I decided to venture back into Islamic Cairo and the Khan el-Khalili (bazaar) area, this time during the day, hoping to check out the Museum of Islamic Art. To my disappointment, the museum was closed for renovations. Determined not to waste another cab fare back downtown, I decided to walk in the direction of the bazaar towards the Ataba metro station. I noticed a Western-looking (Spanish) couple checking out a map, so I struck up a conversation with them and we all headed into the bazaar together. So I struck out on the museum... why should I let that ruin my day? There's plenty to see in Khan el-Khalili: street vendors and coffee/shisha houses (known as ahwas) galore, all confined within a narrow maze of winding alleyways bordered by grandiose medieval mosques. It's a little like stepping back in time, except I'm pretty sure they didn't have racks of Casio watches in the Middle Ages.
After making our way through the main bazaar, avoiding all kinds of rabble trying to push jewelry on us ("the best in Egypt, my friend!"), we emptied out onto a long stretch of road I didn't recognize. It became pretty clear to me right away that this was not where tourists normally venture. In the bazaar you see your fair share of pale-skinned backpackers trying to untangle themselves from the salesmen, but this stretch of road looked like where "the Egyptians" live. We walked down a bit until we got hungry, and to my surprise the people at the restaurant we stopped at barely spoke a lick of English.
After leaving the restaurant--which I'm pretty sure overcharged us--the three of us decided to keep exploring this new road on the periphery of the bazaar. As we walked further and further, I felt myself with every block getting further and further from civilization (or maybe, in this part of the world, it was just the opposite). The trash piles seemed to get bigger and the clothes more raggedy. The buildings looked like they would collapse at the slightest breeze. The smell of sewage and rotting food was overpowering at times. We saw fewer and fewer cars with a proper exhaust or muffler system--in fact, there were almost as many donkey-drawn carriages as cars at this point. We had reached the Third World.
I must admit as an American that has grown up in the predominantly affluent northeast, this environment was quite a shock to my system. Do people really live like this? How can they? Doesn't this abject poverty just drive them insane? I guess they figure they have no other choice and that this is what God has destined for them. Humans are adaptable beings, but they still have dignity. Even animals live better than this.
I began to think of some of the causes of underdevelopment. Egypt is a poor country, yes, but what about all that aid the U.S. supposedly gives it? Then I began to think about all those nice government buildings and those nice clean cut policemen and soldiers with their shiny rifles and crisp uniforms that guard them. Could that be where all the money is going?
Arab countries, sadly, have a very poor record of investing in their people. Economic development usually takes a backseat to military spending, as most of these autocratic regimes feel it is better to build a fortress around their authority than to actually address the root causes of challenges to it. The government considers the rise in religious fundamentalism a threat, but could it be possible that the people's shift towards it is more a response to their economic condition than to the promptings of their soul? When you don't have much, it's easy for the void to be filled by promises of paradise in the next life. You see what I'm getting at here.
I know that there are some that scoff at this poverty = fundamentalism/terrorism theory. Bin Laden is a multi-millionaire after all, they say. And it's true that the vast majority of poor Muslims don't turn to terrorism as an outlet for their frustration. But it only makes sense that the less you have, the less you also have to lose. Illiteracy goes along with poverty as well, so if the cleric tells you the Qur'an says A, there is no way you can argue that it actually says B. You don't have a fighting chance.
"Where is the Arabs' dignity?" asked Muammar Gaddafi at the annual Arab summit last year. "Their future? Their very existence? Everything has disappeared."
To be replaced by what?
I don't quite buy the terrorism equals poverty, or even the fundamentalism equals poverty argument. Two quick reasons: why were the 9/11 hijackers mostly from Saudi Arabia (and mostly well educated and potentially well off)? And why have not other deeply impoverished countries, at various times and places, moved towards fundamentalism, such as Africa or, a while back, whole swathes of India? I suggest there is soemthing more in this equation. Totalitarian regimes, likely, that have to prop themselves up by outlawing every other political movement, and so only religion (and fundamentalism) becomes acceptable or a way to protest. Then there is the whole ideology of modernism that rankles so many traditional people.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a politically incorrect statement. I think what I'm trying to say is that mixing poverty with Islam specifically can lead to fundamentalism, which in turn can lead to terrorism (in most cases it doesn't but it is a volatile mix). You're right about Africa and India but those aren't predominantly Muslim parts of the world. Some parts of Africa are predominantly Muslim, like Somalia, and look at how that's going. Islamic theology has been hijacked by the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, the strand to which Bin Laden and his associates ascribe to. I see it every day here in Egypt: the niqabs, the propaganda posters, etc. I think that strand of Islam has very violent tendencies.
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