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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Interview International Economy Opinion Culture Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters New York musings
By Hani Shukrallah
I am Cairo-born and bred, and Cairo will always be Umm Al-Dunya for me, as for many other Egyptians. But in all honesty, our ancient city, in all its shabbiness, chaos and splendour, must cede its centuries-old title to New York; here's the true "mother of the world", in every sense. This is not my first visit to Gotham; I first gazed on its wondrous skyline with adolescent eyes in the late '60s (making regular visits to the Black Panthers' Harlem offices). A long stretch of time was to pass before I visited again in '89 (no more Panthers, then: they'd all been killed or jailed, or turned to other pursuits); and here I am now, in the mother of all cities, covering the mother of all international conferences. New York must have changed considerably during these years. I was never here long enough to notice it. What strikes me every time, however, is the curious mixture of awe and familiarity that this city always manages to inspire in me.
In fact, there is something of Cairo in New York, in essence if not in form -- New York as Cairo self-realised. After all, when Egyptians, centuries ago, bestowed the title of Mother of the World on Cairo, it was in recognition of its aggressively urban nature, which contrasted so sharply with the drab rural life to which the great majority of the population were consigned. New York may not be a beautiful city, in the sense that Paris or Rome are. It is, however, unabashedly a city, brazen in both its urban utility and magnificence.
And I must admit here to an almost fanatical urban bias. I thoroughly dislike the countryside, find rural life dull and dulling, and much prefer the noise of crowds and car horns to the din of croaking frogs and chirping insects. And, having spent my draft days camped out in the desert at the government's expense, I find it totally bewildering that now people are actually spending their own money to do the same thing, for fun and recreation. One thing I discovered during my army days is that, however deep into the desert you go, the flies will find you. A gummy-legged Kamikaze subspecies of fly will keep coming at you, day and night, however many of the monstrous creatures you manage to kill. This is not to speak of the delicate matter of having to do without the blessings of modern-day urban sanitation. No back to nature for me, thank you.
But there is something else about New York that evokes a sense of familiarity and at-homeness despite the world of difference, development and prosperity that separates it from a city like Cairo. There is a sense that almost everybody is a foreigner, so that in fact no one is. And this is not just a matter of the large numbers of new immigrants from the South that have become such a basic feature of the North's great cities. London, Paris and Berlin have their fair share of south Asians, West Indians, North Africans, Turks, Arabs, Chinese... you name it.. But in all these cities, your skin colour and accent immediately define you as a stranger, as someone who does not and should not belong. Not that I am making the absurd claim that there is no racism in New York. But here race appears to play little part in defining who belongs and who does not belong in the city. It seems to concede its cosmopolitanism as a matter of course, rather than accept it grudgingly for the sake of economic expediency, ethnic colour (Londoners love Indian food, but detest the Indians who cook it) or political correctness, as other Northern cities do. Truly, New York is Umm Al-Dunya.
And it was in New York that I had the dubious privilege of attending my first ever press conference by an Israeli prime minister, providing me with the very gem of my week-long stay. Barak was giving us indisputable proof of the legitimacy of Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem, and this was: "When Jesus walked down the streets of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, there were no mosques to look upon" -- and then, almost as an afterthought, "not even churches." It is ironic that it is only Jews, who gave the world Marx, Freud and Einstein (the very paragons of an age of reason), who can today spout such utter rubbish and get away with it as valid arguments. It makes one feel almost sorry for the Taliban.
But, ultimately, it is among the great paradoxes of a capitalist world that the tremendous achievements of human reason and intellect (as represented by the magnificence of New York) can, and indeed must, happily coexist with the most abject and regressive stupidity (as represented by an Israeli prime minister speaking at a press conference in New York).
Related stories:
Ah, but New York... 7 - 13 September 2000
