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Faces of Palestine

We were not in the Palestinian Territories for long, but I thought it still meaningful to do this post showing you some of the people we met in Arab Palestine. One of the aims of this blog is to be able to put a face on a place, and few places need this more than Palestine. Note the absence of rocks and molotov cocktails.

Children, Nablus


Older man, Nablus

“Arab” dress is uncommon in coastal and modern Palestine (cf. post of 10.13)

Aramaic-speaking Christian cobbler of Syrian origin, Bethlehem. More than 80 years old, he told us that to live in the West Bank is to “live in a prison.”

Young men, Ramallah. Ramallah, just outside of Jerusalem, is currently the commercial and logistical hub of the West Bank. The man with the Major League Baseball hat was a Palestinian-American visiting relatives, and greeted us with a double-take invoking, American-accented “How ya doin’?” The Jewish reverse-diaspora into Palestine has resulted in a massive diaspora of Arab Palestinians all over the world, and in our time in the Middle East we have met Palestinian refugees in Syria, Jordan and the Gulf, and from the U.S., Canada and Europe.

A Samaritan. A good one? Certainly seemed nice enough. The Samaritans form a “sect” of Judaism, and are now citizens of Israel, but have lived peacefully among the Palestinian Arabs for many hundreds of years.

Muslims of African descent, Jerusalem. These children are part of a community of 2000 or so Palestinians of African descent–principally Senegal, Niger, Chad and Sudan–who live in the Old City of Jerusalem near the Temple Mount. Many families have lived in Jerusalem for some 150 years.

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Palestine photo

Nablus

We had built Israel into our itinerary not only because we wanted to visit the great city of Jerusalem, one of few cities throughout history that could claim to be at the center of the world, but also because we realized that to understand the Middle East would be impossible without having at least a minimal understanding of its greatest conflict. On our way out of Jordan, we decided that seeing Jerusalem and Israel would not be enough–we had to visit at least a small part of the occupied Palestinian Territories. And so, having crossed over from Jordan into the West Bank on the King Hussein Bridge, we made our way not straight to Jerusalem, as so many tourists do, but to the ancient city of Nablus, located about an hour and a half north of Jerusalem.

Getting there was a bit of an adventure, as few tourists make their way to Nablus. First, we had been given the impression that Israeli immigration and security forces, who control all access into and out of the occupied West Bank, prefer that tourists not visit the West Bank at all, and would give us a hard time if they knew of our destination. This meant that we were less than totally straightforward with the Israeli immigration authorities about our plans (especially since, with our Lebanon, Syria and Iran entry stamps, it still took us an hour and a half to clear immigration, albeit an improvement over the three hours and questioning that our last entry into Israel entailed) and that we didn’t want to linger in the border area asking around how best to get to Nablus. We got on the first bus out of the controlled area, to the West Bank town of Jericho. (Our fellow passengers on the bus assumed that we had made a mistake, that we must have wanted the bus to Jerusalem, because again, this was an unusual thing for foreigners to be doing.) In Jericho, we found share taxis to destinations all over the West Bank, but, with no Arabic on our part and no English on the part of the drivers, communication was a challenge. We received the assistance of a young Palestinian-Swedish man, also headed to Nablus, who helped us establish a price for the ride (later footing some of our bill as we did not have enough local currency) and upon arrival helped us find a hotel room–far better than wandering around in the dark, without a guidebook or a map, armed only with the downloaded Wikitravel entry on the city.

When we woke up, we found not only a charming old city, reminiscent of Damascus and Aleppo in authenticity and beauty if not scale, but also a unique travel experience, that of having a worthy, not-so-far-flung destination nearly all to ourselves (we saw exactly four other foreign visitors in our two days in Nablus), the recipients of so much curiosity and hospitality.

As you probably know, the modern state of Israel is a 20th century creation, established in 1948. It was only after some fifty years of Jewish migration into Palestine, political lobbying by Zionists led by Theodor Herzl’s World Zionist Organization and Jewish agitation, including a series of terrorist attacks against Arab and British targets in the 1930s and 40s, that Britain and finally the UN gave its assent to the creation in Palestine of a nation for Jews. Prior to the mid-19th century, not since Roman times had significant numbers of Jews lived in what is now Israel, and even as late as the late 1930s the Jews in Palestine were a small minority among the region’s Arab residents. That being the case, all old cities in Palestine (not only those in the Palestinian Territories but also those in the state of Israel) are Arab cities, even if located on or near the sites of yet older Jewish, Roman or Crusader ones, and Nablus is among those cities perhaps the most atmospheric.

The old city of Nablus may not be as large as that of other Middle Eastern cities, but, with its alleys, markets and staircases leading into the hills, it is, as one Englishman described to us, big enough to get lost in, and, especially in light of the conflict it has seen, surprisingly intact. In the narrow streets are small architectural details that one wonders the provenance of, markets full of goods and produce and great mosques built on Crusader churches.


Outside of the historical center, a more modern city of surprising liveliness

To be a tourist in Nablus is to be an object of great curiosity, as very few tourists make it into town (perhaps in part due to warnings such as the one from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office that, particularly in Nablus, “terrorist groups maintain the intent and capability to kidnap foreign nationals”). Palestinian hospitality was comparable to the generous treatment we encountered in Syria and Iran. We were greeted warmly, often offered tea and snacks and even driven around town for sightseeing. The generally civilized behavior extended to little children–one boy eating from a little bag of chips not only very formally offered me some, insisting when at first I declined, but placed the rest of the bag in my hands when we parted, as if to provision a traveler. Never were we overcharged. It was a world of difference from the sometimes indifferent hospitality one receives in Jordan from the largely Egyptian staff of restaurants and hotels, and another indication of the manners that can become infused into an entire culture.

Some Nablus sights:

Roman theater

Jacob’s Well

Nablus is famous for its sweets, its hammams and its olive oil soap–the same as could be said of many Syrian cities (and in fact Nablus has been called Little Damascus). In medieval times, no doubt being known for such luxuries was akin to how we now think of New York for its restaurants, Bali for its spas and France for its perfumes.

Hammam al-Shifa

Nablus is especially known for its kanafeh, which is eaten throughout the Middle East. It tastes kind of like a grilled cheese sandwich soaked in honey.

But of course the great sights of Nablus are today, sadly, only half the story. Nablus has been one of the cities of greatest conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, a center of Palestinian nationalism and militancy and one of the cities most targeted by Israeli forces in terms of both military aggression and intimidation. The troubled state Nablus is in cannot be forgotten, even by the casual tourist, as damaged areas of the city remain and conversations often turn to politics, the current relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, and, with us, the American relationship with Israel.

Israeli forces surround the town with checkpoints and have ultimate say over who gets in and out. In the words of the Palestinians, to live in Nablus (and the West Bank as a whole) is to live in a prison. One Brit teaching in the West Bank that we met said that he was cautious about voicing political opinions for fear that the Israelis would refuse him entry into the West Bank. We were also told that armed Israeli soldiers enter the city at will, usually at night, to take away suspected activists and militants.

Balata Refugee Camp, the largest of the UN-run camps populated by Palestinians displaced after the creation of the state of Israel. Note the tattered posters for fighters on the wall–other than these, we saw no sign of militancy whatsoever in the West Bank. Our memory of Balata will be of a local woman who offered us a couple, and then at our approval insisted we take a bunch, of homemade cookies akin to super-dense Fig Newtons.

Our visit to the Tomb of Joseph (of the technicolor dreamcoat) revealed to us in part the control that the Israeli forces have over Nablus. Joseph’s Tomb is a holy site for Jews but not for the Arabs, who believe the tomb to be that of an old local man and not the biblical prophet. In retaliation for Jewish violence (which in turn was presumably in retaliation for or for the prevention of Palestinian violence, and so on), some Palestinians destroyed the site with a bomb. Israeli forces now require the Palestinians to keep a close watch over the site (which Jews still visit in secret in the middle of the night), and all visits are coordinated with the Israeli military, which has line of sight control over the area. When we arrived at the tomb, Palestinian security approached us and radioed the Israeli soldiers on the hilltop for permission to allow us in. Once our visit was cleared, we ventured into the burned out shell of the tomb. We were shown holes in the wall that the Palestinian soldiers said were caused by worshipping Jews pounding their heads into the wall, as well as scraps of prayer that recent Jewish worshippers had left behind. The soldiers described the destruction of the tomb, not without a small amount of admiration for the damage the blast had caused.

Joseph’s Tomb

On our way out of the tomb, Derek hopped over a small wall to walk around the structure for another camera angle. The Palestinian soldiers were surprised and quickly warned with the gesture of a rifle being fired and then pointing at the hill that there was a chance the Israelis might shoot him. Deeming that unlikely, Derek took a few pictures and safely climbed back.

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Jordan photo queer religion

Gay Jordan–A Pilgrimage

Jordan is fairly liberal and tolerant for an Arab country, and there is even genuine gay nightlife in Amman, including bar/club RGB (on the Third Circle). But RGB is hardly the sort of place that a first world gay tourist would find too exciting–nothing compared to what is on offer in Beirut, I’m sure, and in some ways not even matching Bahrain’s bars. There is, however, one place I felt strongly about visiting, a Biblical site not featured on too many Holy Land tour itineraries, but one that has made a genuine impact on the relationship between sexual minorities and the world’s great monotheistic religions: Sodom.

Sodom today is known as Bab adh-Dhraa, and it is not much more than a tell, or archaeological hill, with parts of wall and gate peaking through a jumble of rocks. But back in Old Testament times it was the foremost of the five “cities of the plain,” the town’s whose attempted gang rape of two male angels resulted in its total destruction.

From Genesis 19:

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. . . He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
“Get out of our way,” they replied. And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it. . . . ”
Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

By its destruction (some say that an earthquake released trapped gases, which ignited and set the town aflame) Sodom became the most vivid evidence that the Judeo-Christian God disapproves of homosexuality. Of course, reading the passage it would seem that it actually condemns gang homosexual rape (while condoning or even encouraging the offering up of one’s own daughters for the same treatment). More progressive religious types read the passages as condemning Sodom for its ill treatment of guests, and Sodom and the other cities of the plain were known for generally being miserly and cruel. If Sodom never existed, or if it had not gotten such a memorable mention in the Bible, would the great Semitic religions have a different relationship with sexual minorities? At the very least, would anti-gay attitudes be less infectious without such a graphic example of God’s wrath?

I am inclined to think not, given the confused and twisted message in the remainder of Genesis 19. If this latter passage doesn’t give cause to question the moral compass of the entire chapter, I’m not sure what would–if the story of Sodom had never been told, people would just pick another part of the Bible to support their prejudices:

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.

Whether offering up your daughters for gang rape or drunken incest is worse, the Bible is unclear–both seem acceptable (or even admirable) under certain circumstances. The message I take away from Genesis 19 is hardly “God hates gays.”

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faces Jordan photo

Faces of Jordan

Politically, the region that is called the Levant is now divided into five pieces–Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine and Jordan. But there are ways to divide the area into historically/culturally meaningful chunks beyond national boundaries. One is to consider Jewish Israel as a separate entity onto itself, while considering the predominantly Arab regions of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan together. Another is to consider the region as made up of three major religious communities: Arab Muslims, Arab Christians and Israeli Jews. A third is to consider Syria and Lebanon together, as they share a great deal in common and were the countries of the early twentieth century French Mandate, and Israel, Palestine and Jordan together, as being part of the British colonial world. No doubt there are many other ways to think about this complex region.

I believe, however, that the best way of thinking about the Levant is coastal and non-coastal. Over much of history, whether a given region was within striking distance of an active port meant a great deal (most of the world’s population still lives near a coast or navigable river), and this was no less the case in the Levant. Coastal Levant, meaning Lebanon, Syria as far east as the great cities of Aleppo and Damascus and Israel/Palestine, had constant communication with the Mediterranean world, for better or for worse. Over thousands of years these areas saw countless empires, people and ideas come and go. The desert interior, meaning most of Jordan and the Syrian desert, were one step removed from the great movements on the coast, a relative wilderness. Coastal Levant is a world of ancient walled cities, such as Acre, Byblos and Tartus, and the more inland Damascus and Aleppo. While there are cities of historical importance in the non-coastal Levant as well, including Palmyra and Petra, they are more the exceptions than the rule, and faded with the growth of maritime trade–even today, the non-coastal Levant is populated in significant part by nomadic Bedouin, herding sheep (see post of 4.15).

That it is largely desert/non-coastal gives Jordan a unique character among the countries of the Levant. Jordan has a desert/bedouin identity, a very much “Arab” identity not made murky by the history of the coastal Levant (see post of 4.25). Rather than being associated with great Mediterranean empires, contact with the West and the luxuries of Silk Road trade, Jordan far more sees itself as a creature of the desert, a country that looks eastward to Arabia rather than westward. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is almost always portrayed in a western suit or military uniform. King Abdullah of Jordan is seen in posters just as often in Arab jelabiyyah and keffiyeh. Jordanian currency? “Dinars” (as in other Arab countries) rather than the “pounds” used in Syria and Lebanon. The Jordanian monarchy traces its roots to Mohammed and the WWI Arab Revolt, and to the familial and loyalty bonds of the Arab bedouin. In Jordan, bedouin culture is to some extent placed on a pedestal as national heritage, while one Syrian man from coastal Lattakia told us (contrary to fact) that Syria had “only a few bedouin families” (perhaps somehow embarrassed of their existence and preferring to think of Syria as a country of ancient and sophisticated cities and not desert nomads). Another Syrian man questioned Syrians’ “Arabness” altogether, saying that despite the name of the country–Syrian Arab Republic–Syrians weren’t Arab at all but a mixture of many races (see post of 4.25).

Modern Jordan is in part a creation of the British, and Jordanian King Abdullah’s mother is British–there is no doubt that it is today one of the most “western-friendly” of the Arab countries. But it is with this frame of mind, that Jordan is just as much a country of the Arabian desert as it is a country of the Levant, that I wished to preface some portraits from Jordan.

Bedouin boy, Wadi Rum

Among the most interesting bedouin populations of Jordan that travelers are likely to run into are the Bdul of Petra. The Bdul are the most recent “residents” of Petra, having moved into the rock-cut tombs and facades in the last few hundred years. Historically, the Bdul have been the most down-trodden of the Bedouin groups of Jordan, among the poorest and most looked down on. Most recently, in an effort to further the preservation of the World Heritage Site, the Jordanian government has evacuated the Bdul from the Petra ruins, placing them into a town settlement nearby and reportedly offering modern conveniences, health care and education. But many continue to live in rock-cut caves just outside of the central ruins and others commute in to conduct business with the tourists. In a “power sharing” agreement set up by the government, businesses and horses/carriages “up to” the Treasury (just short of Petra “city center”) are operated by “outside” Jordanians (and Egyptians) authorized by the government, while those “past” the Treasury are run by the Bdul. (See post of 10.9 on Petra.) The Bdul who work in Petra are among tourists’ greatest resources, offering friendly chatter in multiple languages, directions and tea almost everywhere you turn, either gratuitously or in exchange for a quick look at their merchandise. Careful though, or you’ll end up being dragged into a confusing sort of air arm wrestling, as happened with us on more than a few occasions.

Elderly Bdul woman and daughter, both souvenir vendors (and damned compelling ones), Petra

Bdul boy in front of the Treasury, Petra

Amman (then known as Philadelphia) was one of a string of Roman cities located in now western Jordan, but presents relatively little in terms of Roman ruins, far less than the ruins of Jerash to the north or cities in now Syria. That said, Amman is today a fairly dynamic capital, with ample investment coming in from both the West and the Gulf, and a steady flow of expats and tourists.

Some residents of Amman

Modern Amman was actually founded by Circassians, Muslims from the Caucasus who moved into the Ottoman Empire who now constitute a significant ethnic minority in Jordan. The “suburb” of Wadi as-Seer near Amman remains a center of Circassian Jordan.

Circassian brother and sister in headscarf and karate gi.

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Petra

Remember when you were told that that place in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was real? I do, and I remember thinking that Jordan seemed an awfully distant place which I wasn’t sure at all that I would ever visit. The Nabataean ruins of Petra clearly represent a pinnacle in rock-cut architecture, certainly in size and scale if not in beauty; in some ways the city is like a fantasy that shows man’s imagination at some of its best. The site is well deserving of its reputation and fame, if not only for the impressiveness of the manmade structures themselves, for the drama and mystery of their setting.

I do not have much else to say about Petra, but to go without showing you at least some pictures of the site would be a crime. Before the photos, a tiny bit of historical background: Petra was the capital of the Nabataeans, an Aramaic-speaking Semitic kingdom that by location was able to control trade routes between the Levant and points further east. Petra continued as a fairly prosperous city even after the Nabataeans were subsumed by the Romans around 100 AD, and survived as a Christian town, but fell into ruin around the time of the seventh century Arab conquest.

The Siq, the canyon leading into the “city center” of Petra


The Treasury, the most imposing and dramatic of Petra’s structures, cut into the cliff at a clearing and bend in the canyon



Inside of the Treasury, a largely blank set of rooms cut into beautiful stone

Some other examples of the marvelous natural colors and patterns of Petra sandstone

Other facades, near the Treasury

The Great Temple, located in Petra’s “city center”

The Palace Tomb. Most of Petra’s structures are rock-cut facades with small, relatively blank rooms inside. While some of these were used as churches later in Petra’s history, and the Bedouin made them homes in more recent times, it would seem that most were originally intended as tombs.

The Monastery, located well uphill from the Siq and city center–even larger than the Treasury

There are Nabataean rock-cut trails all over Petra, connecting the various “buildings” to vantage points and “high places” used for worship.

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Egypt faces photo religion

Faces of Egypt

Egypt is an Arab country, and indeed the Arab conquest came quickly to Egypt given its geographical proximity to the Arabian Peninsula. Nonetheless, Egypt represents a far more ancient culture, and Egyptian Arab identity, to me, seems a particularly distinct one compared to the Arab cultures of the Gulf or even the Levant, both areas in which the modern nation states do not seem to represent a distinct/discrete ethnic identity or culture.

Other than the Nubians originally from southern Egypt and perhaps the Bedouin in the Sinai, we did not encounter significant ethnic minorities, although perhaps it could be said that the Copts represent an Egyptian line with less Arab genetic input. Some pictures:

Vendor, Alexandria. In Alexandria we noticed that many Egyptians seem to have green eyes; it seemed less common in other parts of Egypt.

Scholar, Al Azhar Mosque. This man, to me, seemed somewhat “un-Egyptian” in appearance–he said that his family was from the Delta region.

Perhaps part of this is due to Ramadan, but Egypt feels far more religious than most of the other Islamic countries we have traveled to. The calls to prayer seem louder and more urgent and public worship far more common and conspicuous. Most shockingly (though perhaps that is too strong a word), there is an astonishing number of men who walk around with zebibas (“raisins”), which are forehead prayer bumps from repeated prostration during prayer. While some Egyptian men seem to wear these marks proudly as a testament to how devout they are, it is generally believed that they are intentionally inflicted (perhaps by scraping one’s head on the carpet in an exaggerated manner while praying), rather than a necessary consequence of frequent prayer–little else could explain the absence of such marks on the foreheads of the devout in other Islamic countries.

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Egypt photo

Foreign Powers in Egypt

One of the things that I find surprising about Egypt is that, despite its development centuries ahead of other civilizations and its great material and cultural heights, it never really expanded too far outside the boundaries of the modern state of Egypt–never was there a real expansionary period, a great and lasting Egyptian empire. True, aspects of Egyptian culture spread far around the Mediterranean (perhaps most famously the cult of Isis, which finds echoes in the worship of the Virgin Mary), but Egypt was far more often part of a foreign political entity than the center of an empire. Perhaps this was because Egypt’s most glorious years came well before the age of great empires, but the last 2500 years or so have seen numerous foreign powers in control. The Persians came in with Darius, the Greeks with Alexander the Great, the Romans with Marc Antony and Caesar; the early Arab conquest from Arabia was followed by the Fatimids from the Maghrib, Saladin from Syria and Turkic rule through the Mamelukes and the Ottomans; and most recently there were periods of quasi-colonial rule by the French and British.

It could be said that in general Egyptian culture was less affected by the outsiders than the outsiders were by Egyptian culture, especially before the Arab conquest–Egyptian forms of religion and art persisted stubbornly throughout the Persian, Greek and Roman periods, and even Christianity developed into a local church, the Coptic Orthodox (see post of 10.1). Outsiders who ruled Egypt, such as the Greek Ptolemies and the Turkic Mamelukes, eventually became essentially domestic dynasties, even if they were by blood foreign. Ancient Egyptian culture and history have an appeal that has persisted even in modern America: “Walk Like an Egyptian” (incidentally, a pose we did not see in ancient Egyptian art), Art Deco (see post of 9.15), countless movies, the list goes on. But, as I began, Egypt has for a very long time seen many foreign powers come and go, and in this post I wanted to share some photographs showing their relics–Egypt is not all pharaohs and mosques.

Greek

“Philosopher’s Circle” of Greek thinkers (from Homer to Plato), at the pharaonic Saqqara funerary complex. The Saqqara complex originally dates from Djoser (2667-2648 BC)–these Greek sculptures were added much later during the Ptolemaic era.

Caduceus of Hermes at the Catacombs in Alexandria. The tombs are believed to date from the first to fourth centuries AD, and although there is a mix of Pharaonic and Greek imagery, it is believed that they were for the local Greek population, which had adopted some Egyptian iconography and styles.

The Greek presence in Egypt continued right through into the twentieth century, especially in the city of Alexandria, where a number of Greek coffeeshops remain as witnesses to the city’s Greek past. Early twentieth century Egypt was a far more multicultural place than it is today; since then, most Greeks have moved elsewhere.

Greek Orthodox Church, Old Cairo. The Greek Orthodox Church also maintains the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai (see post of 10.1).

Greek Inscription, Elephantine Island, Aswan

Roman

Roman fortress of Babylon, now called Old Cairo. The Romans/Byzantines were decisively evicted from Egypt by the seventh century Arab conquest, but their Christian faith still persists today in a significant minority of the population.

Roman fresco, Luxor Temple

Latin inscription, Luxor Temple

“Pompey’s Pillar” in Alexandria was actually hoisted by Diocletian, following his quelling of a revolt in Alexandria around 300 AD.

Some of Egypt’s finest remaining temples date from the Greco-Roman era, including the Temple of Horus at Edfu and Temple of Isis at Philae, pictured below. The foreign powers continued Egypt’s ancient religious traditions, placing themselves in the place of the pharaohs on the sculpted reliefs on the walls of the temples.


Jewish

Ruins of Abu on Elephantine Island. There is evidence of Jewish settlements on Elephantine, which is near present-day Aswan deep in Upper Egypt. According to Graham Hancock, the Ark of the Covenant was temporarily stored here in a Jewish Temple, before its journey to its current alleged resting place in Ethiopia.

Jewish synagogue, Alexandria. Most Jews have left Egypt, just as they have left most other Middle Eastern Arab countries.

Colonial

Napoleon arrived in Egypt near the end of the eighteenth century, and is responsible not only for subduing Ottoman control, but also for the first scientific survey of Egypt’s archeological treasures. This inscription in the Temple of Isis at Philae records the French military expedition in Egypt.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Egypt was run essentially as a colony of the British Empire. During this time, a Belgian entrepreneur by the name of Edouard Louis Joseph (Baron Empain) developed the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, building for himself this mansion (now known as the Baron’s Palace) in the form of a Hindu temple.

Old Winter Palace Hotel, Luxor, built in 1886 during Egypt’s colonial period

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Egypt photo religion

Christian Egypt

Chapel, Monastery of St. Paul, on the Red Sea (the animal depictions of the four Evangelists are said by some to resemble the Egyptian funerary gods depicted on canopic jars)

Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country, yes, but like many Muslim countries (see posts of 4.16, 5.17 and 8.16) it has an important and numerous Christian minority. As in the Levant, the Christians of Egypt go back to Biblical times and well predate the advent of Islam, and are the remnants of what used to be the dominant religious group, in this case the local Orthodox sect known as the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Copts still form around 10% of the Egyptian population, are economically quite powerful and take a great deal of pride in their cultural identity. Among other things, the Copts believe themselves to represent the continuation of the Egyptian line from Pharaonic Egypt through Greco-Roman Egypt to the present, holding the Muslim Egyptians as relatively newcomers who came with the seventh century Arab conquest (southern Egypt or Nubia remained largely Christian until as late as the 14th century).

The Copts have suffered more persecution in Egypt than other Christian groups have in other Muslim countries, but the Copts have responded to their recent persecution and the rise of Islamic conservatives in Egypt by banding together strongly and making significant investments in their community, including the ancient Christian establishments of Egypt that are some of the highlights of a visit to the country.

The greatest assemblage of Christian buildings in Egypt is Old Cairo, or Coptic Cairo. Old Cairo is called Old Cairo because it was there before there even was a Cairo, itself a relatively modern city that was founded by the Arabs and then the Fatimids in the seventh and tenth centuries, respectively. Old Cairo is the modern name for the Roman fortification of Babylon, which in Byzantine times grew into an important Christian religious center with a high concentration of churches. Even today the holiest churches of Cairo are in Old Cairo, representing not only the Coptic Orthodox Church but also the Greek Orthodox Church. There’s even a Jewish synagogue.


More important to me than Coptic Cairo, however, was a visit to the monasteries of the Red Sea. These were the first Christian monasteries in the world–yes, the Egyptian desert is the birthplace of the Christian monastic movement–and so are arguably some of the most important Christian sites in the world for their impact on the development of the faith. Christian monasticism began with a desert hermit named St. Paul, who lived out his life alone in a cave in the desert, and was followed by St. Anthony, who in trying to follow the solitary life of a hermit actually ended up founding the world’s first monastery (and quite a large one at that, with up to 2,000 monks) not too far from St. Paul’s cave. St. Anthony’s hagiography was later written by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, whose influence helped establish St. Anthony’s fame and the rise of the monastic movement throughout Christendom.

St. Paul and St. Anthony

Seeing the monasteries of St. Paul and St. Anthony was very meaningful to me, because I wrote my college senior paper on the Life of St. Anthony by Athanasius (one of my majors was Ancient Studies). I’ve also always thought that I would have made a good monk in another life. The desert monasteries, however, gave me a slightly different impression of the lives of St. Paul and St. Anthony than I had imagined. When I read about Anthony’s experiences in the desert, I imagined a very harsh existence full of heat and sun and thirst. I pictured a world of blinding light, where sheer deprivation and exposure led to visions of demons and God.

But of course such harsh conditions–total exposure in the desert–are not endurable; people cannot survive. The reality is that the monasteries are quite close to the Red Sea, which even if not the highway of international commerce that it is today would still have provided a transportation route to the hermits, as did the tracks to the Nile. And, even in the Egyptian desert, temperatures are quite bearable in the shade, whether that of a cave or of a thick-walled monastery or church. Both monasteries also benefit from springs (of course essential to the maintenance of life), and the water from the springs have been channelled to create little oases in the monastic grounds. In the case of St. Paul’s the spring is a very small one indeed–a drip–but the spring of St. Anthony sustains a small population, and the water properly used supports a beautiful garden with food plants and palm trees. The hermits lived in the desert wilderness, yes, but created for themselves areas of surprising beauty, life and tranquility, protected from the raw elements.

Monastery of St. Paul, on the Red Sea, founded after the death of St. Paul

Monastery of St. Anthony, on the Red Sea

Finally, the most famous Christian site in Egypt: the Monastery of St. Catherine’s in the Sinai. This site is important not only because it’s been the site of a Christian monastery (in this case Greek Orthodox, and not Coptic) since the fourth century, but because the location is believed to be of Biblical importance: where Moses spoke to the burning bush and received the Ten Commandments from God. The bush was silent during our visit.

Exodus Chapter 3: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. . . .”

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Egypt Pakistan photo

Terrorism and Tourism

We are in south Sinai, the locus of some of the deadliest terrorist attacks on tourists in the last few years, and we were told by a co-guest at our hotel that locals had told them that a major attack of some sort was expected at or shortly after end of Ramadan, which is today. The end of Ramadan, or the Eid al-Fitr, is not especially known for being a time for terrorist activity, but I suppose any holiday may pose a tempting/meaningful date for an attacker. Are we afraid? Not really–but certain senses, honed in 2001, seem to be kicking back in, second thoughts about the kinds of luggage loaded onto our bus, a lowered bar for what constitutes “strange behavior” in others and what is the safest mode of transport. As I previously discussed in my post of 4.29, traveling does bring about somewhat greater risks of all kinds, and with it more paranoia about what might happen. All in all, a good time for some thoughts on terrorism and tourism.

From a traveler’s perspective, I think that there are three categories of terrorism, each of which carries different risks. The first is “domestic” terrorism, the best example of which is probably the many recent attacks in India, or the recent Damascus bombing. As a Korean traveler told me in northern Pakistan, Korean tourists aren’t worried about bombs in Pakistan because they’re aimed at other Pakistanis (say, ones of a different religious sect, or ones affiliated with a certain political movement) and not at tourists. While of course a traveler can still be caught in the crossfire (believe it or not, we ran into two separate tourists who said that they were very close to blasts in Lahore), at least some of these bombs are likely to go off in places where a foreign traveler is not particularly likely to venture. We are not the intended target.

The second category is terrorism directed at outside interests. The most prominent target in this category is perhaps an embassy, or a foreign military installation. This type of terrorism is perhaps most akin to a sort of informal war–the attackers mean not only to terrorize but to make a statement and inflict damage. Examples of this are of course many, including U.S. embassy bombings in any number of countries, the attack on the USS Cole, the bombing in Beirut.

The third category is, for travelers, the scariest: terrorism directed specifically at tourists, most likely in an effort to hurt tourism and decrease foreign influence in the country. The deadliest recent example of this is probably the Bali bomb of 2002, which killed 202 people from 21 (!) different countries. More recently, four people were targeted and killed in Yemen at a major tourist attraction. Hotel bombings fall somewhere between categories two and three, perhaps depending on the kind of hotel that is chosen (some hotels may be chosen for their international “brand,” sort of like an embassy, rather than the explicit desire to discourage foreign travelers).

The “prize” for this third, scariest category of terrorism goes to Egypt, not only for the number of incidents but the heinousness of the targets and methods. In 1997, in an incident known as the Luxor Massacre, a group of six attackers armed with guns and knives trapped and slaughtered 63 people, mostly tourists, in one of the main tourist attractions of Luxor, the Temple of Hatshepsut. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, terrorists killed 34, 88 and 23 people, respectively, in bombings in three different resort areas in the Sinai: Taba, Sharm el Sheikh and Dahab. Also in 2005, there were bombings or shootings near three of the most popular tourist sites in Cairo, the Khan al Khalili market, the Egyptian Museum and Saladdin’s Citadel.

Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor, site of one of the grisliest terror attacks in recent history

Due to the layout of the ruin, tourists were “trapped” for slaughter.

Three separate suicide bombs were set off in Dahab on April 24, 2006.

A truck with explosives drove into the lobby of the Taba Hilton on October 7, 2004, one of three bombings that evening.

Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Yes, the odds of me or you happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time are still fairly slim, but the probability increases dramatically when the attackers are choosing their targets specifically to target groups of tourists, places where tourists spend their time. We are their target. Maybe we shouldn’t “let the terrorists win” by avoiding places such as Egypt altogether, but as the lesson of September 11 taught, terrorists do like to hit the same targets over and over again (perhaps because they are simply the best targets), and Egypt as a country has a uniquely dangerous history in this respect, something visitors should be aware of. While there are countless police and military stationed all across Egypt, one wonders whether armed men begging for tips or sleeping in the backs of vehicles can really stop an attack, or whether such a presence would deter terrorists who are willing to die for their cause.

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Egypt photo

Fellow Tourists

When you pick a travel destination, you may think of how far it is, how easy it is to get there, what there is to see, what there is to eat, where there is to stay, how much things cost, and how safe it is. It may not occur to you to gauge who will be there with you–what kinds of people your fellow tourists will be. But the more you think about it, the more you realize that who else will be there should be a key consideration in choosing a travel destination.

Perhaps the “best” fellow travelers, for us, are independent budget travelers. Most typical is the late 20s/early 30s backpacker, usually from Western Europe or East Asia, traveling after graduating college or post-graduate education, or between jobs. As a whole, Central Asia attracts a well-educated, well-traveled lot, with ample linguistic abilities, travel skills, cultural sensitivity, and so forth. Almost without a doubt, a fellow traveler in Central Asia will have something interesting to show for themselves, a good story or two from the region or elsewhere on their travels. The types of fellow travelers, I find, broadens the “easier” the destination is, but broader does not necessarily mean worse. For example, in Southeast Asia, you may find a younger or less-worldy crowd, but for the most part you are still dealing with independent travelers, people with some sense of adventure and desire to immerse themselves in local cultures.

This issue occurred to me because Egypt is perhaps the worst place in the world that we’ve experienced, in terms of fellow travelers. Egypt is overrun with package tourists. Now, there’s nothing wrong, fundamentally, with going on a package tour. Travel planning can be a daunting and demanding effort (however much I love it), and going on a tour does maximize the amount of things you can see and learn in a limited amount of time. A knowledgeable guide could even afford you cultural insight that would be hard to access for an independent traveler. And, of course, tours can be quite cost-efficient.

But far more often, tours have serious deficiencies. Traveling in a guided group insulates you from interactions with locals (however appealing that sometimes sounds in Egypt). Traveling in a group means that you never have sights to yourself, paced according to your own interests. Explanations are dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Many tour groups stay at mediocre hotels and eat mediocre food. That is why many (though by no means all) tours attract people who are intimidated by traveling by themselves, people who are less interested in cultural immersion, people who are satisfied with a quick and superficial understanding of history and people with relatively low standards for food and hotels (at least as far as value, authenticity and atmosphere are concerned–no doubt almost all tours stay and eat at fancier and more hygenic places than we do). (One might even go so far as to suggest that tour group tourists don’t really enjoy travel for travel itself. Let’s face it, spending long periods of time immersed in places where people speak little or no English and may have little else in common with you can be lonely, no matter how close you are to your travel companion(s). It should come as no surprise then that people turn to groups and in the end derive as much or more pleasure from internal group interactions as from external stimulus–that’s certainly been the case in the groups we’ve had the pleasure of joining.)

Egypt is full of such mediocre tours. Perhaps people are intimidated by traveling in an Islamic country, or maybe they have very little travel experience and are fulfilling some childhood dream of seeing the Pyramids. But this lack of standards, on the part of the tourists, results in a country whose travel infrastructure is, considering the volume of tourism, largely unspectacular. Package tourists, for the most part, stay in mediocre three-star type hotels that are absurdly overpriced when not booked on a tour, and so Egypt does not have the wonderful range of budget accommodations that one finds in, say, Southeast Asia. Food is similarly uninspiring, with many restaurants offering bland adaptations of local food (I suppose we can thank the abundant British tourists for that). Worst of all, having undiscriminating, relatively free-spending package tourists with apparently little interest in learning about local culture or spending time with locals constantly breezing in and out of cities promotes the worst kind of behavior in local merchants: aggressive salesmanship, overcharging, poor service.

Heaven forbid you have to walk a little to see the Pyramids!

There are other fellow tourist considerations in addition to the prevalence of tour groups at a given destination. In some places, there are large numbers of domestic tourists. The most extreme example of this, I believe, is China, where foreign tourists are almost always dramatically outnumbered by domestic tourists. This can be good or bad, depending on your perspective. Hawaii and Tahiti attract a lot of honeymooning couples, and so a single traveler may feel awkward and lonely. There are cultural issues, too. If you speak French, and only French, you would have more opportunities to meet fellow French speakers in a destination that attracts relatively more French, such as Cambodia or Madagascar.

One small story, showing that hotels understand that travelers care who their co-travelers are: Somewhat shockingly, the Hyatt in Sharm El Sheikh enforces a dress code banning Islamic dress (euphemistically called “ethnic dress”) at the pool and on the beach, even while allowing topless bathing on the beach–no doubt their research showed that their “international” clientele felt more comfortable without a burqa in sight.