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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492 
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Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492
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| Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Al-Ahram:
A Diwan of contemporary life (348)
In the late 19th century the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan developed around the sulfur springs which gained fame for curing skin and venereal diseases. However, in 1924 -- while the nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul was fighting tough battles to secure Egypt's constitutional rights -- another battle was taking place in Helwan. In this instalment of the Diwan Dr Yunan Labib Rizk* retraces from the pages of Al-Ahram the battle the League of Helwan Property Owners waged against the government's decision to establish a hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis -- the AIDS of the time -- in their suburb
Battle for Helwan
1924 was a year of political battles. In the foreground was the on-going confrontation between the newly installed people's government, headed by Saad Zaghlul, relentless in his campaign to secure his government's constitutional rights, and the palace, unaccustomed to the sense of having the carpet unceremoniously swept from under the feet of the throne whose occupants were long accustomed to the docile obsequiousness that was their natural due for their munificent benevolence. Surfacing from time to time from the background were the minor squabbles in the Council of Deputies, where a small opposition consisting of a handful of deputies representing the Liberal Constitutionalist and National Parties sought to create the greatest discomfiture possible for the overwhelmingly Wafd controlled house. Casting its shadow over all these battles were the ever-present tensions between the British, who imagined that they had placated the Egyptians with the Declaration of 28 February 1922, and a strident nationalist government, persistent in pressing for Egypt's full rights of independence and national sovereignty, tensions that were epitomised in the Zaghlul-MacDonald negotiations that took place in London in the summer of 1924.
Naturally, these political battles riveted the attention of the Egyptian public that turbulent year. They were also the primary focus of later historians, perhaps to the exclusion of the social and economic contentions that are revealed through a closer reading of the press or through personal memoirs of the period. Among the lesser known battles is that which Al-Ahram followed in the winter of 1924 between a recently formed association calling itself the League of Helwan Property Owners, on one side, and, on the other, the Ministries of Transport and Awqaf (religious endowments), which wanted to establish a hospital for tuberculosis and leprosy in Helwan.
Before entering the fray, however, it will be useful to give some background on the southern suburb that has today become part of Greater Cairo. Modern Helwan was founded in 1874 under the Khedive Ismail. "Modern Helwan" refers to the area around the famous spas, and not the village of Helwan that had been inhabited continuously for more than a millennium before that. Al-Muqtataf recounts the story of the discovery of the sulfur springs that would inspire the founding of the southern suburb. In the age of Abbas I, Ismail's predecessor, there was an outbreak in the army of scabies, "which causes severe itching and great discomfort." To remove the pestilence from the Cairo, Abbas I "ordered the afflicted soldiers to be sent to the area of Helwan. It so happened that some of these soldiers came across a mineral water spring to the east of the village, and after bathing and performing their ablutions in those waters, the scabies vanished. The news of this remedy spread quickly among the army and soon reached Abbas, who decreed bathing facilities to be constructed around the spring. However, the ruler died before his bidding was fulfilled."
The magazine continues that when Ismail assumed the throne, he sent a medical team to the site to analyse the composition of the water. The team reported back that the spring waters were beneficial in the treatment of all skin and venereal diseases that responded to sulfuric compounds. Also in the area's favour was its height of approximately 85 metres above sea level and the salubrious dry climate helpful to the cure of many ailments. The problem, however, was distance. Twenty-four kilometres in those days was a long way to go for treatment.
But, this impediment was not to stand in the way of the Khedive, famous for his many construction works. Ismail went ahead and had the famous baths built and ordered the construction of the luxurious Walda Palace. He also laid the infrastructure of roads and squares in the vicinity around the springs and divided the land into plots that he bestowed as "royal favours" in order to encourage the construction of private dwellings and other buildings. Soon, a large luxurious hotel arose next to the springs.
Still, as all these works were under way, people wanting to go to Helwan had to get there by boat and then, after coming ashore, cross a three kilometre path by donkey or horse, a tiresome journey. Yet, it was not long before Ismail began construction on the first railway line linking the capital with the new spa. This line, however, did not last long. Running from the citadel along a route passing along the southern cemetery southwards, it was too far to the east of the populated strip of the Nile and attracted relatively few passengers. It proved even more uneconomical to operate when railway officials drove away most of the few passengers they had by raising the prices.
As a result, for more than a decade it appeared that Helwan would remain the luxury spa where only the wealthiest could afford to establish holiday homes, or perhaps more appropriately palaces, rather than develop into the core of a residential neighbourhood that would eventually become one of Cairo's most important suburbs. Statistics show that in 1878, four years after it was founded, the new suburb had 25 homes only. Although the number reached 61 by the end of the following year, construction tapered off to the extent that by 1883 there were no more than 96.
from top: Khedive Ismail, Khedive Abbas, Saad Zaghlul Pasha, MacDonald, Dr Naguib Iskander
In 1885, Ismail's successor, the Khedive Tawfiq built an enormous winter palace for himself in Helwan, the result of which was to lure the cream of Egyptian society, and particularly the members of the Turkish aristocracy, into building holiday manors nearby. Still, this was not sufficient impetus for generating a residential district. Moreover, even day visits to the spas that would be undertaken by Cairo's middle class remained relatively few. According to a survey published in Al-Ahram in the late 1880s, the number of visitors to Helwan in 1887 was less than 10,000, or less than 300 per day. Although the figure would climb slightly to 12,000 the following year, the old railway line and the even older river communications were still impediments to the suburb's growth.
Clearly a new transport artery was needed to pump fresh blood into the district. It was the Sawaris brothers who saw the prospects in providing a better rail service to Helwan and the correlation between this and the urban development of the southern suburb. Thus, in the late 1880s they obtained a concession to construct a new line from the centre of Cairo to Helwan, which began operation in 1889. In addition, they obtained "a concession to a plot of land next to the Helwan Station, under conditions similar to those they obtained for the railway, on which they will build coffeehouses, inns and other such accommodations for public gatherings."
The Sawaris were not the only entrepreneurs keen on investing in the development of the area. The Egyptian Hotels Company obtained the license to renovate the spas built by Ismail. Introducing the latest European designs of mineral water spas, the company "furnished all the facilities and equipment necessary for modern bathing, created separate men's and women's bathing sections, and, in the western section, built a swimming pool with a capacity of 3690 cubic metres of sulfur water."
The Sawaris's plans paid off, as, over the next three decades, Helwan underwent the transformation into a residential district. Describing the area in 1922, Al-Ahram writes, "It is intersected by 25 streets laid out in checkerboard fashion. The streets are lined with trees, electrical lamps and water supply pipes. There are three major squares, and upon an elevation located to the northwest of the city is the national astronomical observatory and meteorological station. Among its most important hotels are the Grand Hotel, the Tawfiq Palace and Al-Hayat, which lives up to its name ('life'), for it is indeed one of the most luxurious hotels in Egypt. There are also several European and government schools, a young readers' library, three mosques of which the largest is Al-Tawfiqi Mosque, a Coptic church, a Roman Catholic church, an Anglican church and a synagogue. It also has sufficient coffeehouses and pharmacies to meet its needs for the present, as well as its famous Casino." In the 1920s, Helwan had obviously developed into a fully equipped cosmopolitan, upper middle class suburb, unique among other greater Cairo neighbourhoods both for its composition and its self-sufficiency. It is perhaps these qualities that explain the intensity of the dispute between the League of Helwan Property Owners and the government ministries in 1924.
On 1 April 1922, Helwan became part of Cairo. On that day the decree was issued to dissolve the municipal council of Helwan and to place its affairs under the municipality of Cairo. When announcing this news, Al-Ahram congratulated the residents of the southern suburb. Subsequent events, however, suggested that the citizens of Helwan did not have all that much to celebrate.
On 16 May 1924, a Helwan resident wrote to Al-Ahram to complain of negligence and unfair treatment. The sanitation authorities were not "sprinkling the streets and squares and lining them with trees" as was the case under the local municipality. Worse yet, the authorities were doing nothing to curb the cupidity of local merchants and salesmen, who "exact their outrageous prices from the people without restraint." Moreover, although Helwan had become part of the capital, the government was charging its residents 60 millimes per kilowatt of electricity, as opposed to the 27 millimes per kilowatt that the Lighting Company in Cairo charged its customers. "It is difficult to believe that the Egyptian government should charge such an outrageously higher price than a privately-owned foreign company," fumed the writer.
This complaint was soon followed by another, much longer and more detailed. Published in Al-Ahram of 25 May 1924 and signed "G S", this letter protested the prices of rail transport to and from Helwan. During World War I, the Railway Authority, which now operated this line, raised the prices of all railway transportation, an action the residents of Helwan accepted ungrudgingly in view of the spiraling costs of coal during that period. However, following the war, the prices of everything began to drop again, except for the prices of the fair between Helwan and Cairo. "G S" writes, "A round trip ticket between Cairo and Helwan rose from 5 to 7.5 piastres. This price has not dropped, in spite of the fact that it is the government's responsibility to take into consideration the circumstances of the people. The present fare should be reduced to a reasonable rate, for there are many inhabitants of Cairo who enjoy the excursion to Helwan, but cannot afford to do so as often as they would like, particularly when one considers that the fares for a large family could come to nearly half an Egyptian pound!"
The writer goes on to accuse the government of being partial to the rich. An annual Helwan-Cairo rail pass cost LE12, or LE1 per month. In contrast, a three-month pass cost LE3.75, or LE1.25 per month, and a monthly pass cost LE1.50. Yet, since very few could come up with the immediate cash to pay the cost of an annual rail pass, it was the rich, not the poor, who were entitled to the savings.
Moreover, there was nothing to justify the high prices, given the deterioration in the maintenance and comfort of the trains. According to "G S", "Second class passengers may well believe themselves to be in third class, for the design and general dilapidation of the carriages is such as one would never find in another train elsewhere in the country." Finally, the writer, who obviously rode second class himself, urged the railway authorities to furnish more second class carriages, "to alleviate the overcrowding in these carriages, while the first class carriages remain empty."
In August and September of that year, these grievances evolved into three sets of specific demands voiced by the Executive Committee of the League of Helwan Property Owners represented by the attorney Naguib Shaqra who published three articles in Al-Ahram. In the first article he presented the Railway Authority, with five demands: reducing fares to the pre-war levels, adding third class carriages "to alleviate the excessive costs entailed by those who must commute to earn their livelihood," an installment payment system for annual fare subscriptions "for government and commercial staff," free rail passes for medical practitioners, and, finally, the construction of three tramway lines, one from Helwan station to the Nile and two circuit routes to serve eastern and western Helwan.
In the second article the demands pertained to measures needed to encourage the development of the suburb and improve its standards of living. The League of Helwan Property Owners wanted advertisements promoting the attractions of Helwan permanently posted in all the major railway stations. They wanted the rates of water and electricity consumption reduced, the streets paved with tarmac and trees planted along all the streets and squares. The Casino, they said, should be tendered to a private company that would pledge to "hosting a theatre soiree, cinema soiree and song soiree every week." Lastly, they insisted that the road leading to Wadi Hof should be renovated "to allow for excursions to the area by carriage and automobile."
While Helwan was reputed for its sulfur spas and its salubrious climate, to the new residents of the region there were limits to the therapeutic services their neighborhood should offer. The construction of a hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy was where they drew the line.
In the 1920s, the "pernicious disease," as tuberculosis was referred to, was still a nightmare, and Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata and Laila in the Egyptian film by that name made the spectre of "consumption" ever more omnipresent. Tuberculosis was the AIDS of the era. In the popular mind, death was inevitable, with the difference that, not only was the former considered to be highly virulent and contagious, very little was understood about the process of infection. Thus, the prospect of a hospital for the treatment of this disease would not go over well with the residents of a suburb whose main point of attraction was health.
In Al-Ahram, the battle over government plans to make Helwan a centre for the treatment of tuberculosis opened in its edition of 23 April 1924. Dr Riyad Henien, a physician from Helwan, reported to the newspaper that he had heard a rumor that the Ministry of Awqaf intended to purchase Al-Hayat Hotel in order to convert it into a sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy. He cautioned against the project. After having resided and practiced medicine in Helwan for many years, he could state with authority that "while the climate of Helwan is beneficial for the treatment of most -- but not all -- cases of tuberculosis, this applies only to the winter and autumn seasons. In the summer, the intensity of the heat and the extreme dryness of the air can be severely detrimental to those afflicted with this disease. In particular, they are vulnerable to pulmonary hemorrhaging, the most dangerous symptom of this disease, and for this reason we advise tuberculosis patients to leave Helwan during this season."
Another physician, though not a resident of Helwan, supplied a conflicting opinion. Dr Naguib Iskander contended that the first cardinal rule for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis was to supply the appropriate climate. Sufferers of this disease "desperately require fresh air and physical and psychological rest, and one of the most important prerequisites for this is a salubrious, moderate climate, not subject to rapid fluctuations in temperature, low in humidity, and free of dust particles and strong winds. In addition, there must be sufficient sunlight to permit the longest possible exposure to the healing, microbe-killing rays of the sun. All these climatic conditions exist in abundance in Helwan, which is why it has acquired such worldwide repute."
Not to be outdone, Dr Henien responded that while Dr Iskander's reasoning may be correct, he was not familiar with the climate of Helwan. Anyone who lived in the suburb for any length of time would be able to tell Iskander that the weather in the summer was precisely what he warned against. "Between May and October every year, the fluctuations in temperature are extreme and there are frequent windstorms laden with particles of dust and sand," Dr Henien argues, adding that "even the healthy residents whose circumstances oblige them to remain in Helwan throughout the summer keep their doors and windows firmly shut throughout the day."
However, the true fears of the residents were embodied in a petition signed by eleven doctors -- mostly non-Egyptians -- from Helwan, who wrote, "Helwan is a city internationally reputed for its therapeutic assets. In Egypt it is the only such city to possess this wealth of mineral springs that attract people from all over Egypt and abroad seeking a remedy for rheumatism, gout and all forms of joint and kidney ailments. If we were to introduce a hospital such as that which is proposed for the treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy, it would doom this city to permanent ruin. Egyptian and foreign patients would fear to come here and a significant portion of the city's current residents would leave, forcing its hotels and inns to close down."
The Ministry of Awqaf was quick to detect the business interests behind this petition and to observe that "only physicians from Helwan" signed it. These physicians, moreover, were the very ones who could easily counter the objections to the proposed hospitals, rather than compounding the fears of the inhabitants.
Rallying in support of the ministry's position, a number of physicians from Cairo condemned the attitude of Helwan doctors as inhumane. In fact, one of these physicians noted that the individual who founded Al-Hayat Hotel, which was to be transformed into a sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis, was a wealthy European who himself suffered from that illness, came to Helwan upon the advice of his personal physician and was cured. It was in gratitude for his cure that this man laid out the vast expenses towards the construction of that luxurious building that was originally intended as a sanatorium, and not a hotel. Moreover, it was for this reason that the design of the building provided for the latest prerequisites for the preservation of sanitation and health and that the building itself was called Al-Hayat, which means "life." Lastly, the writer expressed his surprise that a foreigner should feel more compassion for the ill in Egypt than the doctors of Helwan who "live off the benefits of this country."
Another physician was equally shocked at the petition. The doctors in Helwan, as elsewhere, are presumed to subscribe to the humanitarian oath to cure the ill, he wrote. Yet, not only did their objections lack validity, it ran against the medical code of ethics to discuss such matters on the pages of the daily press.
A third doctor accused the writers of the petition of inciting panic in Helwan on totally unjustifiable grounds. The risk of contamination, he argued, "can easily be avoided by isolating the sanatorium from the city and ensuring that the necessary precautions are taken to prevent contamination."
Against this onslaught by their fellow practitioners, the doctors of Helwan had no choice but to take a back seat. The next to speak on behalf of the League of Helwan Property Owners was the attorney, Naguib Shaqra, who wrote a series of letters to Al-Ahram in the summer of 1924. The sensationalist headlines of these letters bespeak their substance. "Save Helwan from the Project to Make it a Breeding Ground for Tuberculosis," read one. "A Question of Life and Death in Helwan" and "For the Well-Being of Helwan" read a second and third.
In these articles, Shaqra reiterated the argument that the climate of Helwan "killed tuberculosis patients rather than cured them." Secondly, he protested, "There has never been a government in this wide world that has committed a crime of locating a sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis in its only health spa resort." There were many other locations in Egypt, removed from urban areas, that offered the appropriate climate for such a sanatorium and that would not create a health hazard for the populace. Already, he added, just the rumour of the hospital made some people leave Helwan and move to Heliopolis. "If this disastrous project is implemented, the entire population will evacuate the city." Finally, as a lawyer, he could predict that the implementation of the project could "precipitate legal suits against the government that would cost it over a million pounds in compensation payments."
If Shaqra thought such threats would intimidate the authorities he was mistaken. The Ministry of Awqaf went ahead with its project, bringing the hospital into operation within two years. Nor did it spell disaster for the beautiful suburb, whose salubrious climate and splendid spas continued to attract tourists for several decades afterwards.
* The author is a professor of history and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.
