Knowing the Egyptian people

In a previous article, I was letting the Reader to know the Egyptian people through images, through his eyes... I let the Reader to feel and to imagine in his own personal way the people of Egypt, without saying a word about them. Today I' m coming back to you and I am presenting you the Egyptian people and his divisions.

The Egyptian populous is divided into four cultural groups consisting of Copts, Bedouins, Nubians and Egyptian peasants, or fallahin. Upon closer examination, fallahins are presented basically as farmers living in villages. Perhaps this is a correct and traditional definition of the word fallahin, but it was immediately apparent that this division of cultural groups was out of touch with reality, and showed no feeling for Egypt's true flavor.

Egypt is actually a wonderful and delightful mixture of traditions, with a socioeconomic structure which allows, more and more, a gradient of classes. But one must look, and feel with the heart in order to touch this essence of Egypt.

A considerable amount, if not majority, of Egypt's population now live in larger cities, mostly Cairo and Alexandria. In fact, these two cities dominate the vision of most foreigners. They are vitally important to Egypt's culture, but one should not neglect the many other moderately sized cities. And within these cities there is a virtual kaleidoscope of social levels. There are doubtless the poor, the recent fallahins come to the city, and the lower echelons of what we will call the commercial or merchant class. They are evident, and plentiful. But these businessmen merge into the middle class, and then upper middle class. More than a few become wealthy.

The travel books about Egypt seem to neglect this broad range of Egyptian business men. Some come from families who probably have ancient ties with trading, but others are those fallahins who have found what they came looking for in the city. Perhaps the poorest of these merchants, those who sell produce or bean meals in the streets might answer to the term fallahin, but I doubt that most would fall within any of the traditional cultural groups. They have a million faces, and also as many professions and trades. They make gold jewelry and copper pots, rugs, they paint, build buildings and fine pottery. They sell groceries at the corner market. They trade in tractors and water pumps, they are butchers and bakers, taxi drivers, and secretaries. And these days many of these people are simply Egyptian, not Coptic, not Nubian, not Bedouin and certainly not the traditional Fallahin.

But what is equally missing from most travel guide descriptions of the Egyptian culture is a real feeling for the beauty of these marvelous cities. Here, one will find teenagers at McDonalds or Pizza Hut and making the local drag in their small Fiats. There, one will see brightly lit streets with multicolored lights strung from the buildings so as to celebrate a birthday or a wedding. One will find a continuous stream of blaring horns, as a population perpetually late for some meeting scrambles about the city. But one may admire this madness from an armchair next to his favorite coffee shop, where he may be overcome by a feeling of tranquility. It is often a culture of the back streets of small neighborhoods, particularly at night, where the television has not dispatched social accord. The residents of these small neighborhoods within these monstrous cities know each other well, and look out for one another.

In a city the size of Cairo (22 millions of people), comparing to others big world capitals, there is virtually a low crime rate. Many westerners believe that this is due to stiff punishment, but the real reason is the population's loyalty to their religious faith. The virtual absence of drinking and drugs among the local population, prohibited by their Islamic law and enforced by their own piety, surely has much to do with this. When one ceases judging cultures purely from the standpoint of material wealth, and begins to see the humanistic success of the Egyptian culture, it is difficult for a person of any religious persuasion not to develop a deep respect for Islam.

Follow the next articles to find more about Fallahins, Bedouins and Nubians.