Translation, Poetry and Diplomacy

Cairo, Egypt

Could there be a more perfect confluence of topics for a public lecture? Three of the things I love the most (if we changed "poetry" to "literature") in one talk!

Tonight, the Slovak ambassador spoke in the last lecture of the semester in the translation lecture series. Not a career diplomat but a career translator turned diplomat, the ambassador had an interesting take on diplomacy. In Communist Czechoslovakia, he said, he started reading South American literature because he could escape "from socialist realism to magical realism," and he began a career as a translator.

Later, when the Slovak Republic was founded, he volunteered for diplomatic service, but he's continued his translation career, and has promoted translation wherever he's been posted. As he put it, "for small countries, cultural diplomacy is a must," and translation is a big part of that. He quoted the old aphorism that "a diplomat is an honest man sent abroad to tell lies for his country," but he suggested a different definition of diplomacy: to understand is to set up a relationship. This means not only does he support the translation of Slovak literature into Arabic, but also the translation of Arabic literature into Slovakian.

What It Says About Us
But in the Q&A came some of the best stuff in his presentation. He was talking about yet another woman who came to the embassy to say that her son had been kidnapped by his Egyptian father and taken back to Cairo, and could the embassy help her find him? And for years, they've looked, but come up empty. It's not a singular story; it happens all the time. European women come to Egypt, are charmed by some young man, get married, take him back to Europe, and it doesn't work out. When they separate or divorce, then sometimes the Egyptian parent takes his child back to his family in Egypt, cutting all ties with the mother. It's tempting to blame this on the Egyptians who are scamming European women. The ambassador had a different take. It's really the European men who should be blamed, he suggested. If they hadn't gotten so wrapped up in making money and their own affairs, if they hadn't forgotten how to romance a woman, who are they to complain when she runs off with someone with the Arab's gift of words?

Egypt, Poised to Vote (Or Not...)

by Holly Pickett for NPR

I sometimes am frustrated with NPR's Middle East coverage outside of Palestine and Iraq, because they often seem to miss one side of whatever's going on. That's not the case with Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's reporting on Egypt this week. It's clear that she actually lives here in Cairo, and is aware of the many competing sides of the issues here, not just the party line. She also talks about a lot of topics that are current among intellectuals and youth in Egypt these days, issues that we've spoken a lot about in CASA.

In Part I, Soraya provides a great overview of the situation in Egypt as we’ve been learning about it. I recognize in her audio slideshow a lot of places I’m familiar with and identify with the class divide she describes, including American University where I study, and Sequoia Restaurant, a posh Nile-side place with a $20 minimum charge, when many Egyptians are living on less - often much less! - than $100 a month. She also interviews Galal Amin, whose newspaper column is pretty popular among CASA professors, and who came and spoke to our program a couple months ago. I don’t always agree with his politics, but the man’s economics are sound. Soraya may say that Pres. Mubarak is making progress at liberalizing the economy, but for most Egyptians, things are getting worse.

In Part II, she talks about informal markets like Ataba Square. It’s a part of town well-known among my friends as the best place for cheap stuff. It’s a pretty desperate place, with plywood planks balanced on cardboard boxes and spread with cheap shoes, clothes and scarves, and masses of people shopping at black market prices because it’s the only way they can get by. The economy is a mess here, the formal and informal economy.

Meanwhile, you can go out to Heliopolis and the City Stars Mall, 8 floors of the best you can get in an American or European mall: H&M, Zara, Mango, Ecco, Fila, at least 5 Starbucks and another 5 Costa Coffees, TGIFridays, Chili’s, 3D movie theaters, an Apple store. I went into Levi’s yesterday to try on a pair of really hot jeans … for $110! And next door they were selling scratchy acrylic sweaters for twice that much! And the “minimum wage” she mentions? I did a report on that this week. Everyone agrees, even if you’re making twice that much, you’re struggling!

In Part III, she talks about the 3ashwa'iat, the shantytowns that ring almost every gated community and other rich neighborhood of Cairo. My professor this week said that on ‘Eid al-Adha, he and his brothers usually split the cost of sacrificing a cow, and then they donate the meat to the poor who come to their upscale neighborhood. But often those “poor” who come to the nice neighborhoods collect meat from all the clueless rich folks, then go back to the shantytowns and sell it. This year my professor’s family decided to go where the need is. He couldn’t believe, he said, that such desperate poverty existed in his own country. Unfortunately, that’s an all-too-common response.

The next day, the Center for Refugee and Migration Studies hosted speakers from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, which was asked by the UN to do independent research into the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs). These are people fleeing violence, natural disaster or other similar situations, but who do not cross international borders and therefore can’t be classified as refugees under the 1952 Convention on Refugees. IDPs are about half of all displaced persons in the world, but while the numbers of refugees are falling, numbers of IDPs are rising around the world, and very little is being done by the UN or anyone else to help them. In the Q&A, someone asked if Egyptians evicted from their homes by the government as it “cleans up” desperately poor neighborhoods in Cairo are also IDPs. Though they don’t fall under the IDMC’s mandate, there is definitely some discussion about the rights of IDPs displaced by economic “development.” But as Soraya mentions, they are not recognized as such by the Egyptian powers that be.

In Part IV, she talks about Christians, women and Bedouin. Personal status laws in most Arab countries certainly favor Muslims and men, but this is actually improving a little bit in Egypt, as it is in Jordan and elsewhere, too. The Bedouin, on the other hand, are finding themselves with few champions. In fact, many have been known to say (though not on record!) that they were better off when Israel controlled the Sinai. Certainly Egypt as a whole considers itself a settle civilization, and there is some tension between those Cairene values and the nomadic values of the Sinai and Upper Egypt.

In the fifth and final report, Soraya finally gets to this week’s parliamentary “elections,” and next year’s presidential “election.” I say “election” because the outcome is no mystery at all. In fact, only approved party members are issued voting cards, and there’s good reason why Egypt consistently rejects election observers. I don’t know a single Egyptian who is intending to vote. Galal Amin, who is quoted again in this report, is known for ending all his essays and columns with the same phrase: “Democracy is the answer.” But would anyone even trust democracy if it truly came to Egypt? I don’t see that happening any time soon!

All in all, this was a very well done series, and with beautiful photos from Holly Pickett!

I'm Thankful for Wonderful Friends

Who Are Also First-Rate Cooks!

Cairo, Egypt

I've just come back from the most Thanksgiving-est Thanksgiving I can remember having abroad. (Though it probably only beats out Thanksgiving with Karla in Switzerland because there were so many people!) There were more than 20 CASA Fellows and friends gathered at Sarah, Erin and Rachel's beautiful, spacious apartment, where we usually have weekly potluck. That's more than half of everyone I'm friends with in Cairo. It's not family, but it's damned close! (Actually, where the potluck crew is concerned, I see them so much that they might as well be family!) The food was also amazing, but it was especially thanks to the excellent company.

I was sorry to have to leave for the computer class I've recently volunteered to teach at a local NGO helping at-risk Sudanese refugee youth. I enjoy the teaching, but I was sorry to be missing out on most of the party.

In the end, though, I only missed out on half the party! Because after I'd taught for two hours, Thanksgiving was still going strong, and I went back over to the Dokki apartment for a few more hours! We played a rousing game of Mafia, while continuing to munch away at the goodies laid out for potluck. Before we knew it, it was approaching 11:00 and time to start helping the girls clean up. By the time I got home, it was past midnight, my roommates were asleep, and I couldn't Skype home without waking them! Guess I'll have to do that the day after!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

A Drowned Nation

Aswan, Upper Egypt/Lower Nubia

From Aswan

As we drove up to the High Dam in Aswan, Dr. Shahinda explained to us the advantages and disadvantages of the High Dam, Lake Nasser, and the transformation of the whole Nile Valley.  She started with the advantages:

• Egyptian agriculture is no longer ruled by the flood, which means that the agricultural sector has gone from one crop a year to three. Pres. Gamal Abd-l-Nasser saw Egypt's population explosion coming, and knew they would have to be fed, and this was his best option.
• The High Dam generates enough electricity that every villager in Egypt can have electric lighting and hot showers at a not-too-exorbitant subsidized cost.
• There's now enough water in Lake Nasser to support the agricultural sector of Egypt through several years of drought upstream in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, and this has been necessary from time to time.

From Aswan

But it's not all rosy. There are problems aplenty, and Dr. Shahinda listed those, too:

• There was a German design that would have provided channels for the collection of the silt that washes down the Nile and traditionally fertilized the lands of Egypt all the way down to the Delta, at no cost to the farmers. Unfortunately, the Egyptian government couldn't afford to build it. They went with a Russian plan that ignored the silt altogether. Consequently, farmers downstream are now dependent on expensive manufactured, chemical fertilizer. 
• Meanwhile, that silt is building up behind the Aswan High Dam, and over time it has created an unanticipated weight on the dam that now threatens its integrity.
• Silt from the Nile also provided the stuff to make mud bricks from, and they were much cooler in the unbearable heat of summer than the current cinderblock construction in Upper Egypt.
• The floods not only brought fertilizing silt, but they washed away the impurities of the year before. Now, those impurities build up in the soil, including increasing levels of salt left behind by that chemical fertilizer.

From Aswan

But these are the economic costs. There were also great human and cultural costs. The land of Nubia, both Lower Nubia in Egypt and Upper Nubia in Sudan, is a civilization nearly as old as Egyptian civilization, which was concentrated along the banks of the Nile River that nurtured and supported it. Their entire civilization is now under water. The entire population was displaced: Lower Nubians were resettled in Upper Egypt, and Upper Nubians were displaced all over Sudan. UNESCO provided funds to move some of the most prominent ancient ruins to higher ground, but no one thought of the Coptic churches until it was too late, and they are all now gone, except for a few wall paintings grabbed for museum display.

From Aswan

The Temple at Philae
One of the ancient sites rescued by UNESCO was this Ptolemaic temple, dedicated to Osiris. In ancient mythology, Osiris was killed by his evil brother Set and chopped into 14 pieces that were scattered all over Egypt and are the font of her fertility. Philae was one of those resting places. Later, Isis collected all her brother Osiris's parts, mummified them, and resurrected him. He became the god of the afterlife and patron of the pharaohs who ruled in the afterlife after their death.

From Aswan

The temple was later rededicated as a Coptic basilica, housing the bishop of Upper Egypt. Again, this temple has three inner sanctums, like the tripartite altars of modern Coptic churches.

From Aswan

The Unfinished Obelisk
The woman pharaoh Hatshepsut intended to carve the largest obelisk ever attempted, float it down the Nile to Luxor, and install it in the Karnak Temple. Unfortunately, the obelisk cracked during the quarrying process and was abandoned. Unfortunately for Hatshepsut, but fortunately for us, because we have been left with an example of ancient Egyptian stonecarving. Remember that these carvings are from the Stone Age. They were accomplished without the benefit of stone tools! Some of the round black rocks used in the quarrying process are still lying around. So are the marks of the wooden wedges that were shoved in around a desire piece of stone, and then wetted so they would expand and crack the stone.

From Aswan

We also took a falucca ride on the Nile to see at a distance the mausoleum of an Agha Khan, the tombs of Egyptian nobles, the ruins of other temples under excavation, and lots of boats and wildlife. It wasn't a sailboat, but it was still a great finale to a wonderful trip!

Ptolemaic Temples

Edfu & Kom Ombo, Upper Egypt

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

The Temple of Horus at Edfu
This is a Ptolemaic temple, i.e. primarily constructed by the Greeks who established themselves as pharaohs in Egypt after Alexander the Great was confirmed by the Oracle at Siwa as the son of the god Amon. It's interesting to notice that throughout the centuries, invaders of Egypt have not usurped local traditions and religion, they've merely adopted them and installed themselves as descendants of the same pharaohs. In fact, the Mamasium (Birthing Room) in the Edfu temple tells not the story of a specific Ptolemaic pharaoh being conceived by the gods, but of all of them collectively.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

It's also the most intact pharaonic temple I've seen yet, with most of its ceiling intact, and much of the inner sanctum. In fact, oddly enough, the reliefs in the bottom half of the temple are almost perfectly preserved, while the upper half of the walls is quite weathered. This is because the temple was filled half way with sand until this century, protected from the elements. But like the temples in Petra, it was lived in during the intervening centuries, and the ceilings are blackened with smoke from their homefires. Later Muslim residents also scratched out the faces and features of the gods they could reach from ground level, so they would not be a distraction to their children from their true religion.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

This temple, like the old pharaonic temples, is dedicated to a triad of gods. In the innermost sanctum is not one chapel, but three chapels side-by-side, a design very much similar to the current design of Coptic churches. One probably developed from the other. Certainly, as we've seen on this trip, many pharaonic temples were developed into churches in various ways. Just as the Roman Catholic Church adopted the East-West orientation of Roman temples into Catholic architecture, so the Copts seem to have adopted triple altars.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

The Double Temple at Kom Ombo
We arrived in Kom Ombo just at sunset tonight, and found the temple lit in a soft yellow glow, not to mention teeming with tourists! This Ptolomaic temple is unusual in that it is a perfectly symmetrical double temple, dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek and the falcon-headed god Horus. In fact, small crocodiles were probably kept in a well to one side of the temple, and mummified crocs were found in vaults under the temple during its reconstruction.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

There a couple of other unique features to this temple. It has the only known intact Calendar Room, indicating which rituals should be performed, and what sacrifices made on each day of the entire 365 day year. There's also a unique relief of medical implements used during the Ptolemaic era. You can also find evidence of cross-beams and animal hitches hacked out of the rock by the farmers who lived in the temple in later years.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

The Necropolis of Thebes

Luxor, Upper Egypt

From Valley of the Kings

Egyptians believed that the world emerged from water, and if the balance of good and evil was not maintained, it would drown in water again. A warning for these times of rising oceans, they might say. They believed that when the sun set, it crossed that vast primordial ocean and rose in the Land of the Dead to light their day. Then it set there, crossed the vast ocean again, and rose here in the land of the living. Thus ancient Egyptians tended to live on the East Bank of the Nile, closer to the rising sun, and buried their dead on the West Bank, closer to the setting sun and the journey into eternity. Today we crossed over the river to the West Bank to see some of the funerary complexes of the Necropolis, or City of the Dead.

From Valley of the Kings

Colossi of Memnon
They're not Memnon. They represent the Pharaoh Amonhotep III who built a now destroyed temple that once stood at their backs, but the Greeks later named them after Memnon, an Ethiopian king who was a hero at Troy.

From Valley of the Kings

The Temple of Hatshetsup
Egypt's most successful female pharaoh, she ruled for 22 years, won many military campaigns, and built many monuments. This one has a Temple of Hathor, goddess of beauty, on the left. On the right wing is the Temple of Anubis. The center right gallery is the "Birthing Room," telling the story of how Hatshetsup's mother made a deal with the Sun God Amon to bear a pharaoh, thus rendering Hatshetsup divine. (It helps one's legitimacy as pharaoh!) The center left gallery tells of Hatshetsup's campaign to conquer the land of Punt, which was probably in Somalia judging by its depictions in the temple.

From Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings
Sadly, they have now banned cameras in this valley altogether, not just in the tombs, so I can only leave you with the Internet for visual interest!

And then we loosed our moorings and set off upstream! I put together this little video to show you a few of my pictures, and a little stop-motion capture of the locks we passed through at Esna, because I thought my father would especially appreciate that (both the locks and the stop-motion cinematography!)

Ancient Thebes Revealed!

Luxor (aka ancient Thebes), Upper Egypt

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Almost a Disaster
So, I thought we were leaving at 2:15PM this afternoon for Luxor. But at 1:45AM, as I was going to bed, I thought I'd take one more look at the schedule, just to be sure. Good thing, too, cuz we were leaving at 2:15AM, and I had exactly 15 minutes to pack, and 15 minutes to get to the bus! But I made it, which is good, considering how much money I spent on this trip!

So, of course, I was then up virtually all night flying to Luxor (much preferable to taking the night train, I might add!)

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Karnak Temple
After dropping off our bags and having breakfast on the riverboat, we headed for the magnificent Karnak Temple, begun by Pharaoh Ramses II but expanded by about 30 other pharaohs over 1000 years of Egyptian history. As usual, Dr. Shahinda gave us a wealth of information I couldn't possibly convey, but which I've highlighted in the captions of my pictures. I have to say, above all you have to consider the scale of the place. Everything is enormous, and every inch of the walls, columns and ceilings would have been decorated with raised and sunken reliefs, painted in bright colors. It's even more impressive when you remember that this was the Stone Age, and for the most part these artisans didn't have metal tools, only stone implements. You also have to imagine a roof over most of the complex, which admittedly would have made it much more difficult to appreciate the painted reliefs, but was nonetheless and impressive feat of engineering. To this day, scientists and archaeologists are not quite sure how much of it was accomplished.

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

All pharaonic temple complexes were dedicated to a trio of deities: a god, a goddess and their child. The so-called Theban Triad was composed of the sun god Amon, the mother goddess Mut, and their son Khonsu the moon god. Just inside the main pylon entrance to Karnak are three small chapels dedicated to the Triad, but they appear again and again throughout the complex, as do the many pharaohs who contributed to its construction.

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

One of the highlights are the obelisks of Hatshepsut, one of which was hidden by her step-brother in a fit of pique. See, upon the death of Hatshepsut's father, Tutmoses II, she was named pharaoh instead of her baby step-brother Tutmoses III, and then she proceeded to rule for 22 very successful years, longer than any other female pharaoh, winning lots of battles and building lots of impressive monuments, all of which pissed off her little brother. When she finally kicked the bucket and let him be pharaoh, he went around much of Upper Egypt scratching out every picture of her, every mention of her name, etc. Only there was a catch; obelisks were considered representations of the gods, and as such could not be defaced in any way. As a compromise, Tutmoses III had Hatshepsut's obelisk encased in a wall, so that her name, while still present, would be completely obscured from view. Consequently, it is the best preserved obelisk remaining to us!

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Luxor Temple
Because one temple is not enough, twice a year the Theban Triad went on vacation to the other side of town and the Luxor Temple. It's thought that a street lined with sphinxes stretched the entire distance between them, and a colorful parade and lines of supplicants bearing sacrifices would have accompanied the statues, which is depicted on one wall of the first courtyard.

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

One of the more interesting features of Luxor Temple is the Abu Haggag Mosque, one of very few examples of a mosque being consecrated on ground sacred to another religion, especially a non-Abrahamic one! Even Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was a church before it was a mosque, and not a pagan temple! As Chris Tuttle explained to us in Little Petra, throughout human history, religions have re-sanctified the places that were already holy to local peoples. Until Islam, that is. With a few notable exceptions (the Ka'aba in Mecca, the Temple Mount, Hagia Sophia), as Islam spread across the world, mosque-builders tended to avoid existing temples and churches, and instead sanctified new ground to satisfy the demands of the Muslim version of God. In this case, they didn't actually know there was a temple there when they built their mosque, but by the time the temple was discovered under their foundations, the mosque had become an important local monument, dedicated as it was to a local saint. So the archaeologists installed a new door on the opposite side, and a second minaret for good measure, and just excavated around it!

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Ah, Vacation!

Cairo, Egypt

I've been to three excellent dinner parties in five days, and that's the only thing I've even left the house for. Otherwise it's been old movies and NPR and good books for days on end! What a relief!

I'm headed out tomorrow for a Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan. Stay tuned for lots of pictures!!

I Will Not Be Homesick!

Cairo, Egypt

It's all my classmates seem to talk about recently. How much they want to go home for Eid. How excited they are about going home for Christmas. Who they'll visit where while they're in America in January. There's a serious rash of homesickness going around, and I'm determined not to catch it!

It's not that I'm immune. Two years ago in Jordan, when I was unemployed, running out of money, defaulting on my student loans, unable to pay my credit card bills, but being warned by my mother not to come home to an even worse job market in America ... I was certainly homesick then! It was the first real case of homesickness I've had to face, though ... and I don't want to do that again!

I have a tried-and-true strategy. I ask myself, "Would you give up the amazing things you're doing abroad right now, just to be back in America?" I can usually convince myself that I would not.

Particularly now! This CASA Fellowship is a privilege and an honor, and I worked too damned hard to get here for me to give it up now! Not only that, but I'm closer to being home than I have been in almost 3 years. I have a guaranteed plane ticket to America in June, paid for by the good ole American taxpayer, and a dozen ideas for summer jobs when I get back there. This is the home stretch, people! Seven more months? Ha! That's nothing!

And hopefully other people's homesickness will lessen a little after next week's 10-day break for Eid ... followed by a 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving, which we will be celebrating with a great big CASA potluck!

St. Simon's Monastery

The Trashpickers' Garden of Eden

Moqattam, Cairo, Egypt

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

There were plenty of things about this place that I didn't expect. As we rode through so-called "Garbage City" in our minibuses, neither the smell nor the trash was nearly as bad as I'd been led to expect. Yes, there was plenty of garbage in this Cairo neighborhood to which the government removed all the Zeballeen (trashpickers) in 1968. The Zeballeen bring garbage from all around the city, sort it to divide out the recyclables, and then bag those recyclables to be sold around the world. I've written about the Zeballeen before, and you can learn a great deal more about them from the multiple-award-winning documentary "Garbage Dreams".

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

That's not why we went out to the Mokattam Hills, though. We went to see St. Simon's Monastery, a figure very important to Coptic Christianity in Cairo. In the 10th Century, the first Fatamid Caliph in Cairo, al-Muizz, was known to host interfaith conferences with the Coptic Pope and Jewish leaders in order to learn more about the Abrahamic faiths. In one such conference, the Jewish leader challenged the Pope to prove his faith, citing a verse from the Gospel of St. Matthew:
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

The caliph challenged Pope Abram to prove that he had "faith as a grain of mustard seed." The Pope dreamed of the Virgin Mary, who told him to find a one-eyed water bearer in the market who would perform the miracle. That was St. Simon (aka Simeon), a cobbler who once accidentally saw a female customer's calf, and removed his own eye, obeying a Biblical commandment that if the eye sins, it should be removed. On the appointed day, Pope Abram, Caliph Mu'izz and St. Simon went to the Mokattam Hills, and the cobbler lifted the mountains off their roots as promised.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

In addition to the 2,000-seat Church of St. Simon, there is a smaller church of St. Mark the Evangel. Mark is credited with starting the Christian church in Egypt, and is considered by Copts to be the first of their 111 Popes. St. Mark located his church in Alexandria, and was eventually martyred there by the Romans, and a church established in his honor. In the 12th Century, the Venetians smuggled his relics out of Alexandria under a shipment of pork, to be installed in the famous St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. Some of the relics were later returned to the church in Alexandria.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

There is also a third church, the cave Church of St. Paul the Hermit - the first hermit! - of whom I've written before.

We also visited a lovely little NGO in Garbage City.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

All Talk....

Cairo, Egypt

The title of the talk was "Why Are Egyptians Afraid of Scientific Thought?" and it was attended by a select, invitation-only group of Cairene intellectuals ... and 4 CASA students. Our professor got us in. And afterwards he about summed it up when he said that they're still saying the same things they were saying when he was 20 and started attending these sort of salons, only they reference different current events. Still voicing the same critiques of Egyptian society, still making the same complaints about the government and the disconnect between East and West, and still not doing anything about it.

That was why I couldn't wait to get out of academia three years ago. All talk, no action. There is a need for all that talk; I don't want all my doctoral candidate friends following my blog to get me wrong! We need academics to help us determine where and how to act most effectively. But like my professor, I find that it doesn't suit my personality anymore. I need more action. (Also, have I mentioned? I really miss my paycheck!) I'm enjoying CASA while I'm in it, or at least am too totally swamped by mountains of homework to have time for contemplation of my inner self, but by the time the year is done, I'll be more than ready to get out in the field and do something again!

Edward Said: A Contrapuntal Reading

Cairo, Egypt

I could go on at great length on what Judith Butler (whose name is spoken by feminists and Middle East experts with great awe) had to say at the Edward Said Memorial Lecture this evening about nationalism, diaspora, the Right of Return vs. the Law of Return, and the inevitability of binationalism in Palestine. I could talk about the politics of "dispossession, destruction, expulsion and containment" she elucidated. But I think many of you have heard it before.

Instead, I just want to recommend the poem that she analyzed, "Edward Said: A Contrapuntal Reading," in which Palestine's most beloved poet Mahmoud Darwish celebrates the life and complexity and dreams of Palestine's most beloved academic, Edward Said, in whose voice are the lines

"I am from there, I am from here, 

but I am neither here nor there.

I have two names which meet and part...

I have two languages, but I have long forgotten

which is the language of my dreams.

I have an English language, for writing,

with yielding phrases,

and a language in which Heaven and

Jerusalem converse, with a silver cadence,

but it does not yield to my imagination."

...

"Here a margin advances. Or a centre

retreats. Where East is not strictly east,

and West is not strictly west,

where identity is open onto plurality..."

...

"...Do not describe what the camera can see

of your wounds. And scream that you may hear yourself,

and scream that you may know you're still alive,

and alive, and that life on this earth is

possible. Invent a hope for speech,

invent a direction, a mirage to extend hope.

And sing, for the aesthetic is freedom!"

...

"I leave you the impossible task...."

Because I'm Also Just That Cool

Cairo, Egypt

My brother's not the only one who made an appearance on national television recently! One of our teachers stopped me in the hallway today to say that she'd seen me on Egypt's Channel One. Funny story, that, actually....

We CASA students were all sitting in the "press room," translating a couple press releases but mostly on hand to translate for journalists as needed. Only one journalist actually requested the assistance of two of us, so Kirsten and I volunteered. The TV journalist took us out into the lobby and took our names. Kirsten asked who we would be translating for, and he said, "Maryah first, then Kirsten." Thinking he hadn't heard us clearly, she asked again, and he said, "Maryah first, then Kirsten." We looked at each other. "Who are we translating for?" we asked, and he said, "Maryah first, then Kirsten." We were starting to get the picture, so I asked him in Arabic who he wanted us to translate for, and he said, "Oh, you speak Arabic? Can we do this in Arabic?" And then we were pretty sure we knew what was going on, and I asked him in Arabic if we were translating, or what? He looked confused and said, "Translating? No. I want to interview you. Can I interview you in Arabic?" And so he did ... me first, then Kirsten!

Sadly, her interview did not air on Channel 1. I'm still trying to get a copy of mine.

We also made it onto CNN, apparently, but typically enough, even this hopeful event got linked to terrorism. I'm told the story said something to the effect that, despite recent threats on Egyptian Coptic Christians by Al Qaeda, the big interfaith Cairo Meeting took place anyway. I looked for it on cnn.com, but came up empty.

Gaza Graffiti Exhibition

Cairo, Egypt

Tonight photographer Mia Grondahl opened an exhibition at American University, in honor of the English translation published with AUC Press of her book Gaza Graffiti: Messages of Love and Politics. Before the gallery opening, she sat on a panel of experts on the state of the Gaza Strip since the Hannukah War of 2008/2009, the blockade, and the Freedom Flotilla.

Also on the panel were two Swedish journalists covering the region, and a Palestinian activist. They talked a lot about the dehumanization of the Palestinians by the media, which portrays them primarily as victims, which they are, but not often enough as human beings with personal joys and triumphs as well as personal dreams and tragedies. They talked at length about the need to build sympathy for the Palestinian cause by showing the people there as sympathetic, not as pitiful.

But Mia also talked about the graffiti movement in Palestine, which started in the 1980s during the first Intifada, when Israel had forbidden the Gazans from producing pamphlets or radio programs, and even from having telephones in many cases. Ever resourceful, Palestinians turned to graffiti as both a political tool and simply as a way to spread news. Graffiti artists themselves became polarized, some in the employ of Hamas, others in the employ of Fatah. Over time, Hamas developed a reputation for having the best calligraphers, because Arabic is a holy language, given to Muslims by God, and must be respected as such. Most recently, after Hamas's election victory in 2006, Fatah graffiti has all but disappeared.  All of this is chronicled in Mia's book.

She also talked about how graffiti has begun to change again in the last couple of years, a change not reflected in her book but present in the photo exhibition at AUC.  There's a new movement now of art students and independent artists taking to the walls of Gaza. This time the message isn't overtly political, or at least not in the way it's been in the past. This new wave of artists is producing murals of their hopes and dreams. Images of how they imagine the world outside the massive prison that is Gaza. Images of breaking out of the Strip. You can see pictures of some of those murals on Mia's blog. Even if you don't read Swedish, she's such an evocative photographer that you get the idea.

Volunteerism in Egypt

Cairo, Egypt

Wael (in the white suit), the other organizers (front row) and some of the many volunteers

Wael told us today that the Egyptian volunteers of the Cairo Meeting have been calling him all weekend to say that they don't want the spirit of the meeting to end. They got such a charge out of volunteering, they said, that they couldn't wait to do it again! They'd never done something like it before, never had such an experience, and they didn't want to wait for next year's Cairo Meeting to get together again.

Wael had been disappointed at what he saw as a lack of organization in the event, a lack of coordination and communication, and a general lack of professionalism. We saw quite the opposite, and Alex really captured it when she started talking about the leadership she saw displayed over the weekend.

In Europe and the United States, we take values of civic responsibility, volunteerism and leadership for granted. They're taught to us from the first grade, and throughout our school years we're pushed by our parents and teachers into all sorts of opportunities for leadership and civic engagement. By the time we get to university, they're skills we take for granted.

In Egypt, on the other hand, most students reach university without ever engaging in volunteer opportunities, let alone leadership opportunities. In Alex's estimation and mine, the Egyptian volunteers stepped up to the challenge very quickly and efficiently, considering how inexperienced they are! Even better, they loved the experience, and they want to do it again!

I was reminded of Questscope and Ruwwad in Jordan, and the success they've had at encouraging civic engagement among refugee populations in Jordan, of 7iber, which has been hugely successful at mobilizing Jordan's blogosphere to civic involvement on a wide range of issues. It makes me even more disappointed not to have gotten the position I interviewed for at Ashoka Arab World, which is encouraging volunteerism in Egypt and other Arab countries.