Two Egypt's

I was never really a fan of John Edwards. But I did like his ‘two-America’ speech, at least the first or second time I heard it during election season in 2004. It was a populist speech, one common throughout American history, but new to a 17-year old kid who knew little about red and blue states, who had never really considered the complex interplays between upper-class and middle America.

John Edwards political career is over now. He has a cancerous affair and expensive haircut to thank for that. But his speech lives on, and my first week in Cairo, Egypt brought it back into my memory with force. I am worried that my year abroad is going to be defined in large part by the ‘two-Egypt’s:’ the top tier of society—the elitist, richest 2% of Egypt, on full display at the American University’s beautiful new campus in New Cairo, where popped collars and American designer clothing abound, and the main library and administrative buildings rival Ivy League institutions in the States. And the other side of Egypt—the poorer, third-world class society, the Egypt without blackberries, health insurance plans, or even a decent meal to eat, where children and adults live in dirty shacks and small apartments, have limited access to education, and little hope for a better future. The Egypt that I saw with my father on a back-road tour of the pyramids with our sketchy tour-guide who was more interested in bringing us to his friends’ stores than giving us a real tour of the pyramids. Sure, the sphinx and pyramids are stunning to look at, but for someone more interested in people and culture then physical beauty, it was the piles of garbage lining the fences that lead to the pyramids, and the pregnant dog and little child searching helplessly for some scraps of food that really made my heart beat. It is a part of Egyptian society that I am mostly interested in getting to know peripherally, and on occasion more directly—perhaps through some form of community service—but I still want to see it and learn more about it. And at the new AUC, an oasis of riches in the middle of the desert, that other Egypt could not be farther from face or mind.

In Zamalek, as well, there is a sense of separation. Zamalek is an island in the middle of Cairo, where the streets are busy and cab horns and Arabic music fill the nightly air. But it is also a well-off community, full with expats, known for its embassies, and until the 1952 Egyptian revolution—exclusively home to British citizens and the most elite Egyptians. For me, as I complete my first week in Cairo, living in the Zamalek and AUC communities has been an easier transition. I feel as comfortable at AUC as an American Jew probably can feel in Egypt. But comfort is not something that I want this entire year to be marked by. I want to be shocked; I want to be thrilled, depressed, and angry at the same time. I want to really get some idea of what it’s like for 95% of the population to live in Egypt.

Maybe this is all fanciful talk. When’s the last time I visited Harlem or spent some quality time in the projects? But at least I know they exist. At least I’ve worked nearby, or know some people from some of the poorer neighborhoods in the States. At the new American University in Cairo, you wouldn’t even know you were in Egypt.