Dust and dirt and a slow decline

I arrived back at Heathrow and expected a lengthy wait at passport control, but in fact there were only two people ahead of me. I’d never been processed so quickly and easily. It made rather a contrast with the scuffles that I had to fight through in Cairo a few hours before. The check in at the British Airways desk had been fine, but getting to the desk required forcing my luggage through a single scanner with just one official not appearing to pay much attention to the luggage passing before him piled up suitcase on top of suitcase. The scrum to get through a single metal detector, that never seemed to respond to anyone’s belt or phone, was not much better.

I’d been in Egypt for a week on business, and had travelled with some uncertainty about the situation there. But in fact it was not really as I remembered from previous visits, nor as I expected from current news broadcasts. The traffic was appalling. It took ages to get anywhere, and there seemed to be no rules of the road at all. People randomly walked across busy roads and seemed to manage to avoid being knocked down, while cars weaved in and out and abruptly cut across two or three lanes of traffic to turn left or right.

Driving around the city I saw a number of burned out Government buildings, and in one place a pedestrian bridge had been destroyed. It was not entirely clear why. But it didn’t seem like the population was about to boil over with revolutionary rage. I avoided Tahrir Square entirely, as there was trouble one night and the resident idealists (there are still some) had their tents burned out by the Muslim Brotherhood, who have a different vision of the future. But otherwise it didn’t seem that the events of the last few years had made much difference.

Spending a little more time in Cairo, however, the effects of the revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood’s take over of power became a little clearer. The electricity was a lot less reliable. There were regular short power outages, and my contacts from other areas in Egypt reported that those who could were purchasing generators to try to keep the lights on at night, and the refrigerators working. But this merely highlighted the problems in obtaining fuel. One day during my visit, the driver had queued from 4 am at a petrol station to be able to purchase fuel, and there were constant complaints that President Morsi was shipping much needed petrol to Gaza to gain influence and credibility.

In the vast suburbs there were countless unfinished blocks of apartments, mostly of low quality. But everywhere there were small businesses and shops trading as best they could. On one occasion my colleagues and I parked at the side of a poor street. We walked down a filthy passage that soon became an alley. The pavement disappeared into dirt and dust. Then we entered a dark underpass below a block of apartments. A cat ran across our path and the daylight seemed a long way behind us. It didn’t feel entirely safe, and wouldn’t have done in any city in any country around the world. Then suddenly a door was opened and we found ourselves in a small office/workshop. Everything was spotlessly clean, we were surrounded by smiles, and offered the warmest hospitality.

That seemed to express something about the state of Egypt. The infrastructure is failing. The Government of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood is incapable of even keeping up with the development programmes that Mubarak had instituted. But behind the dusty doors there are families and businesses seeking to live clean, productive and positive lives.

Certainly the revolutionary zeal of the past few years has faded away. It is clear to the thinking Egyptian that Morsi does not represent a future filled with much hope. The Christian businessmen I spoke with described an increasing discrimination against non-Muslim businesses. Others from the rural south of the country spoke of Muslims squatting on Christian farms and either demanding money to leave, or driving Christians away through fear and exhaustion. It is especially the poor south which sees Christian communities being attacked by Muslim mobs, with Churches and businesses torched. Much of this animosity is rooted in poverty rather than Islamic revolution, but it is enflamed by those who support an Islamic agenda.

Each morning, very early indeed, I was was woken by a demonic wailing from the mosque that was just over the road. The speakers were very much louder than I remembered from past visits and seemed designed to instill a sense of dominance over the whole city. It truly was painful and disturbing. Seeming to express the substance of Islam as if coming from the circles of Dante’s Hell.

Where is Egypt going? It would seem to me that it is destined for a more or less rapid decline with a disorganised and failing infrastructure which will make it increasingly difficult for the ordinary citizen and businessman to make a living. Those who have dignity and education will undoubtedly preserve it to the end. I spent some hours with an elderly woman of taste in a home surrounded by culture. Even in her last years, when she was wheeled in front of her piano she came to life and played some piece she remembered from her youth. She spoke French, as many of the elderly and educated do. Such a home will remain an island while the electricity fails and the roads are left unrepaired.

Christians will certainly continue to find life made difficult and dangerous. Many will join those millions who have already emigrated. But the majority are not able to choose that route and will find themselves the target of growing hostility as the country becomes more impoverished. But it will be a slow decline into dust and dirt even while those who have education, skill and inner resources will try to resist such a prospect.

There was much to be hopeful about in Egypt. Individual lives and businesses and projects are witness to the ingenuity and ability of people in all places when given opportunities. But the Government will fail them, and is already failing them. The future which the Muslim Brotherhood has in mind for Egypt is not one in which the well-being of the people matters very much beyond ensuring that the Brotherhood remains in power. Dust and dirt. Dirt and dust. Power cuts and broken roads and an angry people.