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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 July - 4 August 1999 Issue No. 440 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 July - 4 August 1999 Issue No. 440
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Fury unleashed
By Fayza Hassan
Long ago, when I was still a novice driver, I was repeatedly warned by my parents that, while they would be prepared to disregard any minor damage to their car -- since I would be made to pay for the repairs anyway -- hitting someone on the road would represent a disaster of much greater consequences. If this ever happened to me, whether in a crowded part of town or on a deserted highway, they cautioned, the right course to follow would be to keep driving, towards the nearest police station, where I should give myself up. I should resist any impulse to stop at the scene of the accident, as the normal outcome of such an unwise move, more likely than not, would be my demise at the hands of the area's inhabitants. With vivid images of financial ruin and/or a proper lynching floating before my eyes, I drove the family car everywhere at a snail's pace, invariably provoking the raillery of my occasional passengers. It used to bother me being made fun of, but as soon as I made up my mind to step on the gas, I would remember that the families of road accident victims had the deplorable habit of administering their own justice on the spot and therefore regress at once to a sensible 40km an hour.
Jeanine was the most ferocious critic of my driving skills. She always offered to walk in front of the car in order to clear the path while I crept along. One day, however, she hit a little girl carrying a tray of bread on her head. The child and the bread rolled in the dust, and before we fully understood what was happening we were surrounded by a screaming mob who pulled us out of the car and demanded instant reparations. Fortunately, the child stood up and assured all and sundry that she was fine. We paid for the bread and were soon on our way, accompanied by just a few more curses. This incident took care of Jeanine's pleasantries, but it also proved to me beyond doubt that the worse scenario conjured up by my parents for my benefit was barely an exaggeration, even though I realised that we had only been abused verbally. No one had raised a hand against us or attempted to harm us physically.
The whole scene was revived in my mind a few days ago as I was walking down a very busy alley, not far from the location of that long-forgotten incident. A stylish young woman in an equally stylish car was making slow and painful progress, honking madly in a vain effort to incite the pedestrians in the street to move aside. One man in particular ignored her purposely and seemed determined to walk right in front of the vehicle. He sauntered along with measured dignity, and I felt that he was daring her to force him out of her path. Finally losing her cool, the damsel nudged him with the bonnet of her car. He took a rather big leap forward and must have felt quite slighted because, by the time he retrieved his balance, he had been transformed into a howling monster. Seeing him advancing menacingly towards her, the woman hit the central lock and remained perfectly motionless, relatively secure in the privacy of her air-conditioned vehicle, while the man, foaming at the mouth, pounded on the window and tried to kick the door in. "I'll kill you, I'll cut you to pieces, answer me, why aren't you answering me?" he screamed madly. The crowd that had gathered immediately could do little to restrain him and I shuddered at the idea of what he might do to the woman if he was able to pull her out of her refuge. An older man patted him on the arms and the back, another kissed him on the head and the eyes, begging him to calm down, all of it to no avail. Only after the arrival of a couple of policemen did the raving maniac make up his mind to move on. The young woman, looking considerably less stylish and quite shaken, was eventually led trembling into a nearby house where she was given a glass of water to help her regain her composure.
The treatment we had received forty years ago at the hands of the crowd in Old Cairo seemed quite civil in comparison to the raw rage I had just witnessed. Then again, the world has changed over the years, and not for the better. Half a century ago, Columbine High School was probably a quiet little suburban school where apparently normal young boys did not hide lethal weapons in their backpacks.
