12 - 18 July 2001
Issue No.542
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 12 - 18 July 2001 Issue No.542 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Reflections
A very good likeness
How does one "tarnish Egypt's image abroad"? The curiosity of the statement is belied by its preponderance in our political and intellectual life (there are even laws punishing would-be tarnishers). But even the most national-image-abroad-conscious among us must admit that it is very curious indeed. For the statement to make any kind of sense we need to assume that "Egypt" is some sort of giant secret society, which communicates in a secret and impenetrable language of its own. Presumably -- since we boast day and night of the unprecedented nature of the freedom of expression we've come to enjoy in past decades -- we can complain of poverty, corruption, authoritarianism, whatever; but only so long as we keep it entre nous, in the family. How do we do this? In sign language? By whispering, so that those "abroad" won't hear? Only in Arabic? The language can be translated, after all, and not solely by errant Egyptians.
By all rights this should be an urgent question. Citizens should be able to walk the streets secure in the knowledge that they haven't inadvertently tarnished the national image by, say, whipping a donkey or throwing the newspaper wrapping of a fuul sandwich onto the pavement; that the act has not been witnessed or, even worse, captured on film by some appalled wanderer from abroad. Indeed, if you talk to many of the image-conscious members of the country's elite, the mere sight of many of our citizens is a blot on the consecrated image. Of course, entre nous, we're all fully aware of the fact that "abroad" in this context does not signify India or Zambia, but is unanimously understood among us to mean the Western world, with the US at its throbbing heart. This is where image-tarnishing is supposed to translate into decline in international and regional status, foreign investment, aid and trade, etc. But does it really? Naturally, the state bureaucracy seems to think so, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Image defence invariably translates into the worst forms of "image tarnishing."
The sheer irrationality of the Egypt's- image-abroad example serves here merely to illustrate a number of interesting aspects of our relationship with the "West." Bureaucratic minds work in mysterious and often unfathomable ways, but the fact that the state bureaucracy habitually resorts to such a clearly bizarre notion is surely an indication that the notion enjoys "hegemonic value." It must strike some responsive chord among the intellectual elite, and -- through it -- the people, domestically if not "abroad."
It does. In many ways, the prevalent sense of our relationship with the "West" remains as naïve and unrefined as that revealed by El- Gabarti as he tried to take in (with an often wicked sense of irony that we've meanwhile managed to lose) the "shock" of the Napoleonic conquest over 200 years ago: the profound sense of inadequacy; awe mixed with envy, fear and antagonism; the pathetic comfort derived from the notion that while "they" can defeat and subjugate us, over and over again, we possess superior "values," which, jealously and most hypocritically guarded, make us winners all the same. It is thus that the Iraqi regime can celebrate the anniversary of its victory in the Gulf War (vicious dictatorships are, for some reason, among the supreme expressions of the superiority of our values).
And then we have Mohamed Ali and Ismail, missions and modernisation, the drive to catch up, to face up to the challenge of the West, Al-Afghani and Mohamed Abduh.
I don't know exactly when the contemporary usage of hadara (civilisation, and especially urban civilisation) evolved. It shouldn't be difficult to find out. But we've become obsessed with it, employing it in an ever more innovative and peculiar syntax. The traffic police exhort us to "civilised (i.e., European) behaviour" on the streets. Echoing the official line, your taxi driver, even as he rushes madly through a traffic light, will tell you in no uncertain terms that our traffic problems are caused by the uncivilised behaviour of everybody else. Suluk hadari and sura hadariya (civilised behaviour and presenting a civilised image) are especially important at tourist sites (at some resorts the police ensures such a "civilised image" by regularly rounding up "uncivilised" -- read poor-looking -- sorts, which in terms of protecting our "image abroad" is as self- defeating as arresting Saadeddin Ibrahim). Anything from a USAID-funded new sewage system to a behind-the-scenes-Saddam- Hussein-sponsored attempt to wed revived Islamism to declining pan-Arab nationalism may be described as a mashrou' hadari (translated inevitably, if clumsily, as "a civilisational project").
Our image abroad is one side of the picture, the dangers of abroad coming in and wreaking havoc the other. In both cases we're supposed to be a monolithic, undifferentiated mass. Indeed, it is by presenting a single visage, however hypocritical, to an equally undifferentiated West that we guard against that West coming between us, subverting our cherished values -- our last line of defence, since in everything else that counts we've conceded defeat and submission.
We're all kings of our castles, even if, when we go out to work, we grovel at the boss's boots.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page