Laughter slowly petered out as one by one we came to the stark realization that the policeman was actually serious. "Do any of the rest of you want to hit him?" he asked, gesturing toward us with the shoe incredulously when no one stepped forward as eagerly as the situation would have apparently suggested. "It's okay for you," he said, offering it once again. No takers.
Ironically enough, it was inside the Great Pyramid that it had happened. Having followed the musty tunnels up into the great funerary chamber, we had started to descend the tiny passage when we ran into a group of Egyptian men who evidently had thought it necessary, or rather, appropriate, to grope the two girls at the end of our group as we passed.
Be it the "straw that broke the camel's back" or rather just the blatant profanity of committing such an act in so respected a place, but one of the two girls ended up seizing the man's shoe, and climbed, rather heroically, all the way down to the entrance of the Pyramid with it. Brandishing the shoe as she emerged, she and her friend started vehemently protesting what had happened to the officer stationed outside, whose department is charged with the protection of Egypt's second largest source of national income—tourism.
While I would absolutely not use the word comical, the scene retained a somewhat light-hearted air, as we waited for the culprit—"the man with one shoe"—to emerge from the pyramid. That was, of course, until he did emerge, and was summarily beaten by the officer in charge, with the Great Pyramid looming above.
While slightly taken aback, we found it fair, or at least within the customs of the place, and thus let this rough treatment go. The man had, after all, groped our friends. The events that came next, however, escalated so quickly that it was hard for anyone to get their bearings, let alone a sound ability to reason ethically.
Following the beatings that took place in the shadows of the pyramids we were taken to the nearby police station and separated from the girls, who were all led into a room to give their testimonies as to what had happened.
After about a half an hour an officer came out, and, in quite broken English, presented the following choice to us, "You may either decide to send him to jail for three days, and we will make sure he is not treated well, or three years, and his life will be ruined."
From a Western point of view, it is almost impossible to overlook the complete and utter lack of regulation in this "legal process," but the Third World is often this way—local justice. What I found interesting, however, and rather unique to Egypt, was the fact that while it was the girls who were victimized in this situation, and again the girls who had reported the abuse to the police, it was to us that they posed the option, not them. Egypt, it seems, is a country in which men always have the final say.
To split hairs between the cultural and religious aspects of Egyptian society is both dangerous and difficult, as the lines between secular and spiritual are inherently unclear, but it seems that the current interpretation of religion in the region is highly accountable for the treatment of women here. While conscientious steps are being made to correct for this—harassment cases have only recently been taken into consideration in Egypt, and are now being reported with alarming frequency—the stride that must be taken is truly a cultural one, for the religious fundamentalism that we have seen arise in the area has for the most part turned into a phenomenon of the lower class. While one does not see very many veiled women among the students at the American University in Cairo—the elite of Egypt—it would be equally surprising to not see a woman veiled in rural areas of the Western Desert, or even the less cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, which is currently 90 percent "covered."
Most well-off Muslims in Egypt drink, they smoke, they do not stop to pray five times a day, or expect their daughters to swelter under a veil in the 105 degree summer heat. But this by no means makes them any less spiritual, any less Muslim. As my Egyptian friend (whose driver would on occasion take us home from school) put it, "It is not for others to see that I am a good Muslim. I know am. I pray often and lead a good life. The ones who have to show it, who wear the veil, or pray in front of everyone, they're missing the true point." Her brother had recently come home barefoot from the mosque; his shoes had been stolen while he was inside.
In Egypt we see a strong paradox, as a fundamentalist adherence to the tenets of Islam becomes increasingly popular among the lower classes, where one would expect it to be crucial for women to play a larger role in the survival of their families. The irony lies in the fact that it is this very adherence which is, in the long run, keeping them from exercising any true agency of their own. It is not uncommon for the poor to devote themselves to religion, what better way to get through life than to invest faith in promises of the next; let us just hope that it will not be too long before the poor in Egypt, and particularly the women, realize that being devout in the spiritual life should not limit what one can do in the secular.
Be it the "straw that broke the camel's back" or rather just the blatant profanity of committing such an act in so respected a place, but one of the two girls ended up seizing the man's shoe, and climbed, rather heroically, all the way down to the entrance of the Pyramid with it. Brandishing the shoe as she emerged, she and her friend started vehemently protesting what had happened to the officer stationed outside, whose department is charged with the protection of Egypt's second largest source of national income—tourism.
While I would absolutely not use the word comical, the scene retained a somewhat light-hearted air, as we waited for the culprit—"the man with one shoe"—to emerge from the pyramid. That was, of course, until he did emerge, and was summarily beaten by the officer in charge, with the Great Pyramid looming above.
While slightly taken aback, we found it fair, or at least within the customs of the place, and thus let this rough treatment go. The man had, after all, groped our friends. The events that came next, however, escalated so quickly that it was hard for anyone to get their bearings, let alone a sound ability to reason ethically.
Following the beatings that took place in the shadows of the pyramids we were taken to the nearby police station and separated from the girls, who were all led into a room to give their testimonies as to what had happened.
After about a half an hour an officer came out, and, in quite broken English, presented the following choice to us, "You may either decide to send him to jail for three days, and we will make sure he is not treated well, or three years, and his life will be ruined."
From a Western point of view, it is almost impossible to overlook the complete and utter lack of regulation in this "legal process," but the Third World is often this way—local justice. What I found interesting, however, and rather unique to Egypt, was the fact that while it was the girls who were victimized in this situation, and again the girls who had reported the abuse to the police, it was to us that they posed the option, not them. Egypt, it seems, is a country in which men always have the final say.
To split hairs between the cultural and religious aspects of Egyptian society is both dangerous and difficult, as the lines between secular and spiritual are inherently unclear, but it seems that the current interpretation of religion in the region is highly accountable for the treatment of women here. While conscientious steps are being made to correct for this—harassment cases have only recently been taken into consideration in Egypt, and are now being reported with alarming frequency—the stride that must be taken is truly a cultural one, for the religious fundamentalism that we have seen arise in the area has for the most part turned into a phenomenon of the lower class. While one does not see very many veiled women among the students at the American University in Cairo—the elite of Egypt—it would be equally surprising to not see a woman veiled in rural areas of the Western Desert, or even the less cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, which is currently 90 percent "covered."
Most well-off Muslims in Egypt drink, they smoke, they do not stop to pray five times a day, or expect their daughters to swelter under a veil in the 105 degree summer heat. But this by no means makes them any less spiritual, any less Muslim. As my Egyptian friend (whose driver would on occasion take us home from school) put it, "It is not for others to see that I am a good Muslim. I know am. I pray often and lead a good life. The ones who have to show it, who wear the veil, or pray in front of everyone, they're missing the true point." Her brother had recently come home barefoot from the mosque; his shoes had been stolen while he was inside.
In Egypt we see a strong paradox, as a fundamentalist adherence to the tenets of Islam becomes increasingly popular among the lower classes, where one would expect it to be crucial for women to play a larger role in the survival of their families. The irony lies in the fact that it is this very adherence which is, in the long run, keeping them from exercising any true agency of their own. It is not uncommon for the poor to devote themselves to religion, what better way to get through life than to invest faith in promises of the next; let us just hope that it will not be too long before the poor in Egypt, and particularly the women, realize that being devout in the spiritual life should not limit what one can do in the secular.
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