CAIRO: You don't need to be the sharpest tool in the box to quickly realize how racist Egypt is. It is something I have always turned a bling eye to because it is one of the very few things that make me ashamed to be an Egyptian. I hate racism. No, read that again, I hate racism. I hate it. I have a deep, bitter hatred towards treating our fellow human beings as inferior because the pigmentation in their bodies is a different pigmentation to the person being racist. Racism is the only disease of the mind that I fear. I can embrace schizophrenics, I've learned to deal with the narcissists, and I myself have grappled with a self-diagnosis of being a borderline. But the one mental illness, which I hope all suffers go burn in hell, is racism. There are only few times you will hear me so sure of anything. I always am in doubt and I always find an excuse for all those who do wrong. However, there are certain “isms" that I have no tolerance for and the one “ism" that comes with race, is top of that list. I remember a Jamaican friend of mine in London telling me that Egypt was the most beautiful country she'd ever been to, but that she would never go again because of how racist they were. This was about ten years ago. I was shocked. Egypt? Racist? I thought that this girl must have just been super unlucky and had met one person who had said something about her beautiful color and she'd taken it to heart. But Egypt, my favorite little fruit of Africa, surrounded by all my black brothers and sisters could never, yes never, be racist. Ten years later, however, I am sat in my balcony in Egypt typing this blog about my rage and disappointment not just because Egypt is, in fact, racist, but at the extent of this racism. I went to find a quite spot in City Stars, a café to write up some of my field notes – I am here in Egypt doing my PhD and doing some work with Street Kids in the meantime. Anyway, so I walked in to City Stars, minutes before they opened for the day. I had a quick chat with black cleaner outside about the weather and conversing about what a shame it was the person who had discovered air conditioning had not won some world acknowledged prize. I then walked into Spinney's (supermarket) and chatted to the three black cleaning staff about how empty the stores were early in the morning. I had just met four black people. That in it's own right was strange for Nasr City. Nothing struck me as strange because just as many white(r) cleaning staff was around. I found my way to Cilantro and settled in. A group of ladies arrived and sat next to me. Again, I only noticed the black girl between them when I realized that when the food came, all the white women started to eat and she was standing with the kid by the door so that his moaning doesn't disturb them. I sat by the door that Mary was stood by, and we started to speak. We had a pleasant exchange, found out she was a Sudanese refugee and that she would eat later at home because she didn't want her employers to spend money on rich food like the food that was here. I decided to pack my work up and do some new research. I walked into 35 shops. I found no black sales assistants. No black management. But during my walk from shop to shop, I met 6 more, other than the 3, black cleaners. So there were 9, so black people actually existed. Why, then was there no racial equality in the division of the labor available to them? Was it purely a coincidence that the 9 black people I met today lacked the competencies to make them anything other than cleaners and maids? Let me make something totally clear. I have no qualms or issues with cleaning as a job. Be a cleaner, it's a wonderful job that makes a lot of people's experience of the world a much better place. But why the hell was the Nubian graduate of commerce sweeping the floor this morning? Why is Sudanese man famous for being the rich mans porter in Egypt? Why were the Nigerian women made to dress in white so you could segregate them as nannies and away from the elite in sports clubs? Why don't I walk in to the clothes and accessories stores in City Stars and see black sales assistants? Every time, and without exception, when I show my wedding pictures to my family or friends, someone must feel the urge to make smart ass comments about pictures of my black friends in their superb colorful clothes. I will not even mention one or two of those comments because they really upset me, even though no harm is meant of them. The harm is done just by virtue of the difference in skin color standing out to you so much that you must comment on it. How many of you in Egypt been around a new-born and everyone on the family, the first things they are saying is an examination of how white and beautiful, or black and ugly the baby is. And everyone laughs! What are they laughing at? That poor child, if the slightest bit dark skinned is doomed to a life of nasty comments from the family of why she/he were so unlucky they didn't take after their fairer mum/dad. We are a contradictory society on so many different levels. We claim to be a religious society. I laugh at that particular claim when it comes to the racism that Egypt is so unashamedly advocating. 89 percent of Egyptians are reportedly Muslims. In Islam ... and as for the 11 percent Christians in Egypt are no better. You would thing being discriminated against in their own country they would have some mercy on those who were also different. But come on, be honest Christians, how many times have you heard someone from your family or your congregation say something along the lines of “she married a Sudanese man, but he's white and handsome". It needn't even be a matter of religiosity. It is a humanitarian question. We are equal in Egypt in terms of the injustice the past and current regimes are inflicting on us and it seems we are following the theory that suggests the oppressed become oppressors. And being oppressed by our governments we are turning to the weaker, the poorer and even to the equal but just different to practice that oppression on. It is so deeply rooted though. I switched the TV on once (this is always a very rare occasion for I hate the box set), and stood to watch in horror an advert for a product called “Fair and Lovely" that apparently, if applied twice a day over the period of a month, lightens your skin up to seven shades and also, apparently, as a result you are more beautiful and happier. I felt an acute need to throw up after watching this ad. I remembered reading a study of the poor in Egypt who do all sorts of horrible things to get money to afford skin brightening, lightening creams in hope to become more attractive and have higher chances of finding a husband. The street kids I work with are mostly dark skinned children. There are two babies born to street mothers that are the favorites. They are bought out and shown to the ambassador's wives when they visit, they get to wear the newer of the hand me down clothes that are donated and they are hugged and wooed the most. Does it not strike anyone that there are no fair skinned street kids? What is that saying about poverty and violence abandonment and assault directed at the darker skinned kids? Why are they running away while the fairer skinned kids are resilient to poverty, able to deflect violence because they're too cute to be beaten. These are the stories coming out of the shelters. It's the elephant in the room. It's the story that's easier to dismiss. It's the feelings that are uncomfortable to deal with. One day, an old lady hit me with her handbag on the bus in London when I sat next to her. She called me a bloody foreigner. I've lived in London 32 years – that's all my life and that was the 3rd racist comment that was directed at me. Are there racists in London, of course there are, it's a mental illness remember. But I want to bring my kids up in London because I want them to see a Black, White, Asian, Caucasian, Chinese cleaner, sales assistant, doctor, plumber, teacher. I want them to play in the part and take a picture like the one my best friend Dina sent me of her kids on a merry go round with almost every race represented in the faces of the children. Do the majority of black people have chips on their shoulders? Of course they do. Just like the Christians and the poor, the rest of us have placed that chip nice and firmly there so that at the slightest look or gesture they take offense. I'll know this revolution has hope when I see companies take pride in recruiting minorities. Till then, here's to all the amazing black people I know, thank you for making my life richer, for teaching me to socca dance, for feeding me jerk chicken, for playing the saxophone like no one else, for teaching me how to deal with my afro hair and just for being a standard part of my life. ** Nelly Ali is an anthropologist who teaches at the Institute of Education, University of London and Anglia Ruskin University in the UK. She is currently in Cairo for her PhD research and is an active observer and commentator on Egypt and the Arab World. Correspondence: [email protected]
