Tea and Jazeera
Coffee shops have turned into media centres for many Egyptians. Dena Rashed hits Cairo's local hangouts
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Watching the news at a coffee shop in Sayeda Zeinab; discussing the latest while puffing away at the shisha
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In one of the many coffee shops along 26 July Street in Boulaq Abul-Ela district, Mohamed Rabie and Hassan Alam were sitting one afternoon this week drinking coffee and smoking shisha. Although they were chatting, they were still paying attention to Al- Jazeera's news coverage of the US and British invasion of Iraq. "I have been watching Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV constantly since the outbreak of the war," said Rabie, who owns a small company that supplies hotel equipment. Although he has cable television at home, the coffee shop have provided him with a good opportunity to follow the news during the day.
For many Egyptian men, coffee shops are the most affordable and entertaining outing available. And for the many who cannot afford cable television at home, the coffee shop has been the best place to watch live football games and the latest movies.
But since the US-British invasion of Iraq began three weeks ago, live coverage from Iraq by Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV has turned once anxious football viewers to the news.
The news, in fact, has been attracting new customers to the country's coffee shops -- that and the recession. "A year ago you would never have found me sitting here at five in the afternoon. I would have been at work. But business has not been that great lately, and the war will certainly have a negative effect on business in the long run, too," said Rabie.
With the recession and increasing unemployment, more and more men seek the haven of the coffee shop and find themselves drawn into news of the invasion. Alam pointed out that "with the present economic conditions and a war that may last for God knows how long, we are working 80 per cent less than before. So we have a lot of spare time."
Alam, who is not satisfied with Egyptian television coverage of the invasion, said he believes that the two Arab satellite channels have filled the gap in local coverage. Although he sometimes doubts the credibility of Al-Jazeera, he said he thinks that its exclusive coverage is great. Taking quick glances at the screen in front of him while talking, he admitted that the images appearing on the screen are what makes this war coverage different from that of any other war he has followed before. "We could hear the news from many channels before. But to see the battle with your own eyes, that is what pulls you into the war with all your senses," he said.
However, he also said that he believes that the coverage of dead bodies and wounded civilians have had negative effects on young children. "My grandson, who is four years old, was asking me whether this was a horror movie, and I could not explain to him what war meant. So I simply told him, 'Yes, it is a horror movie,'" he said with despair.
Generally, however, what people talk about most in coffee shops is sympathy for and solidarity with the Iraqi people.
Down the road was another coffee shop, frequented by skilled labourers. While this one had no cable television, patrons were busy watching Egyptian TV's coverage of the war. For Mohamed Qassem, who spent seven years working in Iraq, the Iraqis hold a special place in his heart. "I have lived and worked in many Iraqi cities and that has made me attached to it and very anxious to know what is happening to the people and to the places where I stayed," he said. Qassem is one of many Egyptian workers who left Iraq a few days before the Gulf War in 1990. "Attention to that war cannot be compared to this one. Back then, CNN was the sole source of information and there was no true coverage of the war. So, really, people did not have access to the news," he said.
Qassem has cable television at home which provides him with the level of coverage he expects. Although he would have liked the coffee shop where he spends most of his time to have cable TV, he cannot afford to sit at one of the shops which do offer the service. "Since I am a freelance worker, I stay in this coffee shop from eight in the morning till five in the afternoon. It is like an office for me, where many of my customers can come and find me. Hence, I cannot afford to change it," he said. When he gets home, he tries to fill in the gaps left by Egyptian television by watching cable late into the night.
According to Mohamed El-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, "The war has been a huge, surprising event for many Egyptians and it has been accompanied by a form of 'crisis behaviour' which has lead many people to attentively follow media coverage."
He added that the coffee shops have become the centre of information and discussion for Egyptians. "Take a small village in Egypt. The only place to assemble would be the mosque, but then debate would be devoid of political content. Coffee shops have become everything for the people," he said. He went on to point out that coffee shops are the only informal gathering spots available for many people. They have become a substitute for the cinema and the theatre.
Mahmoud Abdel-Mawgoud, who was playing dominoes in a coffee shop in the Al-Sayeda Zeinab district, said, "I think that somehow people got used to news of the Intifada. But the war in Iraq is another thing. I don't think I will gradually lose interest in it because the war gives many people a sense of fear that they could be next."
Abdel-Mawgoud and his two friends are regular customers of the coffee shop that is blocks away from their work at Dar Al-Hilal, a publishing house. A long sheet of paper listing their game scores indicated that they had been in the coffee shop for hours. The three of them, who do not have cable at home, depend on the Arabic satellite channels aired in their coffee shop of choice. As an Al-Jazeera correspondent in Iraq described the state of Baghdad during the American bombardment, a sense of despair was apparent on the faces of the customers in the coffee shop. "We watch the news and the images of the wounded and the dead, and the thing that bothers us most is the fact that we can't do anything to stop it or help the Iraqi people," said Abdel-Mawgoud's partner in dominoes, Said Zeidan, a driver.
Another customer sat alone a metre away from the screen. He admitted he was never a great fan of the news but that the current war in Iraq has changed his perception of politics. "I always depended on the radio for information, but with the flow of news in the coffee shop you cannot help it," said Yehia Abul-Ela, also an employee in Dar Al-Hilal. "Near my house in Imbaba, even young men who don't have cable at home leave the coffee shop if its owner switches to a channel other than the Arabic news satellite channels."
Kamal Hussein, a house painter who was drinking tea in a coffee shop in the Abul-Ela district, distrusts the news channels. "No channel would tell us the truth, but at least we could know a good part of it through the Arab satellite channels. People are about to explode and they need to know what is really happening there," he said.
The Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies' Said recalled the experience of the Egyptian people during the 1967 war and the loss of faith in the official media as a sad experience that remains in the minds of many who witnessed the war. "The coffee shops [with their satellite links] have become the informal alternative to the Egyptian official media. Since the official media does not necessarily represent the society, people have resorted to channels like Al- Jazeera, for example, which have sustained a superior level of coverage," he said.
