Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 4: The Guide

S is 40, and worked as a dive master before he started guiding tourists: he was married in his 20s but it didn’t last. Compact and muscular, he wears shades, designer stubble, jeans and a T-shirt, topped, often, with a traditional Arab scarf. S taught himself English and the word “yani” punctuates his speech as “innit?” might in South London or “you know?” in South California.

We are standing in the desert by an acacia tree whose raw wood has been splintered and exposed. “Isn’t that taboo?” Z asks. “They’ve taken the living wood.”

“Z thought the Bedouin had a law that you could only take dead wood from a living plant,” I amplify to S. “But this is live wood that someone’s taken.”

“Yes,” he says. “There is a law.”

“So, what happens to them, under this law?”

“Yani,” S begins, resignedly. “If the sheikh catches them he will fine them some money, or a goat, or some gold, or something. But, yani, he needs to catch them first.”

Point taken. “Is a sheikh a religious leader as well as a tribal leader? Or does he just lead the tribe?” I ask. (In Mauritania, the word is used of holy men.)

“Just for his tribe,” S says.

“Ah!” I say. A few weeks before we came here, two groups of tourists were kidnapped by Bedouin in Sinai, and handed back within a matter of hours: a few days after S and I talk another group will experience the same thing. “So when those kids kidnapped the tourists, the sheikhs…”

“Yes,” S says. “The sheikh of one tribe talked to the sheikhs of the other tribes, because everyone knew who had done it, of course, and said…”

“Give those tourists back at once, you naughty boys, and treat them nicely, give them a good meal, because you are hurting our tribe’s business…” I fill in, wagging a finger.

S laughs. “What about the attacks on the oil pipelines in Northern Sinai?” I ask.

S’s face darkens. “Someone must be paying them. No one knows who. It is outside influences.”

(The main candidates for “outside influence” in Egypt, depending where you sit on the politico-religious spectrum, are America, Israel and Saudi Arabia.)

Over the small heavy glasses of hot sweet tea that fuel the Arab day, conversation turns to politics, religion and the revolution. “It’s good that Mubarak has gone,” S says. “He was greedy. He took from the people to make himself rich. Under Sadat – you know Sadat?”

I nod. Anwar Sadat was dictator of Egypt after Nasser and before Mubarak. “Sadat was a poor man, a man of the people,” S says. “He had a good heart. And he made the people rich. Under Sadat, five million people came out of poverty. Under Mubarak, millions became poor. This is what we need. A man of the people. A man who is – how do you say this? – afraid of God.”

“We have that in English,” I say. “God-fearing.”

“Yani, let me explain. In the old days every man had to give a share of his wealth to the poor.” S talks about Umar, the disciple whom Sunni Muslims see as the prophet Mohammed’s spiritual heir. “Umar said that if a man as far away as Iraq needs a camel, he will go there and give it to him. Iraq! You see? So a man who fears god will not take from the poor.”

Even in early spring the desert is almost unimaginably harsh and it is easy to see how the moral code of Islam came about. If you refuse hospitality or charity in a place where there may be no more water for days, even weeks, the person you refuse will most likely die, so Islam has strict rules about those duties.

Likewise, in small clans and tribes existing out here on the very edge of survival, acts that tend to cause division – stealing, for example – can imperil everyone, so must be punished harshly.

“I understand,” I say. “So who did you vote for?”

This is a personal question under any circumstances, particularly in a country only recently and tentatively freed from dictatorship, and S, who is a smart guy, has a fairly good idea what I, qua Western single mother, am likely to make of what I am fairly sure is his affiliation.

“Yani,” he says, finally. “We had one election. This was for the assembly. In three months, we get to vote for the President, and I don’t know who I will vote for, because we do not have all the names yet.”

“So what about the last election?” I ask.

“We have two votes,” S says. “So I gave one to the Muslim Brotherhood – yani, these guys went to jail, they were tortured, they were banned for years. And the other I gave to an independent guy.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because politicians are all the same,” S says. “They go to the houses and they say things, they promise money, make promises, introduce themselves…”

“We call that ‘canvassing’,” I say.

“All the parties have money,” he says. “They spend money to get your vote and when they have it they do nothing. Yani, this man is an independent. I’m giving him my vote and then I’ll see what he does with it.”

“So, what about the army?” I ask.

“Yani,” S says. “The army… Who is the army? The army is my brother, my cousin, my friend. This is the army.” Crosslegged on the carpet, he spreads his arms.

“Do you think the army will let democracy happen?” I ask.

“Yani,” S says again. “I see why you are asking this. We have had three presidents from the army: Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak. But I think this time the army also…” he pauses.

“The generals will give up power?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “The soldiers. I think this time the army will let us have our president. And I think the first time, we will get the wrong one. But if we don’t like him, we can change him in four or five years, and we get a better one.”

My face breaks into a broad, involuntary grin. “Yes!” I say. “That’s it! You can change him and get a new one!”

“What sort of law do you think there will be in the new Egypt?” I ask, tentatively. S prays five times a day but strikes me as quite the boy about town.

“Ah,” S says. “You mean the old laws? No, we cannot go back to those perfect times. And, for me, anyway, Islam is inside. Like I told you about covering. You cover. But the real cover is in here.” He points to his head.

We pick up a little later. “About what I was saying to you earlier…” S begins.

“I think I understand. In English we have two words. ‘Islamic’ and ‘Islamist’,” I begin confidently, then fumble desperately for a definition. “Islamic means, well, Muslim. Islamist means, you know, following the old laws, it’s stricter… An Islamic state is made up of Muslims but does not go so far as the old laws… An Islamist state… Well, Saudi Arabia…”

I tail off. And, to be honest, I’m still stuck here. Does “Islamist” simply mean “a Muslim with religio-political views that my government doesn’t like”? What is the difference between an “Islamic state” and an “Islamist state”?

I mean, Saudi Arabia seems firmly on the “-ist” end of Islam, to me, but according to my government they are our noble allies in the fight against Islamism, which, I suppose, makes them Islamic. My brain goes into knots (and, if any of you lot can help me unlock it by providing a good definition of the two, I’d be grateful).

“But, yani, Islam was born in Saudi Arabia,” S says. Both Mecca and Medina are in Saudi, and Mohammed came from there. “And how they are now is disgusting. Alcohol. Nightclubs filled with Russian women. Gambling.”

“Umm,” I say. “Not in public, surely? They have a strong religious police. Only in the houses of rich men. And often they come to London for that, anyway.”

“They are not the true Islam,” S says. “We, now, here in Egypt, we have the true Islam.”

“So,” I ask. “How do you think it will be for women under this new government?”

“Yani, in Egypt now we have women in the schools. In the hospitals. On television,” S says, adding, with some amazement, “Even, in Cairo, they have women driving taxis! You cannot turn this back. And, yani, they say this. They say they will turn it back. But they are only saying it to get votes.”

It has been a tough five years in the Sinai desert, with even less rain than usual. Valleys that used to host sufficient greenery to feed migrating goats and passing camels are only sparsely studded with desert plants, and even old acacias are dying.

“Why is this happening?” I ask S later. “Why no water?”

My mind is on the water wars that will come to this region once the oil wars are finished, so S’s answer surprises me.

“Yani,” he says. “God is angry with us. This is his punishment to us. And when we are better people, he will send rain.”

More in this series:
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 1: The Coder
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 2: The Bedouin Girl
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 3: The Future Soldier
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 5: The Businessman
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 6: The Taxi Driver
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 7: The Working Mother