Enemy aliens?
As Egyptians and Arabs take to the streets to voice outrage at the US strike on Iraq, Yasmine El-Rashidi talks to Cairo's expatriate community
As the sounds of sirens and scud missiles echoed through the streets of Iraq and Kuwait City, the rest of the world threw up its arms in fury. The United States' invasion of Iraq caused a global outcry, with anti-US demonstrations blossoming overnight.
In Egypt, the demonstrations were just one sign of the undisputed public sentiment. The crowds that marched in downtown Cairo verbalised their anger against a US regime that has exploited its global prowess. In reaction, there was an immediate but slight trickle of expatriates out of Egypt. Their fears were reportedly of violent attacks on not only the estimated 16,000 Americans in Egypt but also American look-alikes -- the so-called "Western" expatriate community as a whole.
"In this case," says Sandi Shetka, a first grade teacher at the Cairo American College (CAC) in Maadi -- a Cairo suburb home to much of the expatriate community in Cairo -- "there's no difference between Canadians, Americans or Swedes." She laughs, "We all look the same! If someone is going to choose to be violent, all they'll care about is that we're blonde."
But that, Shetka says, is something that causes her no distress.
"I haven't been treated one bit differently," Shetka says. "I went about my normal business, did my errands and things. I didn't stop my routine," she continues, referring to the first few days after the initial strikes on Baghdad. "I refuse to live in fear."
In the suburb of Maadi where Shetka lives and works, the positions of expatriates are mixed. Commonly referred to as "Little America", the quiet, tree-lined streets, apple pie-filled supermarket shelves and little league weekends have a ghetto- like persona of their own. The ghetto, that is, of the American life in Cairo. Inside the picket fences of this Cairene subculture, the nature of Egyptians remains distanced, foreign and questionable.
Beyond those borders -- or for those who choose to venture outside of them -- the reality is readily apparent. In the heart of the ancient city, in an old building by the Citadel, one long- time British resident of the city -- a senior journalist at Al- Ahram Weekly -- was introduced to the war by a knock on his apartment door. Neighbours, he recalled to colleagues, had gathered and come to him to offer support and make sure that, as a Briton living in the heart of Egypt, the events of the war had not made him uncomfortable.
"We have a system in which we communicate information to our citizens through letters, e-mails, and so-forth," Irfan Siddiq, the British Embassy's head of press and public affairs told the Weekly. "When the implications of a potential crisis in Iraq became evident, we sent out information," he says, referring to circulars forewarning the estimated 3,500 British citizens of the expected war and assuring them that they would be safe in Cairo. "Since the war actually broke out," he says, "we've taken no steps to change our advice to the community. That is linked directly to the security and safety of the situation in Egypt."
The conflict, Siddiq and others affirm, has no direct impact on "Western" citizens in Egypt.
"The only warning we have given is that we've advised British citizens -- like most embassies, I believe -- to stay clear of public demonstrations and not to draw too much attention to themselves," he says.
The advice does not emerge because Westerners are being pinpointes as physically targets in this outcry, but rather, because precaution is a cheap price to pay in an unsettled world.
"What I consider to be rather sensible precautions have been taken," Siddiq says.
Citizens from at least four continents have been advised to "lie low" and to call the embassies if they are in doubt.
"We have a call-in system," Siddiq says. "There's no big difference in the number of calls, or the frame of mind, from the point of it being a potential crisis to it being a war," he continues. "Naturally, everyone is worried about the war, but the general response of the British community is calm and relaxed."
The initial anticipation has seemingly faded.
"For the first few days, there was a general apprehension as to what would happen," says Geraldine Hall, a 19-year-old American resident of Cairo. That anxiety has begun to dissipate. Hall says that although she clearly falls within the category of "Western", she doesn't consider herself an outsider and considers Cairo "home". "Demonstrations are never a pleasant thing," she laughs. "But I've been here long enough to know when to worry and when not," she continues. "As an American citizen, did I feel threatened? Absolutely not."
For those who feel as Hall does, the initial anxiety about what might come next stemmed from the American embassy itself.
"They told us not to go out, and if we do, to keep a very low profile," Shetka says. They also reportedly set up a hotline to relay "time-sensitive information" to US citizens. To some, the hotline provided a good source of amusement. As did the many rumours which have circulated through Cairo, such as one about plans for food drops over Maadi.
"Wild!" says Valery Williams, an American graduate student at AUC. "The demonstrations did freak me out a bit at first," she continues, "especially because of how fired-up people were on campus."
At the American University in Cairo, life was upside-down for the first week. Many students were said to have stayed home, avoiding Tahrir Square and its meeting point for demonstrators.
"We didn't want to come all the way [to school] and find classes cancelled," says Hashem Murad, a junior at AUC. "We demonstrated the first few days, then finished," he laughs. "We stayed home."
Like Murad, Williams got over her initial reaction fast.
"It took me about 48 hours to realise that Cairo wasn't unsafe," she says. She looked to the example of her Western professors at AUC who have been living in Cairo for many years. "I figured that they'd be a good judge of what was going on and how to respond."
To the likes of Hall and other Westerners who have enmeshed themselves in Egyptian culture, the tales of extreme fear and caution were indicative of a state of mind.
"I know women who won't go out," says Patricia Pressman, a British woman who has lived in Cairo for seven years. "They've stocked up on canned food, and they don't want to leave their apartments. They're scared." Some of them have even flown back to wherever home is.
In the more central hubs of Cairo such as Zamalek and Mohandessin, tales of angry cab drivers are circulating.
"I have friends in Zamalek who've been spat on and kicked out of cabs because they're American," Nicole Reak, a first grade teacher at CAC told the Weekly. "But in Maadi, we haven't seen any of that." US Embassy Spokesman Philip Frayne said those types of incidents have been few and far between.
In Maadi, as in other areas of town, security has been heightened to avoid any potential attacks. Neighbourhoods inhabited by large numbers of foreigners have seen an infusion of police forces, a precaution the Egyptian government has chosen to take for itself.
"You'll notice that the streets around the British and American embassies have been closed off," Siddiq says. "Those are Egyptian forces. The government chose to put them there as a safety precaution in light of the first few days of demonstrations," he continues, referring to the lines of shielded soldiers cordoning off the area in Garden City near Tahrir Square. Siddiq says that the number of soldiers near the two embassies has tapered off and that the streets will eventually be reopened after consultations with the embassies.
Whether that will be in a few days, or when the war is over, remains unknown, as is the war itself and what will follow it. In the meantime, life -- for those who have chosen so -- proceeds as normal.
