March 2004
An Egyptian friend asked me the other day, "Why would you, an American, want to stay here? Don't you feel that the country is at the boiling point, that it's about to burst? You have no Arab blood in you, why would you stay? Don't you see that the place is about to collapse?” The assassination of Sheik Yassin by the Israeli government, plus the economic problems that have worsened over the past year, have left Egyptians feeling that the country may erupt at any moment. Last weekend all the streets were cordoned off around the university because they were afraid of the demonstration concerning Yassin taking place in Tahrir Square. (see this week's Cairo Times article on line at www.cairotimes.com) This week "the quartet" was in Cairo, Suzanne Mubarak was speaking at AUC and our students had organized a demonstration protesting the killing of Sheik Yassin. The soldiers were everywhere. But unlike the other demonstrations that have happened at AUC this one was advertised only in Arabic. I didn't get word of it until after it happened. It's been a bit of an exhausting week, and yet at the same time, I had no feeling whatsoever that I would want to leave. For one thing, I've lived through all the tension in Cairo of last year's war in Iraq. And so now I don't get surprised or scared when the university is surrounded by soldiers sometimes three lines deep. I know from past experience, that eventually the soldiers dwindle down to their usual numbers. While others worried about leaving school early and the problems of getting to their cars and about the traffic which would be jammed all over the city because of blocked roads, I stayed late and attended a wonderful poetry, music and art presentation about exiles.
It was a poetry reading by faculty and students with interludes of oud music by two musicians (one of whom is blind) and paintings by a Sudanese refugee. The poems were read by professors and a few students. Organized by the Literature club and Refugee studies, the line up of readers was impressive. It included an Iraqi woman who teaches in the department of English and Comparative Literature, an Italian man in the same department whose specialty is James Joyce and Marcel Proust, an Egyptian woman who is married to a French man which means her son does not hold the Egyptian citizenship, a Palestinian American man from the Political Science department who is also a poet and another Palestinian American man with a background in theater who heads the Refugee Studies program. There was a Sudanese student and some Egyptian and Palestinian students. And the poems were incredible ranging from Palestine to Chile, from South Africa to Kurdistan from Nigeria to Belgium to Jamaica. They were a mixture of the sad, the poignant, and the humorous. The first group was about "Longing and Belonging", the second group was titled "the Old and the New" and the last part described Journeys. The very last poem was Constantine P. Cavafy's "Ithaca".
I had read Sharif Elmusa's poem "Roots" many times before. But hearing it was a new experience. It reminded me how much poetry is really designed to be heard as much as read. "English Flavors" by Laure-Anne Bosselaar was a funny rendition of the experience that anyone can relate to who has who has tried to live in another culture and pronounce those odd new sounds of an alien language. The musical interludes on the oud were melodies from Iraq, Palestine, Turkey and an Egyptian improvisation.
I was reminded of my painting professor from Dartmouth, Ashley Bryan, whose poetry readings, whether of Black American writers or African folktales, become not just readings but performances that move the audience on all different levels.
Even though I have lived many places, I have never considered myself an exile, because I was never forced to leave with a sense that I could not return. Listening to those poems by exiles, I realized how different it is when you are forced against your will to leave and never come back. These poems talked about the range of experience for the exile – the wanting to return, the disappointment upon arrival, the adjustment to a new land and language.
I thought back to the question, "Why do I want to stay?" I think it is because of the wonderful mixture I find in Cairo. Everyday I encounter odd juxtapositions and questions that make me reconsider my assumptions. And when that happens, you feel more alive.