Whatever is happening to the Egyptians? | openDemocracy - 0 views
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In all cases, empirical evidence shows that the 1952 military-coup was not only rebellion against Egypt’s political regime, but also against the values and norms of its political subjects.
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If the repugnance or fear of the AUC community about [real] slums can be explained in terms of class tensions or a growing abyss between the classes, the question which prevails is: why would AUC students be entertained by observing a virtual slum? What is the fascination? And what is perceived as particularly “exceptional” about people who, a few years back, were not even perceived as “other”? How, and why, did no one raise this question as the event was being planned and organised? Did no one question the purpose or logic behind the construction of a virtual human zoo of people who are neither less human nor less Egyptian than those coming to observe them? I searched the images and messages displayed and communicated on the day of the event for some answers.
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Yet, it should definitely be taken into consideration that the struggle between the Nasserist social agenda and Sadat’s Infitah came to the surface in the July coup of 2013. A critical mass of the elites have now decisively aligned themselves with Sadat’s socio-economic policies (reflected in the recent economic forum, the reconciliation with corrupt businessmen, and the embrace of regressive taxation); bringing to the surface the symptoms of Sadat’s socio-economic revolution more vividly and bluntly
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The event signals the way in which the socio-economic gap is taking an ideological and cultural form, with implications not only limited to some AUC members, but widely accepted by other elites (in the media, the arts,academe, etc).
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On Thursday April 23, the American University in Cairo's (AUC) Theatre and Film Club invited the AUC community to an event, where they could watch a simulation of an Egyptian slum, talk to "people of this ghetto", eat "their" food, and shop in places similar to where "they" shop.
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Entering into this constructed slum, all you can hear are noises in variant forms: the market, the wedding, the beggars, the harassers, and loud popular music. To make it noisier, every few minutes, quarrels would break out here and there. The environment was designed to make one not only feel very irritable, but also unsafe. For how could a person feel safe among those wild barbaric creatures? Anyone who has ever entered a real Egyptian slum would quickly notice how different it is from the AUC-exaggerated version. The markets may be as noisy as portrayed, but only during peak hours (no more than 4-6 a day). Other sources of noise do not reflect reality. For instance, why would a beggar beg in a slum?
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These were mere reflections of a mental picture of slum-seekers, constructed through their 'othering' by movies, advertisements for gated communities, and other forms of mass media messages familiar in the communications of the upper-middle classes.