Farewell, Cairo

So after a less than perfect first week here, the last week and a half, leading up to my return home, have not been much better.  Added to all the earlier complaints about the hotel and the traffic – indeed, the city itself – has been added a political dimension that has flared up since I got here.  This has been a result of the first round of voting in the Presidential Election, and the Mubarak trial verdicts.  The two combined have made the stay even more boring than it already was, because of safety concerns,

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To take them both separately.

The Election is the first democratic election since the fall of the old regime last year, during the Arab Spring uprising season.  It attracted a wide field of candidates from across the Egyptian political spectrum, and voting itself passed off quite peacefully, despite widely voiced fears of violence and intimidation that in the event were unfounded.  Instead, there was a mood of hope and excitement that change really was about to come to the country and improve things.  The fact that the new President’s actual powers are still unclear because the new Constitution is still being written was rather glossed over by optimistic speeches by all the candidates.

The result of the first poll has changed the mood of the country.  Possibly because there was just too many candidates, voting was somewhat fragmented and as expected there was no outright winner and a run off between the leading two candidates is scheduled for the next couple of weeks.  The problem is in the identity of the two candidates.

The first is the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Despite saying all the right things about continuing the revolution by accepting the will of the people, and bringing in legislation to provide more democratic freedom, the widely held fear is that once in power all this will be forgotten and the party will introduce legislation to move Egypt into a more rigid Islamic society like others in the Middle East – notably Iran, with whom the Brotherhood has close ties.  Clearly, this would be good for neither the country nor the region as a whole.

The other candidate is a more politically experienced operator who was the country’s last Prime Minister under the Mubarak Presidency.  That in itself is the major concern: that by voting him in, the “old regime” will make a comeback, and Egypt will suffer more waves of repression and set the whole democratic process back 30 years.

As one of the guys at the bank said, the result is a complete disaster for Egypt.

Meanwhile, a few days after this result was announced, the verdicts in the trial of Mubarak, his two sons, the old Defence chief and a number of security officers were read out by the presiding judge live on television.  The charges were of corruption and bringing about the deaths of several hundred protesters during the uprising last year.  The death sentence had been called for.  Instead, Mubarak was cleared of deliberately causing their deaths but found guilty of “failing to stop” them and imprisoned for life (given that he’s 84 and in ill health that is not likely to be long).  His Defence chief was found guilty in similar terms and was also given a life sentence.  To everyone’s surprise, the security officers were acquitted, as were Mubarak’s sons who now face a separate trial for stock market manipulation. 

The prosecution team was outraged and demanded a retrial as, in its opinion, the verdicts were not severe enough.  The defence team was equally outraged and demanded a re-trial on the basis that its clients were innocent and should be released.   

The public was even more outraged, again in both ways – the majority of people were still calling for the death sentence, and Mubarak supporters demanding his immediate release.  The one thing everyone seemed to agree on was that the trial judges had cocked it up big time.

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The two events have sparked a wave of protest across the country and in Cairo in particular.  Within a few days the pro-Mubarak presidential candidate had seen his campaign office torched – twice.  Increasing crowds have returned to Tahrir Square, primarily to protest the trial verdicts – the issues raised by the election run-off are temporarily at least on hold.  Mass demonstrations are again being held everywhere, and there is once again a palpable tension in the air.  At work, groups of people are standing in corridors and offices, discussing what is happening, and the name of Mubarak is most frequently mentioned, the only word I recognize in the Arabic tirade.  Some of them are leaving early to join the protests.   Yesterday’s mass protest in Tahrir will be repeated today – and probably every day until this mess is sorted out.  Demonstrators are openly calling for the revolution to start all over again before it’s too late to stop the country back sliding into its old ways and its old regime.  The Muslim Brotherhood is now confident it will win the run off on a wave of anti-Mubarak sentiment, and no-one is quite sure whether that will be a good thing or not.

The UK Foreign Office has provided a sterling service.  I’ve mentioned in other posts that before travelling anywhere new I check their Travel Advice website – for Egypt it gave probably the strongest advice I’ve yet seen.  Basically, it states parts of the country (mainly around Suez and the borders with Gaza and Israel) should be off limits, and everywhere else is dangerous and the utmost caution should be exercised.  As ever, I registered my trip with them, and this time I have received several e-mails from the Consular Office here keeping me appraised of the situation, what parts of Cairo and Egypt are worst affected by the new waves of protest, and where I shouldn’t go.

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As a result I’ve been holed up in my hotel most of the time.

Ordinarily this would not be a problem, but it’s not a particularly good hotel, as I wrote previously.  So far, I’ve had to have my key card re-set 5 times in not much more than two weeks.  The shoe cleaning pad – much needed with all the crud in the streets here – was used up by the end of the first week and not replaced, so I resorted to using one of the bathroom hand towels.  It too was not replaced for three days, just draped over the side of the bath.  The room hasn’t been hoovered the entire time I’ve been using it, even if the bed linen is changed every day.   I’ve used the pool a few times and that is, for me at least, the best part of the entire establishment.  It’s clean, a good size and well served with loungers and umbrellas.  But it’s been uncomfortably hot the last few days, and over the weekend, making sitting out by the pool the whole time less than pleasant.  Fortunately there have been some quite decent movies on the two channels on tv that are worth watching, so the evenings have been ok even if time has dragged sometimes.

The food has continued to be of a questionable quality.  I tried a mixed grill one evening – by which we’re talking a selection of kebabs with rice.  It was foul, dry and overcooked.  Mostly I’ve settled on omelettes and chips from room service, with the odd pizza from the Italian restaurant– they have been ok but not spectacular.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which restaurant is open on any given day, and no notice of any closure.   So it’s pot luck where you’re going to eat in the evenings.  The Thai restaurant seems permanently closed, although I’ve been told a couple of times it’s open.  I gave up on breakfast since the rolls and so on were invariably stale.  With luck, I’ve lost a bit of weight……especially with the digestive issues.  Twice now I’ve visited this country and both times had to take copious amounts of Immodium.

So because of this uncertain political situation I’ve been in the hotel and I’ve missed out on visiting the Antiquities Museum – I went there on our first trip years ago and it was really good, I would have enjoyed wandering around it for a few hours.  I’ve also missed out on exploring the downtown areas and bazaars, and the huge shopping mall out in the Heliopolis suburb (near the airport apparently) with its English bookshops and Starbucks coffee shop.  Had I been able to do that my opinion of the place may be a bit different, who knows?   But if the FO says avoid crowded places for safety reasons, then avoid crowds I will.  I always try to do so anyway, and there is certainly more reason to here than anywhere else I’ve been to over the years.

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Anyhow, I’m pretty much done now.  I fly home tomorrow and at the moment there are no plans to return – even if I’m asked to I’ll try and get out of it.

Of all the places I’ve visited in this Travellin Life, I can safely say Cairo is the one I have liked least.   Other places like Sofia and Beirut have, on the surface, been damaged and dirty and unpleasant, but have actually been rewarding and worth the trip, and visibly trying to improve themselves.  There has always been something to do and somewhere to go, but aside from the Pyramids I am struggling to find anything to recommend about Cairo at all.  This city is stuck in turmoil and poverty, with no money and seemingly no will to do anything about it….I see no evidence of a physical change taking place.    That will happen over time, I have no doubt, once all the political uncertainty is gone and there is a clear and recognized society in place – whether Islamic or otherwise – and a government with the will and the budget to do the work.   But I fear this time is years rather than months away.

I admire the people for what they are trying to achieve through this revolutionary movement, and hope they succeed, because God knows many of them have precious little to look forward to.   It’s a tragedy that the descendants of the society that built such magnificent monuments as the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and, further afield, the Temple at Luxor and, nearby, the Valley of Kings is reduced to such a poor and reduced state. 

 It’s incredible to me that in this second decade of the 21st century, in a major capital city, it’s possible to drive down a side street, within a kilometer of the Nile and the city centre, and come across piles of rubbish ten feet high, and between these stinking piles find separately no less than three old men looking after herds of goats that wander in the road amongst all the traffic.  Yet that is exactly what happened Monday evening, when my taxi home took a wrong turning maybe half a kilometer from the bank where I’ve been working.  The old men sat quietly smoking on boxes, watching the cars go by, listening to the constant blare of horns, breathing in like the rest of us the stinking traffic fumes, while their goats foraged in the trash for some scraps to eat.  Along this road, like every other road, old ladies and young were trying to sell pathetic little packets of tissues or matches or scraps of cloth, to raise money to feed themselves and their families. Beggars merely held out their hands as we drove by, calling plaintively after us, more in hope than expectation.

Cairo......