Historic Cairo fire alarm
A fire at the Citadel triggers a fierce debate about the historic site's future
The precise cause of last week's fire in the Bab Al-Azab area near the Citadel remains unclear, reports Nevine El-Aref . A warehouse was completely gutted in the blaze, which began at midnight and was fought by a crew of 50 until dawn.
During a Shura Council session on Sunday, members of the art, culture and tourism committee found themselves being told by Mokhtar El-Qassabani, a professor of archaeology at Cairo University, that "children's fireworks were the main cause of the conflagration." A resident of Bab Al-Azab, El-Qassabani said he saw the blaze first-hand. The burning tip of a fireworks stick landed on the warehouse's wooden ceiling, and the rest was history.
Too close to it, is more like it. The head of the committee, Abdel-Salam Abdel-Ghafaar, objected to El-Qassabani's placement of blame, saying, "We cannot ignore the mistakes [that have been made]. Egypt's Islamic heritage could have burnt down in seconds."
The wooden warehouse was at the northwestern side of the Salaheddin Citadel, near the spot where Mohamed Ali orchestrated his famous 19th century massacre of Mamelukes. The warehouse was completely destroyed by the fire, which caused no damage to the popular tourist attractions and precious monuments that are part of the imposing hilltop citadel complex.
According to Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, the fire was an alarm -- yet another warning inspiring him to revive talk of the controversial Bab Al-Azab development project proposed by the ministry almost five years ago. The plan was to upgrade part of the Bab Al-Azab area by leasing a 17-feddan plot (currently a de facto garbage dump) to a private company. Encroachments at the edge of the citadel grounds would be removed, and a hotel and shopping complex would be built where trash piles up today.
The scheme, however, has been on the back- burner, mired in bad press and legal wrangles. Intellectuals complained that the project would set a precedent for using historical sites for commercial purposes. Parliament's culture and arts committee criticised it to no end. And the project was scrapped altogether after an Administrative Court ruled against it -- although Hosni said the ministry is contesting the decision with the Supreme Administrative Court.
In fact, Hosni said, antiquities inspectors and labourers are not allowed to remove encroachments in Bab Al-Azab, since "the Administrative Court decision bans any intervention" in the area on the ministry's part. Hosni promised to take committee members on a tour of the area so they could see for themselves how much awful the situation had become, and how threatening to the historical zone.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), meanwhile, has decided to transport antiquities workshops and warehouses from the citadel area to another location in Nasr City in order to prevent any possible problems, according to SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass, who also told the Shura committee that they would soon see project plans for fire and rescue facilities inside the Citadel, as well as a new SCA cleaning authority responsible for clearing dust and garbage away from monuments.
Abdallah El-Attar, who heads the SCA's Islamic and Coptic department, said that although the gutted building was of little historic value (it originally served as a dormitory and storage area used by the British army during their colonisation of Egypt), "if the fire hadn't been quickly contained, the exquisite Mohamed Ali Mosque, as well as other monuments of historical value, would have become mere ashes." For that reason, the SCA had to have more leeway in intervening in archaeological areas that are within zones controlled by the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Article 6 of the Antiquities Law currently forbids this)."
Monuments are threatened by urban encroachment and the accumulation of garbage in the streets, said Ayman Abdel-Moneim, director of the historic Cairo documentation centre. "This disaster could easily happen again." The ministry, he says, cannot fight the phenomenon alone. The high-tech security system that has been installed inside the citadel is one thing, but keeping a constant eye on the massive populated area that surrounds the citadel something else entirely. "Developing Bab Al-Azab is the only solution," Abdel-Moneim concluded.
