the name of my building). My stuff never gets confused that of another Fatima or Mustafa or Hala.

But last week there was a problem-- without my knowledge, another ajnabiah started frequenting the Dray Clean, and when I got my order back on Friday I found that my favorite black dress had been exchanged for another, also labeled "Al Dibloomasi." I immediately recognized the foreign dress as belonging to my friend Rebecca, who lives downstairs, and we orchestrated a trade-off.

A Rant

2007-12-06T11:30:00.000-05:00

... and of course you know the subjects of it all too well.

1. Disorganization. I've tried to go to two separate events for the Cairo Film Festival. Last night it was a movie about Indian hookers, today it was a movie about English skinheads. Yesterday's movie turned out to be invite-only, which was not publicized, and today's show was just cancelled out of the blue. If people are hauling ass to the Opera House, which sits on a fucking island in the middle of terrible traffic on all sides, in the middle of their workday to see a movie they should probably let you know in advance if they cancel it.

2. Ugly assholes on the street who ask me how much I cost. This is quite possibly the most demeaning thing you can say to a human being, and there is no other way to deal with it than convince oneself that the perpetrator is somehow lower-ranking in intellect and social stature, even in their humanity. I essentially view most of these men as animals, organisms that cannot control their bodily functions, urges, or mouths. My favorites response to their inquiries is "More than the gross domestic product of Egypt and Jordan combined" or "Five guinea more than your mother." The latter can only be delivered in large crowds and when a visible escape route is present, since insulting someone's mother like that here is a serious offense and I could probably be whacked for it.

More Procrastination

2007-12-05T08:36:00.000-05:00

With Mac Photo Booth, while working at Arabica in Zamalek (the good salad place I mentioned earlier).

I can't bear working at home anymore. The sounds of the traffic below drive me insane. Well, as you can tell by the fact that I am taking pictures of myself instead of reading a biography of Sadat, I don't work 100% of the time... and I'm also insane to begin with.

"Other people...

2007-12-05T04:04:00.000-05:00

... are, as a rule, so immaterial to us that, when we have entrusted to any one of them the power to cause so much suffering or happiness to ourselves, that person seems at once to belong to a different universe, is surrounded with poetry, makes our lives a vast expanse, quick with sensation, on which that person and ourselves are ever more or less in contact."

Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu

New Old Links

2007-12-01T12:16:00.000-05:00

In honor of my imminent return to Washington, I have now linked to two old standards of DC gossip blogs, Wonkette and Princess Sparkle Pony, the latter of which faithfully tracks changes in Condolleezza Rice's hairstyle. Enjoy!

Some things can just be inferred...

2007-11-28T06:11:00.000-05:00

... like that my lingerie drawer is probably larger in size and deeper in substance than the research unit at The Jordan Times.

WINEP was established in 1985 to advance a balanced and realistic understanding of American interests in the Middle East, according to its website.

Read the rest here.

Immigration Waves

2007-11-28T04:47:00.000-05:00

I am no expert on immigration, but it seems that immigration and socioeconomic integration into American society comes in successive waves. One group comes in, displaced by unstable conditions at home or a preferential immigration policy on the part of the U.S. government. For a time they are marginalized socially and economically. Sometimes their communities are not even penetrated by the rule of law, and they must set up their own institutions to govern social and economic life. Consider "The Godfather" trilogy as a case in point. Vito Corleon comes to New York City from the rural Sicilian town of Corleone (where I have been, I might add), which is ruled over by a vicious mafioso who has killed Vito's father, brother, and mother for challenging his authority. When he arrives in New York City, he finds a similar setup in his neighborhood. Government-employed police are rarely to be found, and law and order is enforced by a local mafia boss who collects protection rents from shopkeepers and businessmen. As we all know, Vito rises to become a top mafioso, but by the time we get to the late 1940s, he is looking to make "the family" more legitimate. He's no longer a member of a marginalized Italian community whose labor and physical safety was given a lesser priority than that of German and Irish immigrants. The Italian community had risen in status and had been incorporated into the American socioeconomic landscape; the Godfather II and III shows Michael Corleon's attempts to get the family into mainstream business.

I've noticed a similar dynamic in St. Paul/ Minneapolis vis-a-vis the Hmong (Laosian hill people) and Somalian communities, though the crime dynamic isn't really there (I think today our local law enforcement is much stronger, less corrupt, and more equitable in its approach than the NYPD was in the early 1900s-- so immigrants have less of a need to form their own mechanisms of governments like local mafias). In the 1980s, a lot of Hmong families were resettled in Minnesota as compensation for their alliance with the Americans during the Vietnam War. For awhile they were quite poor and their ability to communicate in English was very limited; non-Hmong people often made fun of them and didn't really socialize with them at all. However, twenty years later things are quite different. Hmong families have set up very successful businesses along University Avenue. Many have moved out of the city and into the suburbs. Their children all speak fluent English and have non-Hmong friends, boyfriends, and husbands. In short, the Hmong are no longer socially-marginalized day laborers, but are fully integrated businessmen and professionals.

However, the old social space that the Hmong used to occupy has quickly been filled by a new wave of Somali immigrants. This has happened really in the past 6 or 7 years. Minnesota is now home to one of the largest Somali communities in the U.S. To see veiled ladies milling around at all times of the day is not uncommon in certain areas. In fact, these areas are the same that used to be frequented by the Hmong, like University Avenue and Frogtown in St. Paul. Now it is the Somalis who are on the low end of the totem pole.

However, I am not sure that integration for the Somalis will go quite so smoothly, chiefly because of the religion factor. Most Somali immigrants continue to wear traditional Muslim attire, which many Americans--who are not educated about Islam, largely due to the closedness of their own minds-- view as threatening. I think this will make it harder for the Somalians. The New York Times ran this piece today about a largely Muslim Girl Scout troop in Minneapolis. In the article one girl named Asha says she dons her green Girl Scout sash whenever she goes out in public because it makes people less hostile to her. They see a veiled girl, which they don't like to see, but they also see a quintessential symbol of Americanism draped across her torso. I think it's pretty sad that a young girl has to do this so as to not be judged by adults who should know better.

Egyptian Junk Food...

2007-11-27T09:09:00.000-05:00

... is like crack. I think that this is because junk food is way better than Egyptian food any day. Egyptian food is terrible: koshary, taameya, and fuul are okay once or twice but after that khallas I cannot eat them anymore. And any foreign recipes that Egyptians try to replicate, whether it's steak or Italian pasta or a good American-style hamburger, always seem to fail. The Lebanese food is the worst disappointment; I figure that Lebanon is close enough to Egypt in distance that Egyptians should be able to do good Lebanese food. Laa. Even the best Lebanese places used CANNED hummos. Terrible.

I've found one place that does good steak, one place with decent salad, one with good Chinese. But I can't go there every day and I am sick of cooking at home. I hate it, in fact. So I am digging into the junk food. The worst stuff is the pound cake with dates and walnuts made by the upscale bakery, L'Amandine, located conveniently on the ground floor of my building. The second-worst thing is "Chipsy," or the Egyptian equivalent of Frito-Lay potato chips. They make a shutta wa laymoon flavor that is fucking incredible. I often overhear kids in the grocery store screaming at their parents for it, "Aizeen Chipsy, Mama, aizeen Chipsy Baba! Waaaaaa!!!!" It's a good thing I don't have to rely on my mother to do the shopping anymore or I'd probably be in the same position.

The third worst thing is McDonald's, also located next door. Although it probably has higher nutritional value than most Egyptian street food, my friend K has recently likened eating it to "Admitting defeat" or "Feeling used after I am done eating." Very true. Unfortunately Roomie M and I have taken to eating it around 2 AM after we come back from a late night. I think the first embarrassing roomie experience I had occurred after I left a party early, went home and got McDonalds, then fell asleep on the couch while eating it. Roomie M came home to find me knocked out on the cheeseburger wrapper while Rotana Classic blared in the background. Coincidentally, he was also holding a little paper sack.

Another Jewel from the Jordan Times

2007-11-26T04:35:00.000-05:00

In an editorial regarding the recent appointment of Nader Dahabi as Prime Minister, the Jordan Times writes:

Change of governments happens routinely, in a pattern that aims at reinvigorating national efforts to upgrade services and improve the economy in the country, so that most Jordanians can benefit from the achievements attained.

Interesting. This is not what I hear from most Jordanian reformers and foreign consultants at all. On the contrary, most of them complain to the tune of the following:

Of course we weren't successful. Do you know how many prime ministers we went through in the course of that project?

There was no way that (insert given policy reform here) could stay on track. There was no accountability, no guarantee that if some brave soul put their foot down that they would be there the next day to enforce!

Ministers care about one of two things: building up their own power base or ensuring that they will receive another portfolio in the future.

(Note that they are not direct quotes, but summarize points made by a number of respondents contacted throughout the course of my research)

So the idea that repeatedly cycling through ministers is inherently a good thing for Jordan, especially in the context of politically challenging economic reforms, is utter BS. Repeated cycling of ministers is particularly problematic when most meaningful policy activity actually takes place in the cabinet and the executive branch, as is the case in Jordan. In the U.S., Congress is a powerful check to the power of the executive, and the Congress is powerful enough to keep a given policy in place even if the executive disagrees. In Jordan, the parliament does not play this role. Thus, if a minister commits to a reform policy and is then cycled out of office, there is no other political force to ensure that this policy remains in place if it faces opposition from the populace at large or other members of the cabinet.

Just as Nasser and Sadat did in Egypt, Jordan's rulers have repeatedly cycled ministers in and out of ministries as (1) a source of patronage; and (2) to ensure that no one group becomes entrenched enough in any one state agency, allowing the group to use it as an independent power base. This might be good for political survival, but it's detrimental to development.

Jordan's New Prime Minister

2007-11-25T07:40:00.000-05:00

Following last Tuesday's parliamentary elections in Jordan, the government of Prime Minister Marouf Al Bakhit resigned, having fallen out of favor. The new prime minister is Eng. Nader Dahabi, the current chief of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), which is the governing body of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZ). In hindsight, the appointment of Dahabi is not surprising. ASEZ was a pet project of King Abdullah and was backed by a small clique of reformers in the Royal Court, the cabinet, and several foreign donor agencies (namely USAID). Established in 2001 after a major political battle that even saw the involvement of Jordan's otherwise impotent parliament, any successes that ASEZ can boast six years later have been hard-won.

The goals of establishing ASEZ included:

1. Getting Jordan's only port--long reputed as one of the worst in the world-- back into shape so that it might service the country in its path towards increased trade openness and export orientation. This has largely been done by entering into public-private partnerships by which private capital finances infrastructural expansion and upgrading and the Aqaba Development Corporation provides physical assets.

2. Attract greater investment to Jordan in real estate, logistics, and industry.

3. Execute a major institutional house cleaning. When ASEZA was created, it replaced three regional institutions with jurisdiction over Aqaba, all of which were overstaffed, under-qualified,and without clear boundaries of operation. It also assumed the functions of all national ministries in ASEZ with the exception of Health and Intelligence; ASEZA was therefore intended to serve as an autonomous island of regulatory efficiency, a stealthy institution staffed by experts that would be friendly to investors.

Although it has failed to attract investment in industry, ASEZ has attracted an unprecedented level of foreign investment in real estate and logistics. Perhaps more importantly, ASEZA is now being hailed as an example of institutional reform that might be re-created on the national level.

Dahabi, as the latest leader of ASEZA, then, is political gold. Not only has he brought Aqaba a long way, people seem to like working with him. But why was he appointed? Was the appointment a reward, or does the King intend to use Dahabi's experience to advance fundamental institutional reforms on the national level (such as re-vamping fiscal extraction and establishing a new civil service hiring scheme that would pare down the size of the bureaucracy and elevate salaries to attract more qualified persons)? It will be interesting to see what happens.

It will also be interesting to see what happens to Aqaba after Dahabi leaves. Many people that I have spoken with have expressed concern that Aqaba's new institutions are not entirely viable yet, and without a powerful person such as Dahabi (whose brother is head of the GID) to uphold them, "the weeds will grow over," i.e. ASEZA will become an inefficient and politicized body, much like its predecessors.

We'll see.

New Alicia Keys

2007-11-23T14:26:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of substance the past few posts-- real life drama always makes me less inclined to pull together the mental effort required for a good, educational blog post.

ANYWAY: New Alicia Keys! Check out the "No One" single that came out with Keys' "As I Am" album on November 13. Not only do I love Alicia Keys and own all of her albums, sometimes the right song comes along that perfectly matches one's own emotions. I can't stop listening to it. The rest of the album is also good-- a relief after I was less than impressed by KT Tunstall's long-awaited release of Drastic Fantastic in September. To be fair, however, Keys is more my style than Tunstall. She's gotten even better as the years have passed; her voice is noticeably richer in tone on this album, and her trusty piano has finally gotten into the backseat.

Here is the link to it on YouTube (the embed function was disabled):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktUSIJEiOug

My Gym/Cafeteria

2007-11-14T11:14:00.000-05:00

I am obsessed with going to the gym. My 5K every day gives me some sort of daily consistency that is lacking in other areas of my life (i.e. since I am not in classes and I don't have a job, I don't have normal working hours). However, I have to admit that I am starting to get a little bit fed up over certain features of the gym at the Intercontinental.

First, let me tell you a little about what I expect from a gym at a decent hotel:

1. At least one knowledgeable trainer to be on-site at all times
2. To be left the hell alone while I am changing AND working out, unless I have otherwise indicated
3. Easily accessible water
4. Large supply of gym towels for the taking
5. Quiet

Let me tell you why the Intercon is starting to piss me off:

1. There are too many employees at this gym. I think there are only 4-5 people using the gym at any given time, yet there are always 2-3 people working the window, 3 women in the women's locker room and spa, and who knows how many others in the men's locker room and the pool area. I understand that it is customary in poor countries to employ all of your friends and relatives as a means of providing welfare, but this should NOT happen in a Western franchise where people are paying premium rates for good service and ambiance.

2. The female employees are extremely unprofessional. When they are not asking me useless questions as I am huffing and puffing on the treadmill (i.e. do I need a towel when I clearly already have one, do I want the TV channel changed when I am holding the God-forsaken remote in my own hand, etc.), they are hanging out in the spa room watching soaps and hoarding the water cooler.

3. The question, "Do you want a towel?" is used liberally. Yes, it is a gym. I want my fucking towel. Am I supposed to wipe my sweat off on the yoga mats?

4. The female employees have a very strange relationship with a number of fat, 50-ish Egyptian women with perfectly coiffed hair and mobile phones perpetually attached to their right palms. The female staff prep these women for workout like a pit team for the Indy 500... except the fat ladies don't have quite as much speed. After chatting (loudly, in rough Egyptian Arabic that stings my ears) with the female staff for a good 20-30 minutes about what they should include in their routine today (I should also point out that these staffers don't know the first thing about physical fitness), they mount the treadmill. After placing their large handbags on gym equipment that someone else assuredly wants to use (instead of in the locker), the fatties will gradually hike that baby up to 2.6 km/hour.

AND, I kid you not: one of the female staffers brought a woman a sandwich and a glass of Coke yesterday while she was on the treadmill. Are you fucking kidding me? A SANDWICH? She even brought it to her with a good supply of napkins. I couldn't believe my eyes, and I was unable to control "Dah mat3am eh?" from slipping through my lips, curled with spite.

Adding to my theory that the women's gym is a restaurant is the fact that the female staff were washing dishes in the bathroom sink today. Unbelievable.

2 more weeks of this and I will ask to speak to the manager.

Procrastination

2007-11-12T10:45:00.000-05:00

I love this scene from "Scent of a Woman" so much more than I like reading USAID reports...

Snack, anyone?

2007-11-09T06:40:00.001-05:00

This priceless e-mail exchange just came over the Cairo Scholars listserv:

------ Forwarded Message
From:
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 07:39:19 +0200
To:
Subject: [Cairo Scholars] Guinea Pigs

Paul,
You probably haven't found them at pet stores because they're considered
food. You can find them at poultry shops, the places that sell ducks,
rabbits, etc. Ask for "arnab faraany." A lot of people keep them as pets,
too, but you'll find them next to the big white rabbits meant for eating.
Good luck!
C

On 11/7/07, wrote:
> Does anyone know a pet store in Cairo where I can buy a Guinea Pig? I
> have seen cats, dogs, hamsters, and all the rest of it. But I'm
> hoping to find a guinea pig.
>
> Thanks,
>
> P

Cornel West at AUC

2007-11-08T06:16:00.000-05:00

Last night I attended a seminar given by Dr. Cornel West of Princeton University. It was held at AUC's Oriental Hall, a venue way too small for the interest that Dr. West gathered (I think that even the organizers were unaware of his popularity in the United States, and weren't expecting such a high turnout). This seminar was his second and final at AUC; the first had been reflections on dialog with the late Edward Said.

His manner of speech is something to which I am entirely unaccustomed: catch phrases, quibs, jibes, remembrances, and rhetoric all blend together in a concentrated, animated stream of thought. His sentences, while occasionally incomplete, are elegantly constructed, peppered with references from Habermas to Wu Tang Clan and delivered with a black preacher's drawl. His discussion lacked an overall structure, but it couldn't have done with one. He jumped from subject to subject, centered on the central theme of racial subjugation worldwide, treating racial inequality in the United States and Europe as a microcosm of it all. There was definitely a "world systems" angle to it, i.e. a certain privileged class that is predominantly white and based in the west has politically, economically, and socially subjugated the black people of the world and "everyone else in between... I don't know where you Egyptians fall though. Man, y'all have got some complex about that. 'Are you Africans?' 'Only on Wednesday!'"

The entire audience was captivated, even those Egyptians who I am sure could not (1) understand his English through his thick accent; and (2) identify with his rich and frequent references to American history.

I wrote down a couple of jewels from the talk:

On elite accountability, a point that I hope resonated with some of the young Egyptian elites in that audience:

"How do you keep track of the pharaohs whenever they come?"

Of Texas:

"It didn't become part of the United States through Socratic dialogue."

Of the nouveau-riche who abandon moral principals in favor of "money-makin':"

"It is rare that someone moves to the top and still realizes that he wants to be great rather than just successful."

Of American sentiment after 9/11 along the lines of "Why do they hate us?"

"Oh, to be constructed as a nigger in America."

I though about this last quote quite a bit during the day. After 9/11, Americans were subject to a host of insecurities about their physical well-being. There was no guarantee that we could be safe against a large-scale terrorist attack. I remember holding my breath as I went into the DC metro, wondering if I would never emerge, or wondering if I might look out my office window from the National Academies and see the State Department in flames. Dr. West's point was that black people in the States have always lived with this physical uncertainty. Threats were everywhere, and were driven by hatred--from the foreman's whip, the hangman's tree, some crazy teenager's gun, or a group of white supremacist policemen. Even worse, punishment was arbitrary. As an example, Dr. West invoked the memory of Emmett Till, the teen from Chicago who was shot, beaten, and thrown in a river after whistling at a white girl.

I started thinking: was the analogy correct? Are Americans (white, red, yellow, green, of any color) today to Islamist groups as African slaves were to their white masters, or as African Americans were to the white-controlled society and government? I think not. Sure, these scenarios all share one bond: physical insecurity arising from hatred. Still, we don't have it as bad as the blacks. We have money, arms, and political influence unparalleled in size. We have means of retaliation if we choose to use them (and as Dr. West pointed out, the blacks did not retaliate violently, even though as 25% of the population they probably could have: they used peaceful protest and legal contestation to be heard. West also pointed out the stark contrast to the American response after 9/11-- blacks arguably had a more sympathetic and empowered central government to uphold their claims, something we lack in the international sphere and which tends to make us resolve our disputes by force rather than negotiation). It's really not the same ball game.

Then I started thinking about my own situation in the Middle East, a place that harbors little love for the United States right now, not to mention blonde, non-Muslim khawagayas. Sometimes after walking on a street in Egypt (or in Jordan) I come home dejected, tired of the combination of glares, catcalls, and eye-fucking that I am always pounded with when I walk out alone. I feel discriminated against and put-upon, and sometimes even angry. I one time wanted to do a post on "Discrimination against blondes in Egypt versus discrimination against Muslims in the United States," arguing that the former was much more prevalent (and more crude), but I decided not to for the better.

No matter how oppressed and singled-out I feel here, it' still not the same. While blacks in the States had nothing to resort to when they were heckled, segregated, and denigrated by whites, I have two very valuable things in my pocket that the Egyptians harassing me do not have: a U.S. passport and a whole lotta cash. The people on the street sometimes might make me feel insecure, and even occasionally worthless with their disapproving stares and crude words, but I guaran-damn-tee you that my U.S. passport means that no average person on the street will dare harm me here. It also means that I can leave whenever I want. I can buy a plane ticket with that huge wad of cash, or I can go home tonight and eat as much meat as the street heckler feeds his family in a month. It's just not the same game. They can insult and glare all they want; that's where it stops.

The Last Word

2007-11-07T17:52:00.000-05:00

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has just put a diamond ring on the middle finger he’s been flipping American democracy advocates for the past two years. In his concluding remarks at the National Democratic Party’s (NDP) 9th convention, President Mubarak rejected pressure from any outside party or any outside effort to intervene in Egypt’s internal affairs. Many have speculated that these comments were explicitly aimed at the U.S., particularly the Congress, which has threatened to withhold $200 million in military aid this year unless Egypt undertakes reforms in the judiciary and human rights, as well as making greater efforts to secure its border with Gaza.

Tensions weren’t always this high. Following the Iraq War, a 2004-2009 USAID strategy was re-worked to conform with the platform of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), a 2002 pet project of Liz Cheney that was intended to promote political and economic liberalization while also strengthening women’s rights and education. Although the MEPI budget was small and the organization was largely focused on disbursing smaller grants, there was also substantial neoconservative political clout behind the program and others of its kind. During the height of MEPI’s influence--not to mention rumors of serious behind-the-scenes pressure from Condoleezza Rice--Egypt saw its first direct presidential election in history; a liberalized press environment; the appearance of a legitimate secular opposition party (Ayman Nour’s Hizb Al Ghad); and routinized election-monitoring.

This is no more. Ayman Nour is now in jail on charges that he forged signatures required to establish his party, despite U.S. pressure to have him released. At least a dozen journalists now sit in jail, including the career oppositionist Ibrahim Eissa of Al Dustour, first on charges that his publication of rumors surrounding the health of the President caused a serious drop in the Cairo Stock Exchange, then, after that didn’t hold water, on charges that he disturbed the sensibilities of Egyptians by spreading rumors of their leader’s alleged ill health. Furthermore, labor activists have started to protest falling real wages aside the elite-led Kifaya movement, which has traditionally focused on calls for political liberalization. In short, Egypt came a long way from 2002 to 2005 in terms of political opening, and then totally relapsed.

I am not sure what to think about this. A closet old-school Republican, I typically advocate a minimalist U.S. foreign policy that protects the interests of Americans and stops there. Although I am 100% for humanitarian aid in dire circumstances, I do not think that we should be out there promoting democracy--or any other ideal, like market liberalism--just for the hell of it. I am not one of these people who thinks that the U.S. is so exceptional that it has a duty to instruct the other countries of the world in political or economic governance. I find this attitude to be tremendously condescending, not to mention somewhat hypocritical given how we have treated our own minority populations.

But what if U.S. pressure for democratic reform does somehow serve our national interests (i.e. if you buy the argument that political repression breeds international terrorism)? Under my own doctrine, this implies that the U.S. should do something. But what? And how?

As in the case of any type of foreign assistance, whether political or economic, many donors seem to think, “They just don’t know how to do things properly. Once we show them how to create the right institutions and employ the right managerial skills everything will be fantastic.” This view is ill-founded.

As many implementers in the aid community will admit, rarely do Egyptians or Jordanians not know what is best. Rather, the feasibility of the “best option” is usually seriously constrained by domestic politics. Does anybody honestly think that the reason Egyptian or Jordanian “civil society” is weak is because would-be civil society organizers lack managerial skills or pamphlets to distribute? Give me a break! This is like arguing that African slaves in the U.S. didn’t organize into an opposition movement because they were not educated enough, rather than fearing the hangman’s tree. In short, coercion-- security forces, intelligence, and some scary, scary jails-- is what keeps civil society down, not lack of education. Until there is some top-down willingness to allow reform, democratic activist after activist will be arrested and jailed. However, I do not think that the U.S. is capable of generating this top-down will, nor should it. People criticize U.S. foreign policy for supporting dictatorships, implying that we interfere too much, but the truth is that to foment democracy the U.S. would have to interfere a heck of a lot more, and the outcome would by no means be certain.

Azbekiyya Book Stalls

2007-11-04T15:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday M and I paid a visit to the book stalls outside the Azbekiyya Gardens. Littered with vendors, which extend beyond books to include tools, shoe-shining supplies, cheap bags, and juice stands, the area sits on the Midan Opera. As anyone who has visited Cairo knows, the Opera House today sits on the island of Zamalek, a modern structure wrought of cement and iron. However, the Midan Opera was the site of Cairo's first opera house, built by Khedive Isma'il in 1868 using gangs of forced labor. Isma'il, who once proclaimed, "My country is no longer in Africa, it is in Europe," tended to rely on the corvee in his efforts to make Cairo the Paris on the Nile. Azbekiyya was the focus of his efforts; the garden were designed by a French gardener in the 1870s, flanked by the opera house and the elegant bastion of British colonialism that was Shepheards Hotel.

There are few remnants of this grand past that are visible today. Shepheard's Hotel was burnt to the ground by rioters in 1952, and the opera house itself succumbed to fire in 1971. The gardens themselves are no more. One guidebook deems them "trampled islands amidst a sea of commerce and traffic." One cannot help but sympathize with Egyptian economist and social commentator Galal Amin as he bemoans the decay of Egyptian culture and intellectual life that accompanied the rise of the middle class after 1939, and particulary after the July 1952 revolution. There are no more Taha Husseins, no more Sayyed Darwishes, and no more performances of Rigoletto. Instead, what remains of Cairo's grand past is akin to a beautiful woman with a dirty face: the old, Baroque-style building facades have become grimy, occupied by people who do not care for them; cultural centers have become neglected; and beggars lay with their hands outstretched where well-heeled feet used to touch the ground upon their descent from the newest model of automobile.

Despite all this, there is still something to be found of Cairo's intellectual life in the Azbekiyya book stalls. These places are a combination between a crazy old uncle's attic and a researcher's paradise. There are books ranging from obscure sciences ("Handbook of Phospholipids") to hard practice (engineer's guides, financial handbooks, yearly almanacs) to the romantic (crumbling copies of Henry James, George Berhard Shaw, and George Eliot).

There are old Arabic tabloid novels, comic books, and wedding magazines.

Each stall has the appearance of a musty rabbit warren, but every time you pass its owner will emerge with a half-toothed, crooked smile, and ask if he can help. All you need do is tell him your specialty and what language you'd prefer to have your books in. He will disappear for ten minutes, combing the confusion of his own stall and those neighboring it, and will re-emerge with a dozen books, which you can flip through as you sip a tea and sit in a plastic chair.

Most of these guys were spot-on. I left with three or four noted Arabic biographies of Sadat and Nasser, a book on economic reform and public administration after the infitah (complete with charts), and a book of Egyptian political cartoons from the 1980s.

Also interesting is the availability of Soviet lierature.

I purchased, for example, "A Dictionary of Political Economy," something that I thought would be a very useful reference material. Only when I got home did I realize that it was put out by Progress Publishers, based in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in 1985. It defines "economic planning" exclusively as "the working out of comprehensive indicators for the development of Soviet socialist production," something that will not be too helpful in my study of economic planning in Taiwan and South Korea.

Other books were just outdated:

Or never seem to have been used by Egyptians at all:

Overall, it was an amusing visit. We came home to find our apartment overrun with huge ants. We killed them.

Wow.

2007-11-04T02:54:00.000-05:00

My father just passed on this link to a New Yorker story on a young man by the name of Jared Cohen. The only comment attached was "thought you might be amused by this guy."

I am not amused. I am irritated. This guy is younger than me, has fewer degrees than me, speaks less Arabic than me, and parties a whole hell of a lot more than me. And he's the youngest member of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department. I am always amazed by the number of Americans you run across in the Middle East who are "traveling," "looking for work," and "sleeping on my friend's couch." The number of professional researchers and full-time students of the region must outnumber them, but it seems like these dicks always end up with a State Department job. I am hoping that this is due to the fact that the DoS wants young people, but all the good ones are wrapped up in school honing their craft. If this is true, after 3-4 years, the Jareds should be without a trade.

My First Moulid

2007-11-02T13:46:00.000-04:00

Among people from the Middle East region and some Western scholars, Egypt is known for a specific type of religious celebration called a moulid. The word "moulid," spelled مولد in Arabic, literally means "birth." Although moulids celebrate the birthdays of important saints in both Coptic Christianity and Islam, they are often treated by scholars as celebrations particular to Egyptian culture and tradition rather than religious events. The largest and wildest Islamic moulids in fact display some rather controversial practices, such as the mixing of the sexes (even within rooms of a mosque), the use of drugs, and all sorts of mysticism. This is not to mention the groping of females in the moulid's massive crowds, and, according to one acquaintance of mine, female nudity. These more liberal aspects of moulids might also be explained by the fact that many of them are Sufi, a sect of Islam known for being more tolerant and often in conflict with the orthodox stance.

Due to being perceived by the Egyptian government as an archaic tradition, as well as some security risks (people get trampled, and rumor has it that there was a bomb planted several years ago), these moulids have been pushed further out of the public view and subject to thorough penetration by the security services.

Egypt's largest moulid is held in Tanta, the country's fifth-largest city, following the conclusion of the cotton harvest. It is to celebrate the birth of Sayyed Ahmad El-Badawy, a 13th century saint who came to Egypt from Morocco and established the Badawiyya sect of Sufism. The eight-day celebration is said to attract a couple of million people each year. The BBC has a little photo-biopic of it here.

I went to the Tanta moulid with Roomie M and four new friends (an aid worker, a magazine writer and his girlfriend, and a globe-hopping Swiss photojournalist). We had planned on taking the 8:30 Turbini train to Alexandria, which stops there, but all the tickets were sold out, so we recruited a driver to take us there (about a 2 hour drive) and to wait for us until we wanted to come back in the wee hours of the morning. Last night was the last night of the Moulid, called the "Big Night" ("Al Layla Al Kabeera" in Arabic).

Here is a video of the highway, to give you the experience of Egyptian driving.

We stopped for gas in a town that seemed almost entirely populated by those small, three-wheeled vehicles loved by Yo. I hadn't seen that many outside of rural Syria.

Here is a video of our arrival in Tanta. This is just the outskirts of the city, but you can see that there are still many people out and about.

We were dropped off by the post office on the main road going through town, and then we had to walk up another wide street to the mosque. The street, closed to automobiles for the festival, was full of vendors selling sweets, toys, and colorful paper hats.

I bought a small toy camel from a very friendly woman selling toys with her little girl. I probably should have given the camel to the little girl, but I kind of liked him. We then headed towards the large mosque, where the main celebrations are held. The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the mosque were the beautiful lights strung around it.

In front of the mosque was a seemingly impenetrable crowd, full of people standing, walking, or swaying in a trance-like state to the echoes of religious music booming from multiple loudspeakers.

Here are some videos of people dancing. This practice, as well as singing, meditation, and trance, is part of thikr (ذكر), or remembrance (of God).

As soon as we decided to brave the crowds to make our way behind the mosque, where most of the action is, we were descended upon by several dozen teenage boys, who were all very nice and just wanted to know our names and what we were doing there (I forgot to mention that these celebrations are largely unknown to most Westerners, and those who do know about them are often scared away by the idea that they could be trampled or groped). This was all well and good, but then literally hundreds of people started to gather around us! It was pretty terrifying, and we were just about to head on our way when about five uniformed security guys broke up the crowd, yelling at the people and wielding nightsticks. From that point on until we managed to ditch him an hour later, we had a plainclothes policeman following us, smacking gropers, yelling at people who tried to talk to us, and pushing people out of the way so we could see. While I was grateful for his action against gropers (these guys are terrible--they get a whole lot more than your ass in the palm of their hand when they go in), I felt really bad that he was pushing away people that I am supposed to be reaching out to while I am here. I felt like it reinforced the image of the high and mighty American, and so did my friends, so we talked to the people anyway and gently told the officer to back down when someone had good intentions. Security is really heavy-- not only were there paddywagons full of policemen everywhere, there was also a security camera extended from a boom surveying the entire crowd. Here is a video of it:

Anyway, back in the tents there are all kinds of things. Most important are the centers where people are dancing to music. There are also music, clothing, and toy stands.

Here is a video of one of the tents with dancing:

After we had had our fill of wandering around the tents (about 12 AM), we found a coffee shop on the fringes of the festival and sat down with our new friend for some tea. We were led there by a boy in his mid-teens who had taken it upon himself to be our guide after we ditched our security detail.

We then spotted this guy and decided to buy some hats. M and I also stocked up on hats for our long-anticipated joint birthday party (to be held in mid-April).

We then went for a little walk around Tanta, led by our friend, who did not want a hat. :-(
He was swimming against the tide-- even the minibuses in Tanta were wearing them!

It turns out that there were lots of private moulid celebrations going on around town as well. Here is one not far from the main mosque.

Tanta also has some interesting architecture.

Around 2 AM we decided to head back to a restaurant near the mosque, which had a second-floor dining area ideal for people-watching.

That's about all we could do before we had to meet up with our can again at around 3:30 AM. We made it home at about 5 or 5:30, and I slept until 1 PM today, losing most of what I had planned to do. It was definitely worth it!

The Idle Rich

2007-10-31T08:44:00.000-04:00

Several weeks ago I met K, a highly animate Israeli comparative literature student who is studying Arabic here in Cairo. Several days later, K announced to the Cairo Scholars listserve that he was starting a Marcel Proust reading group. The invitation was irresistible:

As the Cairo nights are getting cooler and the fair light of October intimates the coming of fall and recalls light memories of past loves (and the acquiring of alcohol not a problem any more) I thought to form a reading group where an exquisite literary text will meet excellent conversation and healthy wine drinking. The chosen text will be non other than Proust’s “In Search of Time Lost” whose subtlety, nuance of perception and obsession with minute detail promise not only to redeem the unlucky person who has fallen under the tyranny of sheer fact, routine, and positivistic analysis of Middle East politics and deliver him to the bosom of movement and relational thought but also, if one wishes, a whole new way of life.

K, I am your woman. I am tired of living and breathing politics, economics, statistics, and other "useful" subjects. I long for the days when I used to be idle by the pool with a book in hand, reading to my heart's content without feeling guilty about a pile of work sitting on my desk, people I had to meet, or documents I had to read.

So I joined the Proust reading group. Minutes after receiving the e-mail, I dashed across the river to Diwan, where I snatched up the last volume of Remembrance of Things Past (actually, two enormous volumes constituting about 1300 pages... this is twice as long as War and Peace, people). On the cab ride home, I flipped through the first 10 pages of the introduction and admired the artwork on the cover as it if something so small could actually serve as my own redemption. So absorbed was I that I did not notice that the cab driver was taking me the long way home, or that he stopped twice on the way, once for coffee, once for gasoline. When I got home, I spent ten minutes trying to decide which notebook I would use to record my observations, settling symbolically on a black leather-bound notebook that had only been used once before-- to take notes at the American Political Science Association annual meeting, which I found to be tremendously boring.

For the next week, I read "The Overture" slowly, only ten or so pages in one sitting. I read it slowly, in defiance of the work sitting on my desk. I read it in bed, where I used to spend my evenings perusing the internet for Arabic news articles. I read it in the sun on our balcony, reveling in my Halloween party hangover with good old Marcel and a large glass of mango juice. And I read it by the pool, nestling the large volume on top of my upturned feet in the same place where Nazih Ayubi's massive Overstating the Arab State had sat only days before. I must say, however, that both Marcel and Nazih served the same purpose in repelling sleazy, boring Lebanese men staying at the hotel.

I like this book so far, mostly because I identify with two personality traits of the narrator: an inexplicable feeling of sadness when I am alone and cannot sleep, as well as a nostalgia for times long gone, which I often think of when I wake up in the morning and am not yet motivated to get out of bed. When I was in college, I had a terrible time sleeping, mostly because as I lay alone in bed I thought of my family, missing them and hoping that I was living up to their expectations all at the same time, which led to further nervousness as I pondered the various mistakes I had made in life: sassing off to my piano teacher, not studying hard enough in biology, dating the wrong guy-- all relatively minor things that seemed serious once the lights went out. What the problem actually was-- I think-- was the uneasiness of being alone with myself and my own thoughts. To drown that out I started running every day and working late so that I would fall asleep right away with little thought beforehand. I do this to this day, and if that doesn't work I watch a movie to fall asleep so I don't have to think about anything. In the morning, the stress would be gone as I looked at the sunlight that started to flood the room, I would think of waking up in other rooms I had slept in in the past, usually my room in Baltimore where I had with my parents hung rainbow wallpaper, and where the limbs of a sycamore perpetually scratched the window next to my bed.

I didn't know that anyone else had such similar, strange experiences. Apparently an aristocratic French writer who spent his last years in a cork-lined room did. And so did many others at our book club who related similar experiences. It's funny to not have known anyone in this room and to have such a personal confession drawn out during the discussion of a book. So thank you Marcel, for both my rebellion against all things useful and the new friends.