27 Sep. - 3 Oct. 2001
Issue No.553
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 27 Sep. - 3 Oct. 2001 Issue No.553 |
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Identity crisis
As a child, when asked what I was, defining myself as Egyptian or Arab was the last thing on my mind. I had missed out on the waves of nationalism that had shaken the country before I was born, and at home I don't remember religion or ethnicity ever mentioned. Rather, I imagined that we, as a family, belonged to a sort of international elite that put good manners and culture above anything else. We spoke several languages and felt at home in Europe as well as in Egypt, we knew the names of streets in Paris, Geneva or London as well as we knew those of Cairo, and we had interesting friends and acquaintances everywhere: here was confirmation of my belief that we were citizens of the world, at home wherever we chose to be. The value of the Egyptian pound was high and Egyptian tourists more than welcome in all the countries we used to visit regularly.
I could have had an inkling that things would not always be so great when, one night in Paris, arriving on a late train, we were told by the hotel concierge that our reservations had been cancelled. My father was displeased, and made it clear. The concierge had probably had too much to drink before coming on duty, because, enraged by my father's words, instead of extending the courteous help expected, he became abusive and used a derogatory epithet related to our Middle Eastern origin. He had ample opportunity to regret it in the scandal that ensued. Rejecting the profuse excuses of the management, we immediately checked into another hotel, with the self-righteous feelings of royalty having been slighted by the lower orders.
As it happened, I only began to lose confidence in our identity in 1956, on the day of the Suez Canal nationalisation. We were holidaying in Switzerland, in an exclusive mountain resort, where the results of the season's amateur tennis competition were the most momentous events. This may be why I was so shocked when my young brother was aggressed on the street in front of our hotel by an old French gentleman, who pummeled him while screaming that my brother had stolen the Canal and that he wanted it back at once. But the Frenchman was not alone. In a matter of hours the quiet little place had turned against us, and the hotel manager politely asked us to make hasty plans to move, "because Switzerland, a peace-loving country, will not welcome Egyptians from now on."
Faced with the hostility of perfect strangers, my father decided to cut our holidays short and we took the last ship home, returning a few days before the Tripartite Aggression.
Cairo, however, had changed. Lifelong friends were no longer on speaking terms with us, holding us obscurely responsible for their plight. They had to leave Egypt and we were staying. It was them against us. It was terribly unfair, they said, to make them pay for what they were not responsible for. I remember being terribly confused at the time. We had been asked to leave Switzerland, they were being asked to leave Egypt: where was the difference?
Ten years later, it was my turn to depart. On the ship taking us to Australia, a rather aggressive young woman asked me about my origins. When told, she recoiled in horror. During the whole trip she made a point of avoiding us, and we often observed her in conversation with other passengers, openly looking at us and whispering indignantly. By this time, however, I had become accustomed to being on the wrong side of the ethnic or religious fence and found it rather interesting that, while Arabs rejected me as a foreigner, foreigners rejected me as an Arab.
In Australia, we never experienced hostility or discrimination. We were never asked personal questions and for the years we spent there I could bask again in the pleasant feeling of belonging anywhere and everywhere. I was aware that the Australian government practised racist policies, but neither my family nor any of our friends ever experienced them first hand.
Then one day it happened. We had invited some friends and business associates for a barbecue and probably the beer had flowed too copiously. A young man, reaching out for a well-done steak, suddenly glared at my husband and announced in a loud voice, "It's people like him who are stealing our jobs and dragging our economy down." Since my husband was an older man, I thought at first that he was objecting to the fact that by staying in his job, he was blocking a younger person's promotion, namely his. I had often been told that by not staying at home with my children like any respectable mother, I was taking the place of a male breadwinner who needed to work more than I did. It was an old debate. That, however, was not the case. It became clear that our guest was objecting to Australia's immigration policies. "You are nothing in your country -- if you have one, that is. You come here and take our jobs, buy our houses, eat our food, take advantage of our credit system and send your children to our schools and before we know it, you will be taking over our country," he shouted in a thick voice. A stunned silence followed his pronouncement. Everyone was trying to look away. "Am I wrong?" he cried again. "We all pretend that everything is all right, that these foreigners are Australians exactly like us, but we all know that's not so. If we don't drive them out now, we will live to regret it."
Having received no response, he stormed out, stopping long enough to grab a last can of beer. "This is mine," he said defiantly, "everything that these people have is mine." In the exodus that followed, I was overcome with a sudden revelation. I knew now who I was. I was the product of a complex mixture that in the end bred tolerance and understanding for those still tangled in their limiting categories. I could not bring myself to hate the man, nor those who had rejected me for what they imagined I represented. I understood their feelings, but could not share them. I was indeed a citizen of the world, hopefully a harbinger of things to come.
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