Our Man in Cairo - Bright & Hot

Posted by Lelyn R. Masters on June 30th, 2008

“This place is ready to explode,” she said to me with great relish. Her name was Karen or something, and I stood there having a nice conversation with her and her fiancee. They were from northern California. At that moment we were in an art gallery during the opening of a new collection of photographs of graffiti. She was really excited by the idea that Cairo was on the verge of violent revolt.

I am not convinced. However, I left her with her enthusiasm. People need drama. They really will die without it. Have you ever met someone without any sense of passion or imagination? Zombies are real.

Cairo is so bright and hot. The hungry masses stalk the streets. They know the system is corrupt. They know that Islam is the answer. I am not convinced.

But what alternative? Young men in fancy Dolce And Gabbana shirts harass the girls, pick pockets in the subway run around on drugs, swaggering down the street like some kind of mix of Omar Sharif and Tupac. No wonder they hate American culture. Look how we are represented to the world. Soulless wonders. Zombies.

But I have discovered Abdul Rahman Bedoui, who is a great commentator of Nietzsche in the Arabic language. Perhaps he places too much emphasis on the idea of the Superman, but at least he knows that human values must be central, must be primary to economic values. He writes in the context of revitalizing Arab culture. This one book, this one writer it took me years to find, and for which I had to come here to the other side of the world.

I see a lot of religious nuts here, same as in the US. But I also see a lot of moderates who are scared to death of what might happen in an Egyptian theocracy. Will it be the same as in the Sudan, where overnight Sharia became law and everyone selling alcohol was taken directly to jail?

I cannot foresee what direction this country will take. But explode? Let’s not exaggerate.

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Our Man In Cairo is Lelyn R. Masters.  Lelyn was brought up in Louisiana, USA, and studied Continental Philosophy at university.  He enlisted in the Navy after 9/11, where he learnt Arabic, and in which he became fluent.  After they re-considered his political outlook, the Navy decided that he was too much of a security risk and refused to promote him into a position where he could use his Arabic skills.  He was released from his tour of duty in June 2008.

 

 

Why did I study Arabic? I felt a need to understand the Middle East and Arabic culture. Maybe the real question should be: why don’t more people study Arabic? The more I learned, the more fascinated I became. A lost civilization unveiled itself before me. I saw a different sensibility to life. 

Several years later I find myself in Cairo. As it turns out I came here at the worst possible time: Summer, 2008. I fell to earth flat in the middle of a food shortage coupled with inflation coupled with corruption scandals and a collapse of any kind of faith in the government to make things better. Cultural conservatism is at an all time high.

The city is crowded, dirty and under martial law. It is hard to ignore all of these problems, but it is also hard to ignore the goodness of the Egyptian people, for whom I write with an outraged pen. I am not an Orientalist: I am passing on to you the complaints and joys of the most populated city in Africa: Cairo.

LoveHowlMuse is publishing a selection of Lelyn’s blogs from Cairo. To read them all, visit the blog on his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/lelynonline.