CAIRO-Mohamed Abdelatif gently placed aromatic dishes on an extended table on a busy street in the Pyramids area. He brought tens of wooden chairs and kept cleaning these chairs, giving the impression that the most important people in town would use them. He acted in the faith that his visitors who would show up minutes before the dusk call to prayer were so important that they merited all this attention and preparation. And why not since Ramadan is a month of charity, good deeds, and mercy banquets? “Charity tables are the only thing that brings joy to the poor in this month,” Abdelatif, who sponsors this banquet, said. “More and more people become poor every year and the banquets offer them the chance to enjoy free food, food that they can never afford to buy in normal circumstances,” he told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. Unfortunately, thousands of Egyptians like Abdelatif are in for tough times this year. A recent set of regulations by the Government make it necessary for charity banquet organisers to go through lengthy administrative procedures to get permissions and licences to organise charity banquets on the streets. The regulations have already made charity banquet sponsors angry and made the poor fear for their favourite banquets where they used to have a touch of charity that has already made itself scarce because of the hard economic conditions in the most populous Arab country. “Everybody in this area joins hands to make this banquet available for the poor,” said Tareq el-Menshawy, another banquet sponsor. “People wait for this month every year to purify their souls by helping the poor and giving food to the needy,” he added. Charity banquets are as old as Egypt itself. The country that has taken its own moderate Islamic route is where thousands of wealthy men and women cling to the banquets as a means of pleasing God. The new regulations aim to prevent the presence of charity banquets on main streets and squares. The Government says these regulations seek to ease traffic flow through the streets of Cairo which become totally congested, particularly a few hours before the iftar (a fast-breaking meal) when the faithful hurry up to get home and join afamily gathering over breakfast tables. In Giza, Governor Fathi Saad has asked banquet sponsors to take permission before they organise banquets even on the sidewalks. In the new 6 October Governorate, the authorities demand the same, making it all the more difficult for both the sponsors of these banquets and the people who go to take their breakfast at them. “Life gets harder day after day,” Abdelatif said. “To put restrictions on organising the banquets is totally unfair,” he added. What makes anger at the new regulations almost general is that charity banquets are hosted everywhere in Egypt, even in the poor south where some families are famous for the banquets they have been organising for years now. Some Egyptians even identify themselves with their banquets. In some areas in the Egyptian capital, some of the sponsors consider their banquets to be their honour and their pride. That was why minutes before the call to prayer was made, Abdelatif was afraid that the authorities would raid the place to eliminate the tables and bring his banquet to an end. He looked apprehensive whenever a police car passed by. “Where will all these poor people go if these banquets are non-existent?” Abdelatif asked. “These poor people wait for Ramadan on tenterhooks to get free food,” he added.
