SPARING A THOUGHT FOR EGYPT

I can’t claim to have any political insight, and in fact, even by writing this today, all I’m likely to achieve is to show off how truly ignorant I am, but it’s very difficult to watch a country that you mostly only associate with only the fondest of memories going through such terrible difficulties as Egypt seems to be going through at present.

It’s difficult, of course, to focus my attentions on just this one country, because so many other countries - Australia and Tunisia to name but two - are also going through their own difficult times, but having recently visited Egypt I feel a sort of “bond” with it at the moment, and would hate to think that those of us who visited last year were amongst the last who felt safe enough to do so. It is, by the very nature of its place in the history of civilisation, the most astonishing of countries, and it would be awful if the Egyptian experience were to become unavailable to everyone.

I only went to Egypt for the first time just under a year ago and even then only as a tourist. For two weeks I existed in a kind of tourism “bubble” that probably protected me from much of the reality of life out there in the real world on a day-to-day basis for the citizens of that great country, but there were moments every now and again when their true lives collided with our own, and on occasion, it truly was an eye-opener.

No matter how cosseted you might be as a visitor to the country, you cannot avoid seeing the things you see from your air-conditioned coaches as you speed along the highways from ancient site to ancient site. Children playing in the canals, men and women toiling in the fields and on the river using the most basic of tools. Some homes that looked very basic, other buildings that looked half-completed but in which families were living. At the time I was reading a book about life in medieval England and one or two of the descriptions in it were bought vividly to life by some of the scenes I saw then, in the 21st century.

The ancient wonders of the pyramids juxtapose
majestically with the roads and the apartment blocks

That is not to suggest that I thought that Egypt was primitive. Far from it, but Egypt does come across as being a country of great extremes. The ancient wonders of the pyramids juxtapose majestically with the roads and the apartment blocks. Some of the engineering and architecture I saw was truly awe-inspiring, but some of the more impoverished areas showed us people living in the most basic of circumstances. I can’t tell you whether that range of experience from the “haves” and the “have nots” is playing any part in the current struggles, as we got no sense of any of those sorts of underlying tensions when we were there, but I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me if it had.

Before we went, I’m not really sure now what we actually expected of Egypt. Of course we’d read the guide books and the brochures and had the vaccinations and listened to all the advice, and, having lived fairly sheltered lives when it came to these things, we did approach our holiday with some trepidation, and yet, when I look back on it now, I genuinely believe that during our trip I experienced probably the most relaxing week of my life, and I can only hope that other people will have the opportunity in the very near future to experience some of that for themselves. After all, we all know how very important tourism is to the Egyptian economy and how many families are living better lives because of that industry, and depend upon it for their survival.

There were of course difficulties. No country is perfect to an outsider, and some things, like some of our encounters with traders did sometimes leave the occasional bitter taste in the mouth. There was a fair amount of begging and hustling going on, but that should be expected due to the general poverty we witnessed. There was also the almost permanent need for the discreet but omnipresent police protection which gave the occasional pause for thought, but I imagine that some of the things that visitors to Great Britain have to see seem equally strange and disturbing to them.

Only hope that things will sort themselves out fairly soon and that the rather brilliant inclusive philosophy and culture which meant that you felt safe as a visitor to one of the great nations of the world remains after whatever changes might occur. The political stability that the world viewed as being one of the better things about the country may not have been so widely enjoyed by the people who lived under it, so we can only hope that when the dust settles, there comes out of it a better Egypt for them, as well as for the rest of us.

I was very saddened to hear of the damage done to the artifacts and the monuments by the rioters. For a lot of people, of course, a bit of damage to a few ancient relics won't be all that important, and the bigger picture is the fight for regime change, but I still feel terribly sad that unique and priceless objects that have survived for thousands of years are being destroyed in my lifetime, and that people will look back on these years and wonder what sort of philistines we were. There are few enough things of beauty in this world, and for some people do their very best to preserve them only for others to come along and destroy them seems to be to be one of the sadder little stories to come out of these events.

During our visit, we met many people who live and work in Egypt and we can only hope that they do not suffer too appallingly from any government attempts to restore “order” or, indeed, at the hands of some of the less principled amongst the rioters and looters who might possibly take it upon themselves to take advantage of the situation and redress the imbalances they might see as being in their lives. Equally we hope that others we met who have family and friends over there know that they are all safe and well, and our thoughts are with them at this very difficult time.