Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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Andrea Rugh, whom I am presenting is very well-known in Egypt, not only in the diplomatic sphere, where she first moved with her husband who was a consul at the American Embassy, but in the grassroots districts where she has done her research. Andrea has lived and worked in the Middle East for 17 years, almost ten of them in Egypt, and she was quite a common sight in Bulaq, a working- class Cairo neighbourhood, where she was involved in a number of social projects.

Andrea's Egypt was the Egypt of the common man, in fact the common woman. Most of her books are about Egyptian women and yet one hesitates before calling her a feminist as such. She was also involved in major educational projects targetting both girls and boys; chief among these was the report for the creation of basic educational programmes in Egypt.

Andrea Rugh has written a number of books on Egypt, mostly from the point of view of a social scientist.

She chose Bulaq, which, as she says, saw its best days during Mohammad Ali Pasha's reign . It was there that Mohamed Aly concentrated his industry, especially shipbuilding and the schools he opened. Bulaq used to be the port of Cairo. Going through her book Reveal and Conceal, one feels the importance of dress in shaping the character of the wearer, or, to put it differently, one can feel the interaction of dress and character. One can also realise how dress reveals the origin of the wearer.

This book is in four major sections: the first includes a description of the conceptual rationale for the book, an outline of the general types of dress in Egypt and their basic elements; the second section catalogues the geographical and community understandings that are delineated by dress. The third shows individuals manipulating elements of personal identity and status in their dress and finally, the book presents us with a summary and conclusion by examining what she calls "the dialectic of dress symbols in across space and time".

It was a real revelation to me to follow the language of dress and to discover the significance of the women's dress in my home town, which is included in the book. It is amazing to know, in spite of the efforts to create a homogeneous society, the local differences still exist. It is also amazing that there are so many sub-cultures in the Egyptian society, and what is more, how these sub-cultures are not submerged in the main cities, especially in native quarters.

It will not be possible to present the dresses the author describes and illustrates with photographs. But there are a few points I would like to bring up. First, that the book must have entailed an incredible amount of research. It not only describes present- day attire, but it traces their history, showing the continuation of folk dress of rural areas, and at the same time its eventual disappearance in the cities. For example, the author remarks that the elites of today have retained little of what was fashionable in the 19th century. However, a few items of elite dress (primarily modesty cloaks) have been adapted by today's lower classes who, at the same time, have not diverged from what was already a basic style for them in the 19th century.

The conclusion one comes to is that whereas the lower classes maintain a great deal of stability the elite, by contrast, are always looking for variety. Yet in spite of the adherence to customary forms of dress, there is still usually room for individuals to choose between a range of styles or between elements of a particular style. The author calls this "presentation of self". The basic tension affecting individual choices, says Andrea Rugh, rests with decisions about what to conceal and what to reveal in the psychological, social and physical sense. I would like to quote what she says in this respect:

"Revealing and concealing can be actions that physically cover or uncover parts of the human body. Or they can be actions that convey, clarify, distort or obscure the intentions of the wearer."

Going through this fascinating book one comes out with an important conclusion which I would like to end with, namely that patterns of dress, like linguistic categories, constitute major clues about the way society functions.