Despite global warming, climate fluctuations, the unusually late arrival of winter this year, not to mention Cairo’s black cloud, dust, biting night cold, and unexpected daytime heat, many foreigners still believe our sun is ‘sweet’—a stroke of luck for this poor country. In any case, the story, in short, is that my Swedish friend decided to warm herself under our sun, escaping Europe’s harsh cold, and visited me last week. Naturally, we toured the Pyramids, Khan al-Khalili, the Citadel, and other typical tourist spots in the land of Egypt. But I wanted to do something different and decided to take her to lesser-known places that I consider central to Egypt’s history and the unique character of its people.
So, I dedicated a day to what some call the ‘complex of religions’ in Old Cairo, where the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, the Jewish Temple, and the Hanging Church are located. Thankfully, our visit to the mosque went smoothly, but the good fortune didn’t last long. We encountered two policemen who greeted us with smiles and broken English, welcoming us to Egypt. One asked about our nationalities, and my friend told him she was Swedish with American roots, while I proudly declared myself Egyptian. Their smiles vanished instantly, and they transformed into traffic officers during rush hour, adopting a stern demeanour. They insisted on checking my ID, supposedly to protect the ‘innocent foreigner’, who, in turn, sympathised with me and was visibly upset by their treatment. However, this piqued my interest, and I decided to play along.
Another group of policemen met us at the entrance to the Jewish Temple, and the scenario repeated itself. This time, I feigned a Levantine accent, and they were all cheerfully welcoming me to my ‘second home’, Egypt, without asking for my ID. Later, before entering the church, I spoke in a broken Egyptian accent, and one of them flattered me with a ‘welcome, pasha’, as if they all worked for the electricity company, while the locals were assigned to the sewage department, perhaps having contracted some contagious diseases they feared we might spread to tourists—God forbid. The truth is, these visitors are neither fools nor blind to the blatant discrimination evident in the differing treatment between us and them wherever they go. This not only offends them but also undermines our dignity, especially since most come from countries that understand human rights.
There is every reason to support calls for developing and revitalising the tourism sector, ‘cleaning it up’ from all obstacles hindering its growth, to optimally exploit this priceless historical wealth. This is especially important given the world’s continued desire to visit Egypt, despite occasional attacks. However, it is fundamentally unacceptable for such efforts to come at the expense of the most basic rights of citizenship—at the very least, the right of a native to be treated with the same respect as a visitor. What is the point of boosting tourism economically if it is accompanied by the erosion of the citizen’s dignity, already threatened by countless daily challenges?
What economics professors teach us in their textbooks is that the sole goal of an economic decision-maker is to optimally utilise a country’s resources to achieve the welfare of its people. This welfare certainly cannot be accompanied by the erosion of constitutionally recognised rights, even in ‘dreamland’, particularly equality. If the condition for revitalising Egypt’s tourism sector is the perpetuation of such practices, then I, for one, would prefer we remain underdeveloped in this regard. Who said that boosting tourism must be accompanied by legal chaos, as seen in Cairo’s streets, or moral decay, as witnessed on the beaches of the Red Sea, stripped of any respect for our ethics, culture, or even their own? Even if this sector represents a significant portion of Egypt’s gross national product, as annual reports suggest, its rise or fall does not fundamentally change the life of the ordinary citizen, who sees no benefit from economic growth amid the absence of distributive justice and spends most of their time standing in queues.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.