Resident Perspective: Maadi Degla

Resident Perspective is a series of standardized interviews with Cairo residents to get their views on the city and their neighborhoods.

Where in Cairo do you live?
I live in Maadi Degla and will be moving to Dokki soon. This area is a tasteless cut-and-paste of the West.

List the most positive and the most negative aspects of living there.
The positive aspects: lots of trees and quietness (although not in the street where I live, 216 road). Negative aspects: 1) I miss a real neighborhood life and cultural activities. Lots of fast food, American style coffee shops and restaurants, but no cultural or social activities that will create a sense of neighborhood. 2) Transportation is a real problem (I do not drive), given that I go often to wast-el-balad to enjoy the cultural life.

How do you move around Cairo (modes of transport) and what would you like to see different regarding the future of transport in the city?
I move around in metro and taxi. There is a need: 1) to connect peripheral areas, which have very limited transport opportunities (microbuses and buses). The subway service needs to be expanded to distant areas such as the Fifth Settlement (where I go quite often), but I do not see how such public work could be funded. How is it possible to create settlements so far away without proper modes of transport? 2) to renew the buses and better organize the services with well planned connections.

How does your district fit within Cairo? What would you like to see changed in that relationship between your neighborhood and the city?
Maadi is an accessible area, but it is not so well connected to the city center (for European standards). They wrongly believe that if you live in an area, you make all your life there (work, leisure…) so you do not need to move around.

What are your top complaints about Cairo and what would you suggest to solve those problems?

Extreme social inequalities, with extremely wealthy and poor/working class neighborhoods side by side, with unequal services - Lack of quality public services and infrastructure (transport, health, garbage collection….) - Traffic, traffic, traffic - Lack of availability of apartments for rent at reasonable prices (although rents are going down in some areas) 1) The real problem: Cairo’s governance. If I have understood well, there are no elected local councils (at the level of both the whole city and districts), so there is no commitment to solve the city problems. Lack of transparency, commitment, responsiveness…One of the solutions: local elections, elected local councils, together with neighborhood committees with an advisory role or some kind of participatory democracy. Cairo inhabitants – excepted wealthy areas – are neglected, ignored; their voices are not heard in the city planning, management, administration…. Still, they know well what the problems are and should be involved in the solutions. 2) There is a need to have a better wealth distribution, through local taxes for companies and individuals (depending on their income) to create better infrastructure and a safety net for the most disadvantaged.

What do you like the most about Cairo and what are your favorite places in the city.

Cairo people is what I like the most. My favorite places in the city: - the old Islamic Cairo (which needs to be better valued, with more renovation projects that involve local inhabitants) and their popular neighborhoods - downtown architecture when Cairo wanted to be Paris, but unfortunately these beautiful buildings have been neglected for decades - the rive Nile

Do you relate to the historic heritage of your district or of Cairo in general? Do you think you have a good sense of history of the city? Would you say you are have “civic pride” or are proud to live in Cairo?

I relate to the historic heritage of Cairo. I fell in love with Cairo many years ago. After Mubarak’s fall, I chose to move to Cairo. I am very much interested in the history of the city, the architecture of the Mameluk period, and later on, the colonial period… I am collecting old postcards of Cairo (1900-1918). When I look at Cairo, I do not see it only as it is now, I imagine also how it was. I would not say that I am proud of living in Cairo, but I am happy to have moved here (with all the good things and inconveniences) in the ongoing transition period.

Do you understand how the city is governed/managed? Do you think your community/district would be better or worst if residents from the community/district were involved in local government (محليات)?

The solution of Cairo’s problems lies in local governance. I was expecting after the parliamentary and presidential elections, local elections too… Again, it is not enough to have elected local councils: inhabitants need to be involved at the level of districts.

In the context of Cairo, what comes to mind when you think of these keywords?

Public Space: disrespect towards local inhabitants (these have no sense of “city/district/public space ownership”. There is no respect for local inhabitants… so these do not respect the public space.

Green Space/Parks: so few… so important to be proud of your city, to feel at ease, to build a sense of “community”. Al-Azhar park is a paradise. Wouldn’t it be possible to create small parks, as community projects, with the participation of local inhabitants?

Gated communities: urban apartheid

Museums:  there is no policy to use museums for pedagogical purposes (for youth and adults), for adult education. The cultural patrimony in a broad sense should not be for tourists only.

Informal areas: I do not know

Downtown: a neglected gem

If you could move to another district in Cairo where would you move to?
I am moving to Dokki very soon, where I used to live before. It is close to downtown without the disadvantages of the city center. I can walk to the Nile and downtown, which gives me a sense of freedom. I enjoyed walking there: many trees (it is relaxing), the area is well kept, many architecture treasures from colonial times (beautiful villas). The most important: there is in Dokki a neighborhood life.

*If you would like to tell us about where you live and share your views on Cairo, fill the survey by clicking here.

CUIP: Introducing the Cairo Urban Initiatives Platform

The Cairo Urban Initiatives Platform is a project by CLUSTER. CUIP “is a bilingual Arabic/English online directory and a shared calendar of events for the multiple art, culture, architecture, advocacy, urban development and interdisciplinary organizations/initiatives addressing issues related to the city, the urban environment and public space in Cairo. CUIP offers an expanding index of organizations and initiatives operating in Cairo, and an overview of events in categories including academia/research, advocacy, architecture, urbanism, crafts, cultural development, film, heritage, literature, music, networking, performing arts, photography, public space, sustainability, technology and visual arts.”

The online platform uses an attractive interface that is easy to use and navigate. For the first time Cairo has a tool that allows us not only to list in one place but also see on a map the various initiatives and arts spaces, creating a sense of perspective that was missing until now. The list of institutions, initiatives and groups is a work in progress, although most are already listed on the platform. The site is meant to be user-generated allowing persons/initiatives to create a new listing by filling an online application and creating a user name and login to maintain their organization’s events up-to-date. Organizations are then shown on the map and color coded. Upcoming events show on the map and they become animated (flashing) to attract attention. The color coding system while attractive at first impression doesn’t immediately translate into a clear distinction of theme or function (meaning it may not become obviously clear what the difference is between light blue and dark blue coded initiatives). However there is a tab on the interface that allows users to choose by name, by type, by focus, by activity and by resource.

In the absence of a comprehensive city-wide guide that provides listings and events CUIP will prove to be an essential tool for those interested in Cairo’s cultural/urban/architectural events and happenings. It could also help organizations coordinate to avoid overlapping events and conflicting calenders.

Like any map, however, CUIP while it makes certain spaces and initiatives visible it also makes invisible other potential spaces for arts and culture, namely the official establishment. It would be useful to include perhaps another color-coded category for official museums and other state-managed cultural spaces some of which sit empty and could potentially be used for events and programs by independent initiatives. The current map perpetuates the invisibility of this latent potential by only highlighting the active and energetic independent arts and culture scene.

CUIP is an important initiative of its own that is much needed in a city where sometimes it seems that nothing is happening at all and at other times it seems everything is happening at once. The platform helps us in navigating the clutter of facebook invites and email invites to separate events and spaces that are now listed and visible in one resource and calender. The success of the platform depends on the active participation of the various initiatives listed on the site who must use their login access to maintain their profiles and update their events.

For the how-to guide for using the site (pdf) click here.

CUIP is currently managed by Amy Arif, contact at: info@cuipcairo.org

Cairo’s 19th century transformation in 7 points

Cairo, like many cities across the globe, underwent a significant process of urban transformation in the mid-19th century. At the core of these transformations, which can be traced in cities from Latin America, Europe, and Asia, are sewage systems, street lighting, and drinking water systems. Most of these major infrastructural changes happen below street level, which explains why commentators on the 19th century often look up at what is visible, buildings, and rarely look below their feet. Also important to note that contrary to the dual city narrative 19th century infrastructural changes were implemented in both new and old parts of the city, with varying difficulty and speed for obvious reasons. Cairo has fallen victim to urban history that has elided the complexity of the city’s urban transformation during that time. I have already argued before that Paris was never along the Nile. On a recent trip to Paris I walked down the uniform apartment blocks of Haussmann’s Paris and stayed in one such building where behind the homogeneous facades are often small apartments reached by rickety small wooden stairs. Cairo’s 19th century (and early twentieth century) apartments were often dismissed as hastily-built Parisian simulacra in analysis obsessed by reductive East/West dichotomies and which privilege the eye. A closer investigation of Cairo’s “Parisian” architecture beyond reducing architectural history to facade reading, reveals a different set of socio-economic constructs that produced these buildings.

The focus on the above-mentioned aspect of 19th century urban development in Cairo has kept the major changes of that era in the footnotes of the official narrative. Today, as the city is desperately in need of comprehensive urban transformation and upgrading it is important to highlight the less visible but major projects carried out 150 years ago around the reign of Ismail that continue to shape the city today in ways more fundamental than mere aesthetics. Here are 7 major 19th century projects that reshaped Cairo:

1. Stabilizing the Nile Banks: The Nile in Cairo shifted with season which made the prospect of urbanization Nile-side a difficult one. Stabilizing the banks of the river, completed by 1865 and filling the adjacent areas that previously flooded made urban development possible and added riverside properties to the city’s real estate. However before the prospect of real estate the first large Nile-side building erected along the newly stabilized river were the new barracks of the Egyptian army (1865-68) known as Qasr el Nil. Tahrir Square would have been underwater if it wasn’t for this major infrastructural project. Qasr el Nil Bridge was also erected following the stabilization of the river and was opened in 1871.

2. The Northern boundaries: The areas north of historic Cairo near the recently built train station (1854) consisted of small hills which were flattened and and used in the draining and filling of the city’s lakes further south. Near by there were fields of radish فجل which were removed to make way for a new neighborhood named Faggala فجالة and Sakakini further north. A square was planned fronting the train station as the city’s northern entrance and Shubra street (tree-lined and extending north to Muhammad Ali’s Shubra palace) was connected to this area directly.

3. Abdeen Area: To the west of the old city was a small lake fronted by the estate of Abdeen Bek. The area was surrounded by marches to the west and slums to the east. The estate became the location for a new royal palace (moving the seat of power from the citadel down to the level of the city) and the new palace was built in 1863. The lake and marches were filled and a city square and new streets extending from the new palace were planned. The neighborhood of Abdeen was born.

4. Azbakiyya: Another area that was radically transformed was the posh district of Azbakiyya which overlooked a lake. The lake was filled and transformed into a garden during the rule of Muhammad Ali and the garden was redesigned again during the rule of Khedive Ismail. The transformation of Azbakiyya included the creation of several small public squares such as Khazindar and Attaba as well as Opera Square. The famed Cairo Opera House (1869) was built along side the public garden and several hotels were erected on the west side of the garden which was a linking space between the edge of the old city and the westward urban expansion that became downtown.

5. The East Bank: Major avenues were planned to crisscross the city connecting the western edge of the old city to the Nile. Such new streets were Emmaddidin, Muhammad Farid Bek, Almalika (Ramsis), Merit Pasha and Qasr el Aini. Ismailia Square (Tahrir) began to take shape by the 1870s as well as surrounding squares such as Bab el Louk and neighborhoods such as Mounira, Dawaween. These newly planned areas were paved with water systems underground, sidewalks and trees above and street lighting installed before building lots were developed by individuals.

6. The West Bank: Also following the stabilization of the river the west bank, which was raised two meters above water level, was available for development. Although it largely remained agricultural several new projects were implemented: The Orman Botanical Garden and the Giza Zoo as well as the Pyramids Road. A new Giza palace was erected as well.

7. Gezira Island: Known today as Zamalek, the island was consolidated out of several smaller islands and was largely left as a retreat with a palace and garden erected to host the French queen during her visit (today’s Marriott). With the exception of the palace the island was meant as an escape, a natural landscape dotted with wooden shacks/huts which gave the island its name. Eventually parts of the landscape were formalized into gardens and later streets were implemented such as Gezira St., Gabalaya St., Nile St., and eventually Foad St. (26th July).

These major projects were initiated during the reign of Khedive Ismail, however earlier projects took place during his grandfather’s rule such as the opening of several streets through the old city and the legislation of Tanzim laws for urban management. Also other major transformation took place later in the 19th century such as the filling of Khalij al-Masri (1890s) and the creation of Cairo’s first tram line in its route on what became today’s Port Said St.

Event: Parallel Practice

Artists as Urban Catalysts in Downtown Cairo

Last December the Geothe Institute hosted a panel discussion titled “Artists as Urban Catalysts in Downtown Cairo.” The event was organized by Beth Stryker and Omar Nagati (Cluster) and supported by the Ford Foundation. Invited panelists represented two types of stakeholders in downtown: property owners (Karim Shafei, CEO of Al Ismaelia Real Estate Development, and Bruce Ferguson, Dean of the School of Humanities representing the American University in Cairo), and representatives of cultural organizations (founding member of the Contemporary Image Collective Heba Farid, Townhouse Curator Ania Szremski, filmmaker and co-founder of Cimateque Tamer El Said). The panel was moderated by Mohamed Elshahed (Cairobserver).

The panel aimed to bring together the above mentioned representatives in an open public discussion to re-examine what the organizers called “the classic appropriation of artists as catalysts for urban regeneration by real-estate developers seeking future gentrification,”  asking how things might play out differently in Cairo. However, a key word in that sentence is difficult to translate into Arabic: Gentrification. Although the discussion was held in English (with Arabic translation available), it was important to note the untransability of the conversation’s central concept. The unavailability of a direct translation of the term/concept doesn’t mean the processes of gentrification do not exist in Cairo but it points to the need for analysis and theorization grounded in the Egyptian context.

AUC’s downtown campus, much of which is no longer in use, could potentially act as an anchor for cultural activity downtown and provide much needed space for independent artist organizations as well as to its own students to maintain the link between the now suburban university and its downtown urban past. The university has not taken an active role in realizing that potential, however it has made its Falaki Theater available for public performances and events. Al-Ismailia on the other hand is actively engaged with arts and culture in downtown; not only do several arts organizations rent space from the company, Al-Ismailia is also the main sponsor and organizer of the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival.

The three arts spaces represented (CIC, Cimateque and Townhouse) while they rent the spaces they presently occupy, their relatively short-term leases mean insecurity and potentially being forced out of their premises due a variety of economic factors. In other cities, particularly in Europe, similar arts organizations were able to negotiate deals with municipalities in which long-term leases were granted, sometimes with no rent, which has helped such organizations thrive by focusing their funds into their creative activities while catalyzing the regeneration of their urban contexts (which municipalities are interested in). Such a process is not possible in Cairo as the state; the governorate (the closest Cairo has to a municipality) does not seek artists as catalysts for areas it manages where underused buildings could be transformed into cultural centers. Nor does the Cairo governorate have a development plan or vision in which independent culture plays a key role in transforming the city. Thus, Cairo’s independent artists and the cultural organizations they establish depend on their relationship to private property owners when it comes to establishing a space. The three speakers on this side of the debate explicated the opportunities and challenges they face in this matter.

It is important to note that Egypt has a massive centralized Culture Ministry with an immense budget and numerous spaces including nearby downtown at the campus of the Opera and in downtown such as the National Theater. However these spaces are often inactive and unwelcoming not only to audiences but also to artists. The ministry’s budgets mostly go into paying wages, not into programming.

Two competing voices emerged from the audience; on one hand some applauded the work of Al Ismailia and its support for the arts in downtown. One audience member argued that as artists “no one owes us anything” and that artists must find ways to establish their spaces without relying on support from private interests. On the other hand, others voiced concern with those sentiments and argued that in the Egyptian context when contemporary art lacks cohesive institutional support, private developers and property owners have an increased responsibility to support artists with affordable spaces.

The panel discussion revealed the need for a mediating entity between the various and sometimes conflicting interests of stakeholders. As moderator I suggested the need to establish a “Downtown Arts Council,” an independent body that incorporates members of the various stakeholders on its board and which acts as a mediator, organizer, advocate and promoter of the arts in the district. Such councils have been established as non-profit organizations in cities around the world for several decades and they have had a key role in the stimulation of cultural and artistic life in those cities. An arts council for downtown Cairo will allow artists to focus on their creative work and not be burdened with logistics while acting as a buffer between the two co-dependent yet unequal (in financial terms) main players in this scene: the artists and the property owners/developers. The institutional structure of arts councils differ around the world and their relationships to the states and ministries of culture also differ and range from direct support by the state to parallel operations and autonomy. Cairo’s downtown arts community and other stakeholders will need to sit down on many occasions besides this panel to decide on which model works best for Cairo’s context.

To this end the organizers staged the panel around the critical questions: “How is Cairo different from other cities, such as New York and Beirut, where such cycles of gentrification have taken place? What role may the underutilized AUC campus play in providing a  cultural anchor Downtown? What are the advantages and downsides of private sector partnerships between real estate stakeholders and independent artists and arts organizations?” They created this initial forum seeking “to explore potential local strategies for sustaining artists’ access to the generative contributions they make to urban development.”

The arts can be an engine for urban regeneration and development while urban development and investment can enrich the arts, but striking this balance without repeating the mistakes of other “creative city” experiments will be difficult. This panel discussion was an important first step in starting a meaningful conversation. Cluster organized the panel discussion as the first in what they are developing as an ongoing series of stakeholder meetings related to the arts and urban development in Downtown Cairo. Maintaining that conversation, evolving it and reaching useful conclusions and outcomes will be work that the stakeholders will have to carryout for themselves and in cooperation with one another, otherwise such panel discussions risk becoming ephemeral one off events with little tangible impact on the issues discussed therein.

For more information and for a video of the discussion click here.

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona

Brooklyn Arts Council

Running the City: the making of Cairo’s Marathon

Last month I featured Nabil Shawkat’s city walking group and the pleasures of exploring Cairo on foot. We pick up the pace this month with Cairo Runners who are gearing up for Cairo’s half marathon (22K) on May 10.

Last December Cairo Runners held their first run (4K) in Zamalek. Since then and until the recent hiatus in anticipation of the big event of the half marathon, organizers have maintained a weekly Friday morning run with the distance increasing bit by bit. The runs were also organized at different locations across the city from the heart of the capital to the desert cities at its periphery. It is safe to assume that most of the runners have not had a chance to cross such distances on foot in Cairo let alone to be doing it among a large group of fellow Cairenes.

During the revolution protesters walked en mass from across the city towards Tahrir Square. When else would have residents from Mohandeseen, for example, left their cars parked and walked across the river to downtown? In one way or another the revolution was about rediscovering the city on foot. Now Cairo Runners has ignited its own revolution that challenges the accepted norms and injects athletic life into Cairo’s streets on a regular basis. Until Cairo Runners it was rare that athletes would take to the streets for exercise, partly because of the crowdedness and pollution. But also because the city has not invested in creating pedestrian friendly routes that encourage jogging. Thus exercise was limited to the indoors and to those who can afford a gym membership.

Cairo Runners’ social media manager, Salma, answered Cairobserver’s questions and here is the interview.

Cairo Runners is not just about running, it is also about Cairo itself, could you explain why urban running and why now.

It’s not like we invented urban running, but I just thought it is another type revolution Egypt needs. Most people who work out already like to run, but they do it in gated areas or on a treadmill. What we wanted to do is spice things up by providing Cairens with a somewhat unconventional way to run.

You managed to have a large following in a record short time, why do you think running in the city in a big group turned out to be so popular?

I think it is because it is a fresh new idea. No one really thinks about running in the streets, but when people actually tried it out they found that the spirit of a group workout and the harmony it provides really goes a long way. It boosts your energy compared to when you go off for a solo run, and it becomes a social gathering, of the sort. Something us Egyptians love. 

Each of your runs is in a different part of the city, could you explain the logic behind this and give us a specific example of one of the runs in a particular part of Cairo and tell us how it went.

The logic behind it is simple. We don’t want people to get bored. The whole idea behind Cairo Runners is escaping from a mundane routine workout. You go to the gym, look at the same wall for an hour straight, and leave. It’s too monotonous and bland for an activity so energetic and lively. If we were to run in the same area every week, people would probably get bored after a few times. We also really want people to discover Cairo. It is wonderful hearing people say things like “I’ve never been on this street before,” or “this is such a nice area,” etc. You’re not only on a run, you’re also discovering your own city, bit by bit. Our personal favorite area, is Zamalek: Lots of greenery, no pollution, great historic, culturally-traditonal atmosphere. 

What were the major differences between the areas you ran in, were some areas more hospitable than others?

Yes, as much as it is breath-taking to run by the Nile, Giza area is always full of traffic, no matter what time of day it is. This can be very inconvenient to runners. Some other older areas may have more cracked roads. But overall we did not experience any major setbacks on any of our runs. 

What do you think it will take to make Cairo a running friendly (or pedestrian friendly) city?

We really just need better roads. A lot of Cairo’s roads are cracked and uneven and this can affect people’s decisions to go back again. It will take a lot of time for Cairo to be running-friendly, but we’re giving it that boost and doing our part. 

Have you had to deal with the authorities and do you think they may welcome or obstruct potentially organizing an official Cairo Marathon?

Definitely. Especially for the half marathon we had to take consent to close down streets and things of the sort, and we have also asked the government to provide security for that major day. But they have been pretty compliant till now, and have not given us much trouble. 

What would be the ideal route for an annual Cairo Marathon?

Well. We’ve already chosen a route for the half marathon. We have a pretty good idea for what would be an ideal full marathon route, but we can not just give that away now. You’ll have to wait till we plan it.

How do you think the runs change the way residents/runners relate to the city? Is this an opportunity to rediscover Cairo on foot?

Definitely. As I said before, it’s a whole experience. It’s not just a run, but it is about doing it in an adventurous way, rediscovering Cairo, embracing the positivity and beaming energy that merits a group exercise. It is just a whole unique experience of it’s own. 

Anything you’d like to add?

Over the weeks I’ve come to realize just how important CR is. People get lazy to workout on their own, everyone needs that extra push to get out and get fit, and that’s just part of the Cairo Runners experience. When you find out that 500-1000 people are out running on a Friday morning, chances are it’ll peak your interest, and you’ll go out just to see what the fuss is all about. It is also the small things like a 58 year old diabetic man randomly calling us to thank us for what we do in the community, and expressing how he loves to run with us. That is just a major indicator of the initiative’s significance. We have also had countless people tell us that because of Cairo Runners they have stopped smoking, or lost the weight they’ve been dreading. So, In a nutshell, to us a strong impact on just a handful of people can go a long way, and it truly shows that what we do is of great importance.

The half marathon takes place on May 10, click here for more info.

Cairo Runners are on Facebook and Twitter.

Borsa gets its own hyperlocal newspaper

Mantiqti is a free newspaper issued by Egypt Media Development Program (EMDP) dedicated to the Borsa area of downtown Cairo. Publisher Tarek Atia moved his office to the area nine months ago and quickly he and his staff became an integral part of the community, the neighborhood. “For some Borsa is the financial district with the stock exchange the central bank and the headquarters of the national bank, for others it is the café district with 34 cafés all within an area delimited by three major streets,” says Attia in his publisher’s note in the inaugural issue.

Borsa is an area that falls within three streets, which are Sherif, Qasr el Nil and Sabry Abu Alam, forming the triangle of mostly pedestrian streets. Within this area are three major pedestrian streets: Elwy, Sherifeen and El-Qadi El-Fadel. EMDP presents a new perspective on community engagement which bridges the activities of the company with its local physical context, the neighborhood, producing a new kind of media product that hasn’t been experimented with in Egypt, the hyperlocal newspaper.

Within its 16 pages the paper includes a variety of content ranging from investigative reporting to editorials and opinions. Advertisements for local businesses such as the popular yet hidden hole in the wall restaurant fas7et somaya emphasize the hyperlocal focus of the paper. A calendar provides information for daily events throughout the month ranging from festival events part of Hal Badeel or D-Caf or events in near by venues such as theaters and galleries.

A map with landmarks in the area with historical anecdotes serves a double function, it highlights the historic quality of the area by providing brief but interesting factual information while providing an easy to read representation of the area too small to get this kind of detail in other conventional maps. The scale of the area of focus is the strength of this project. The stories that will emerge from these few blocks in the city center will have relevance in areas across the city, but the scale of investigation here will hopefully produce clearer more direct observations, questions and solutions that will help Cairenes think of issues such as trash collection, parking, street vendors among others in a fresh new way.

While Cairo deserves a city-focused free daily or weekly newspaper that makes the city the core focus of its journalistic endeavor, the neighborhood is another scale that is often neglected by existing national newspapers. Downtown, Zamalek, Imbaba, Sayyeda Zeynab, Maadi, Heliopolis, these are all parts of Cairo with their own sense of place and community despite the absence of the governance and media infrastructure needed to engender this sense of locality. In these and other neighborhoods a sense community and belonging continues to define individuals’ identity. We’ve seen this sense of local/neighborhood-based identity play out in other recent initiatives such as the Heliopolis community efforts to safeguard the area’s architectural heritage or in new initiatives such as Nassya. Cairo will only become a better city when these locally-rooted community initiatives become stronger and eventually infiltrate governance structures and local decision-making processes. One of the necessary steps to do this is creating a media sense of awareness of locality. Mantiqti could potentially pave the way towards helping other communities formulate their own locally-specific community-driven newspapers. Mantiqti is both a development project and a purely commercial enterprise at the same time positioned between the past and future of local media in Egypt.

Despite covering a small geographical area, Mantiqti faces a big challenge: its focus is a subpart of a neighborhood, a particular part of the larger downtown area is an area of complex relations dominated by passersby (the users of the cafés), rather than a stable residential core. Perhaps this explains why in the first issue of Mantiqti editor Alia Hamed wrote “Borsa Constitution,” a kind of proposal for a set of six points for all users of the area to abide by and agree upon, ultimately for the public good of the community (residents, passersby and shop owners alike). The Borsa constitution, a citizen’s charter, is an EMDP initiative signed by over 50 local business owners and residents.

The second issue of Mantiqti will be out in May, look for a copy when you’re in the Borsa area. Hopefully other hyperlocal newspapers will emerge across the city, building the sense of community and cohesion that has been missing for so long.

This post was updated on May 1, 2013.

Reviewing the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival

The second edition of the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) kicked off earlier this month. The program lasting over three weeks includes performing arts, visual arts, music, film, edutainment and “urban visions,” a program of free contemporary dance and theater events in public spaces. Festival organizer Ahmed El Attar is clear about his intentions: “to highlight that public space is the space for the exchange of values and practices between people, and that while politics and protest have paved the way in the last two years, art is another legitimate means of engaging with the world.” This is not just another urban renewal cultural event; there are specificities here that make this seemingly familiar concept of employing culture as a driver for urban development different in Cairo in 2013. The Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival is making space “for ideas to be discussed and projects to be planned, for audiences to be inspired and provoked.” While the political landscape continues to be illegible, and while clashes continue to sporadically erupt and while many are waiting by the sidelines to decide their next move, and while questions surround the future of the arts and freedom of expression D-CAF rushes in to actively become part of the conversation and of the process shaping the future of downtown Cairo and beyond.

One of the most successful aspects of the festival is the appropriation of space in downtown in new ways (dancing, theater and performance in public space), reusing spaces that have been closed for years (film screenings in Cinema Radio), or reimagining the uses of already functional spaces (concerts in Shahrazade Cabaret).

[The Great War by Hotel Modern (The Netherlands) - April 16 - Falaki Theatre - Photo by Mostafa Abdel Aty]

One of the performances we attended was The Great War by Hotel Modern, a Dutch visual arts group (four persons) that combines puppets, theater, music, film and performance. The group performed twice in Falaki Theater, part of the downtown AUC campus. Using miniature sets placed on stage with small cameras transmitting images onto a projection, the group narrates World War I in less than an hour combining top down narrative (using a map of Europe with symbols for monarchs and armies) to the scale of individuals taking part in the war and a detailed retelling of soldier’s experiences on the war field. The stage set included various miniature sets for different scenes including a water tank for the scene of a sinking ship and another with dirt, herbs and paper cutouts for scenes involving distant cityscapes and battlefield fighting. All the sets, including the dirt, were shipped from the Netherlands. Making such a performance available in Egypt to a public audience is in itself new. The entry ticket for this event was 20 LE (Students: 10 LE).

[SADAT (Egypt) - April 18 - Shahrazade - Photo by Mohamed Elshahed]

Another event we attended was a concert by SADAT (Egypt-Shaabi) and El Rass & Munma (Lebanon-Hiphop) at the famed Shahrazade nightclub on Alfi Street. SADAT is a popular Shaabi singer; a genre that crossed into the mainstream in new ways after the revolution and which now has an expanding audience crossing through Egyptian society. The concert was electric. The venue made for a perfect location for this kind of event. On most nights Shahrazade, one of downtown’s older nightlife establishments, hosts belly dance performances with a few tables for a predominantly male audience. The audience at the concert was diverse across the spectrum and the place was full. Currently there are few venues in downtown that host concerts or dance parties regularly; such events are often located in more exclusive venues with strict monitoring of those entering (males must be accompanied by females, or if you look not “classy” enough you may be denied entry, and often there is a high minimum charge). None of these obstacles were in place for this party/concert, which may explain the genuine fun that was visibly had by the audience. The entry ticket for this event was 30 LE.

The majority of the festival events are free of charge such as the play Alice by Sawsan Bou Khaled and Hussein Baydoun (Lebanon), which was performed in the Viennoise Hotel. The building, once a hotel but  closed for decades, has been used recently by a variety of art events such as the recent photo exhibition Studio Viennoise and the annual Cairo Documenta, adding a new and different kind of venue to the geography of arts and culture in Cairo.

Other free events include the InterLAB/Tele-exhibition hosted in Hotel Viennoise and Medrar Space in neighboring Garden City. Augmented Airspace is another free visual arts installation by Dia Hamed (Egypt) and Lot Amoros (Spain) located in Elwi St, behind the Egyptian Stock Exchange. Face the Vitrine is an installation by Ganzeer & Yasmin Elayat (Egypt), which takes place in a public storefront on Mahmoud Bassiouni St.

The festival’s film program focused on contemporary West African Cinema, an important contribution to the context of Cairo where arts and culture, including cinema, typically look north to Europe and North America, creating a bilnd spot that encompasses the artistic and filmic expressions of the rest of the world including African cinema. The film program is entirely free of charge and the screenings are hosted in the Goethe Institute and Radio Cinema. Films include Blind Ambition by Hassan Khan (Egypt, 2012), Underground/On the Surface (Egypt, 2013), Ai Weiwei: Never sorry (USA, 2012), Burn It Up Djassa (Ivory Coast, 2012), and Hope Travels (Burkina Faso, 2011).

[100Hands (The Netherlands) - April 5 - Borsa - Photo by Mostafa Abdel Aty]

A particularly important aspect of the festival is its Urban Visions program which brings contemporary performances to public spaces and buildings in downtown Cairo but also to Hadaeq El Nil Club, El Badrasheen, Giza and the Ahmed Bahaa el Din Cultural Center in El Doweir Village in Assiut. The program’s performances use “non-traditional sites such as historical buildings, storefronts and alleyways as sites for performances, thus engaging audiences and performers with the city in a new way.” All performances in Urban Visions are free of charge.

Overall this festival is an important intervention in Cairo’s spatial and intellectual public space and it comes at a critical time when questions over arts, expression, and public space are most pertinent. In the absence of a coordinated effort by the state to use its infrastructure, its finances and its institutions such as the Culture Ministry to promote arts and culture, D-CAF contributes to adding to the complexity of downtown’s and Cairo’s arts and culture landscape. The learning curve the organizers have shown since last year’s edition of the festival is commendable.

[TRAFFIC by Tomeo Verges (France) - April 5 - Mahmoud Basiouny - Photo by Mostafa Abdel Aty]

There are critics out there who choose to not take part in these activities, or complain that some events require ticketing or that there are too many corporate sponsors, some are even complaining they don’t like the name because it brings to mind the kind of coffee pointless in drinking. However, self-righteous sentiments such as these might be cool in Brooklyn or East London where other options might be available and where a variety of independent institutions often with sizable budgets organize events, concerts and festivals year round. D-CAF is creating space for Egyptian artists and audiences and providing Egyptian audiences access to international artists who otherwise would not perform in the country. While there are alternative events taking place such as Hal Badeel Festival, they are not competing events rather they are complementary and belong to different calibers.

The Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival goes on until 28 April; catch a show before you have to wait for next year’s festival. You can find the program here.

Towards a revolutionary Nile front

The Literary Atlas of Cairo: Navigating the City by Book

By Elisabeth Jaquette

The Literary Atlas of Cairo: One Hundred Years on the Streets of the City edited by Samia Mehrez. Cairo. The American University in Cairo Press. 2010.

“His heart had been snatched from him… where to? … He wanted to find someone to warm this small part of his chest, that little cage between the ribs, a small part that needed to be filled with tenderness. But can tenderness be had from Cairo, the ogress?” (36)

So wonders the narrator in Ismail Wali al-Din’s Hammam al-Malatili, one of the excerpts from Samia Mehrez’s collection The Literary Atlas of Cairo: One Hundred Years on the Streets of the City. Mehrez is a professor of Modern Arabic Literature and founding Director of the Center for Translation Studies at the American University in Cairo, and edited, introduced and partially translated the two-volume Atlas. “Each and every text that I included in the atlas imparts one impression of the city, one level of its energy, one aspect of its life, of being in it, moving in it, but also reading it, discovering it, and imagining it,” she said in an interview with World Literature Today.

Mehrez’s book paints a richly dense portrait of Cairo in all of its multiplicities. The excerpts travel across history, neighborhoods, social classes, and even language itself. From the early days of the Fatmid period to the dystopic future in Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s Utopia, from the garbage-collector’s slum in Moqattam to the gardens of the early twentieth century Shubra Palace, and from Naguib Mahfouz’s flowing prose to Ahmed Alaidy’s coarse, choppy slang, the collection is vast. It is the diversity in language that lends richness to the collection: “from the Babel-like linguistic world of the palaces, to the chic francophone of the beginning of the century, to the Anglicizations of the sixties, to the Islamization/globalization of the eighties and nineties,” (214) the language within the texts is dense and varied.

Even within a single excerpt, national history blends with a community’s oral history mixed with a dosage of humor, as in Ibrahim Aslan’s The Heron. A voice is caught on the mosque’s speakers in midan Kit Kat recalling the neighborhood’s claim to fame during French occupation: “It was even established in history books that when the French army came from Umm Dinar to set up camp nearby and do battle with Murad Pasha of Murad Street fame, they ate the local cantaloupe. And it’s written somewhere that when Napoleon saw his army afflicted with diarrhea, he ordered them not to eat the local melons. They could eat cantaloupe from anywhere but Imbaba,” (113) the voice chuckles, before discovering that his voice had been broadcast across the entire quarter.

A sense of nostalgia is often present, whether the narrator is reminiscing about a childhood in Belle Époque downtown or amongst the villas of Garden City. Even inanimate objects long for the golden days of the past: the narrator of Muhammad al-Fakharani’s An Interval for Bewilderment is the statue of Ramsis, nostalgic for his place in front of Misr Railway station after being relocated to the Grand Egyptian Museum in one of Cairo’s satellite cities. Mehrez herself can likely relate to the statue’s plight; one of the impetuses for creating the collection was the American University in Cairo’s relocation to the satellite city of New Cairo.

At times, the collection is as sprawling as the city itself. Readers familiar with the city will be rewarded with authors’ visions of known locations—from landmarks like al-Azhar Mosque to well trodden street corners and back alleys. Yet it is difficult to imagine that readers unfamiliar with the geography or history of the city could make much sense of the collection, or emerge with even a vague idea of what distinguishes one area or time period from another.

In the end, perhaps the true value of the collection is that it creates not only a map of the city but also a map of the writers themselves. Mehrez writes that “geography is ideology: as each one of the writers records the present and past of a given neighborhood or area, his or her economic, social, political, and aesthetic biases are written into the map they each produce” (27). Ultimately, this creates a literary layering effect, where writers’ fictional worlds become the foundation for the next generation of authors. “This is the police station that Naguib Mahfouz described in his Cairo Trilogy,” (44) says a character in Mahmoud al-Wardani’s Heads Ripe for Plucking, while the narrator in Ahmed Mourad’s Vertigo is characterized by “very weak eyesight that would have won the complete sympathy of Taha Hussein himself” (201). The collection’s success is truly based on that layered tradition: contemporary Egyptian fiction is very often set against the backdrop of Cairo, and it is hard to imagine this project being as compelling elsewhere.

Many representations of Egypt created just before the 2011 revolution seem trapped in a particular moment, obsolete shortly after being released. The second volume of the collection, The Literary Life of Cairo: One Hundred Years in the Heart of the City, was published in March 2011, just a month after the January 25^th uprising that transported images of Cairo’s downtown onto television screens worldwide. Within the pages of The Literary Atlas a cab driver complains about corruption as he passes Central Security Forces trucks in midan al-Tahrir; Miral al-Tahawy recounts exchanging volleys of rocks with the Central Security Forces and falling in love with a poet penning protest chants. The collection serves as a backdrop to both the past and events to come. As history continues to be written on the streets of Cairo and recorded by its authors, The Literary Atlas proves a compelling and enduring collection.

Elisabeth Jaquette is a graduate student in Anthropology at Columbia University and a 2012-2013 CASA (Center for Arabic Study Abroad) fellow at the American University in Cairo. She has been based in Cairo since 2007 and tweets at @lissiejaquette.

C.Scapes by Maia Gusberti

C.SCAPES from maia gusberti on Vimeo.

By Maia Gusberti

C.Scapes emerged of my curiosity and will to understand more about a multi-faceted, highly controversial and contested public space in Cairo. It was realized between 2007 and 2009, when no one believed in the changes happening now since 2011, lots of them in public space.

I first came to Cairo as an artist in residence in 2006. The streets and public spaces of Cairo instantly draw my interest because of its contradictions: its ever changing multi-layered use, the spontaneous inventions, its livelihood vs. its unwritten rules and regulations, the social restrictions, the emergency law — all these complexity I couldn’t understand intrigued me to study it. It became an intensely instructive artistic and personal approach towards a city and its people I wouldn’t miss ever. While working on C.Scapes I felt diving into a topic much more complex I’d ever imagined. It opened door after door, question after question. I conducted interviews with people from different socio-economic backgrounds in Manial, Maadi, Ard el-Lewa, Rehab City, Heliopolis, Wust el Balad, etc. In the film the presence of the interviewees is indicated through their voices only. I filmed from the confines of private space; from behind windows, curtains and from rooftops, instead of filming on the streets. Initially, this choice was a reaction to restrictions on filming — but to work around the constraints, to find alternative angles and perspectives to approach public space inspired me and were finally deeply influencing and enhancing my project. My aim was a dialog between the inside and the outside, between imagination, reality and the image, between myself, the interviewees and the audience.

Rewatching C.Scapes now obviously uncovers that people in my film precisely pointed out the role of the street as a highly contested, sensible social and political space. They commented — sometimes quite direct, sometimes between the lines, on its role as a lively room, a symbol for freedom and expression and their descriptions became a barometer for the underlaying implications of control and oppression, of a paralyzed society’s hopes, demands and dreams — beneath the daily struggle in this densely populated, multi-layered, segregated city.

Many things changed since I worked on C.Scapes.— I can only talk about from a distance, after following the upheavals, some success and lots of drawbacks from afar. I only visited Cairo a single time since 2011. Egyptians reclaimed the street, reclaimed what should be public, are filming and documenting daily confrontations, struggles and conflicts with all means handy. Camera and public domain are now tools and means of negotiation and resistance of awakened, conscious and politicized citizens.

When watching C.Scapes now, I feel joy — about the liveliness and awareness of people, about their strength to take back what’s instantly theirs: the public space (and lots more). Having in mind what happened since I collected interviews in 2007/08, C.Scapes becomes a so much more complex document than intended. There are comments in C.Scapes touching me deeply, make us thoughtful, make us reflect on what’s happening … It’s the experience of the dense reality about which we’re being told — to realize: it cracked, it’s in process, people demand their space to breath —  they protest, live, even dance — express their life in the streets, in the public sphere that is legitimately and evidently theirs. C.Scapes was intended to be an ongoing dialogue between the interviewees and audience. And its interesting to listen and remember what was phrased and dreamt about aloud before the seed was planted for change …

C.Scapes  a project by Maia Gusberti

37:00 min, Video HD

Concept, image and editing: Maia Gusberti

Sound: Mahmoud Refat

Interviews, translations, assistance: Shahira Issa

Locations:Yasser Naeim & Shahira Issa
© Maia Gusberti 2009

supported by Pro Helvetia Cairo, BMuKK Austria

Video-Preview

http://www.maiagusberti.net o C.Scapes Video

more Information and texts

http://www.maiagusberti.net o C.Scapes Info

Exhibitions, Screenings

Kino im Kunstmuseum Bern (CH) 2013

Connect, Art between Media and Reality, Shedhalle Zürich (CH), 2011 
Swiss Art Awards, Art Basel, 2010 

Aeschlimann-Corti Award, Kunsthaus Langenthal (CH), 2010

Where are you, Pro Helvetia, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo 2009

C.Scapes, Stadtgalerie, PROGR, Bern 2009

SUMMER SCHOOL in CAIRO 15-26 June 2013: The tangible and intangible Heritage of Downtown Cairo

A visible City: The tangible and intangible Heritage of Downtown Cairo

SUMMER SCHOOL in CAIRO 15-26 June 2013

APPLY NOW! until the 10th of May

IF YOU WANT TO…
Get in touch with the real DOWNTOWN
Discover (your) CAIRO
Learn how to recognize a plan typology
Learn about oral history methods
Learn how to deal with interviews
Eat the best chocolate dates in town
Produce the first architectural guide of Downtown
Work in an intercultural/intergender group
Get in touch with other students
Listen to the most updated researchers
BE WITH US!

THE SUMMER SCHOOL IS OPEN TO
> 10 students from Germany from the faculties of Architecture, Urban Design, Urban Planning, Landscape architecture.
> 10 students from the Architecture and Urban Design Program of the German University in Cairo (GUC).
> 8 students from Cairo from the faculties of Architecture, Urban Design, Urban Planning, Landscape architecture. Particular attention will be given to choose students from different Universities.

WHO CAN APPLY:
Students who already completed the fourth semester of Architecture, Urban Planning or Landscape Architecture studies.
HOW TO APPLY:
With a short cv, a letter of motivation and a selection of three previous projects (6 pages A4, pdf-file, max.10 MB). It is not mandatory that the projects are related to architecture. Language of the application is English.
Please send your application via email to:
architecture@guc.edu.eg
Deadline is the 10th of May 2013.
The selected participants will be informed at beginning of May.
Join us on facebook: summer school_DOWNTOWN
GRANTS:
The grants will cover flight costs and accommodation for the 10 students coming from Germany. Infrastructure and food for all students will be assured. All students will work both at the GUC Campus and on field.

AIMS and CONTENT
The summer school aims at raising awareness for the tangible and intangible heritage of Downtown Cairo, initiating and reinforcing the link between students, academics and inhabitants towards the histories and the built heritage of the old quarter of Ismaelia. This link will reinforce the feeling of proud towards the city, which is the necessary basis for any action of maintenance and restoration.
In mixed groups, students will implement schematic plans of the standard floor of different buildings; analysing it and classifying them in typologies. At the same time, they will interview the inhabitants, to collect their histories related to the buildings. A guide on the tangible and intangible heritage of Downtown will be published.

PROJECT TEAM
> German University Cairo – GUC
Prof. Barbara Pampe, architect
Prof. Vittoria Capresi, architect

> University of Stuttgart, D
Prof. Arno Lederer, architect
Carla Schwarz, architect
Leonie Weber, architect

> DAAD (Cairo University) / German Archaeological Institute DAI, Cairo
Ralph Bodenstein

> Alia Mossallam, historian

> Studio Matthias Görlich
Matthias Görlich, graphic designer

and the participation of :
> Ahmed el Bindari, CULTNAT, Cairo
> Omar Nagati, CLUSTER, Cairo
> Xenia Nikolskaya, Freelance Photograph, Cairo
> Yasmine El Dorghamy, Al Rawi, Egypt Heritage Review, Cairo
> Karim Ibrahim, Takween Integrated Community Development, Cairo
> May al-Ibrashy, Megawra, Cairo
> Mohamed Elshahed, Cairobserver, Cairo

IN COOPERATION WITH
Al Ismaelia for Real Estate Investments
DOCOMOMO Cairo
CLUSTER Cairo
MEGAWRA Cairo
German Archaeological Institute – DAI, Cairo
DAAD Cairo
Cairobserver
Takween Integrated Community Development, Cairo

The Summer School is initialised and organised by the Architecture and Urban Design Program of the German University Cairo GUC in cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University Stuttgart and fully financed by the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD.

CONCEPT: BALADILAB 2012

Resident Perspective: Mukattam

Resident Perspective is a series of standardized interviews with Cairo residents to get their views on the city and their neighborhoods.

Where in Cairo do you live?
Mokattam. It’s a great area though neglected by the government.

List the most positive and the most negative aspects of living there.
Positive: Clean air (much less pollution than the rest of Cairo). Semi quite (though I live on the main street and it’s noisy but like Mosadaq street for example). Got all services (Water, electricity and natural gas). Shops are not expensive as Zamalek (though it’s a little more expensive than the rest of Cairo).

Negative: Not enough transport. The main mode of method is microbus which means you’re under the mercy of the microbus drivers mafia. For example, during the demonstrations at the MB head quarters, the drivers increased the fare from 1.5 pounds to 2 pounds and didn’t enter Nafora sq (which is a major bus stop). Not enough buses. There is greenery but not enough. Too much sandy spaces without gardens. Poor pedestrian pavements. Low quality asphalt and bumpy roads.

How do you move around Cairo (modes of transport) and what would you like to see different regarding the future of transport in the city?
-Underground metro - Tram (if available and pops up at the station on time). - Public Buses (CTA normal and air-conditioned) - Mini Buses if available. - Microbuses - Taxis I would like to see more bus lanes (and the one at Salah Salem and Autostrade revived) and to have the tram network revived by upgrading the tracks and trains (example of good trams, Berlin and Bonn Trams). I would also love to see cycling lanes and proper pavements for pedestrians. In addition we should have more safe passage and pedestrians crossing areas (such as pedestrians traffic lights on major roads, tunnels and bridges that have escalators/elevators to accommodate for all people’s varying needs).

How does your district fit within Cairo? What would you like to see changed in that relationship between your neighborhood and the city?
It’s central, though kind of isolated but connect through microbuses and mini bus lanes. Mokattam is well connected by road though, having exits on Salah Salem, autostrade, Ring road, Carrefour and ElShaheed corridor.

What are your top complaints about Cairo and what would you suggest to solve those problems?

Pollution (Air and Noise (car honks and sellers yelling to sell their products)) solution: plant more trees, gardens and reallocate unnecessary buildings out of Cairo (storage warehouse, factories, huge companies that have a lot of vehicles and no parking space). Traffic: Solution (Short term: Educated and re train all Egyptian drivers, cause most of the traffic is actually due to driver attitude. Paint lanes on the streets correctly with correct traffic signs. Make sure current buses are functioning at full performance. revive bus lanes. make shuttle buses between neighborhoods and the nearest metro stations. LONG TERM: expand and revive tram network. remove all factories from Greater Cairo and send them near to sea ports or to Upper Egypt. Re allocate Government buildings and it’s employee to new areas and provide incentives for professionals to leave Cairo (build more schools/hospitals. provide better salaries/lifestyle for out of Cairo jobs and residents). Have a PROPER PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND RAIL NETWORK!. Waste Management: Solution: Encourage separation of waste at the source (split glass, plastic, metal, food etc). re allocate zabalen factories to the vast desert on Ring road facing New Cairo (behind elWafa we elamel landfill area). Provide zabaleen proper homes in new Cairo and proper tools/cars for garbage collection

What do you like the most about Cairo and what are your favorite places in the city.

Cairo Metro, the cultural scene, Zamalek and Downtown.

Favorite places: Townhouse Gallery, Tak3eiba (cafe), Bikya Cafe in Nasr City.

Do you relate to the historic heritage of your district or of Cairo in general? Do you think you have a good sense of history of the city? Would you say you are have “civic pride” or are proud to live in Cairo?

I would love to but don’t have enough info or access to it. Thankfully Cairobservers is trying to do that (right?)

Do you understand how the city is governed/managed? Do you think your community/district would be better or worst if residents from the community/district were involved in local government (محليات)?

Yes, I studied political science and local political systems at college.

In the context of Cairo, what comes to mind when you think of these keywords?

Green Space/Parks: Love and Nature

Gated communities: Isolation

Museums:  Love and art

Informal areas: Poor areas that need to be fixed/reallocated

Downtown: Love <3 an area that needs to regenerated :)

If you could move to another district in Cairo where would you move to?
Zamalek or downtown. Yes, I would love to add that Cairo is not sustainable any more!

*If you would like to tell us about where you live and share your views on Cairo, fill the survey by clicking here.

Book Review: Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature

By Samah Selim

Mara Naaman, Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature: Portraits of Cairo. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

In January and February of 2011, Egyptians descended upon public squares throughout the country to bring an end to the thirty-year regime of Husni Mubarak. For those eighteen days—and on many other occasions throughout the following year—the people of Egypt wrested control of public space from the physical and discursive grip of Mubarak’s police state and reconfigured the material and symbolic spaces of their cities to express a revolutionary vision of subjectivity, community, and citizenship. Cairo’s Tahrir square—and its downtown environs—was of course the most visible and most symbolically charged center of these insurgent acts of occupation and celebration, and the whole world watched in wonder and trepidation as Egyptians struggled to forge a new and radical language of being-in-the-world.

Mara Naaman’s timely book, Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature: Portraits of Cairo, was published during that heady year (and includes a brief postscript referring to the events of the revolution). The book addresses the production of urban space in the modern Egyptian literary imagination and offers the reader an erudite and engaging analysis of four acclaimed novels that all take Cairo’s downtown as their main setting. Naaman’s exploration of the sometimes utopian, sometimes brutal and bloody history of dreams, desires, and struggles that have shaped this seminal space in modern fiction and architectural practice subtly and persistently evokes the ghost of a future become the present. The book is thus important reading for anyone seeking to understand the affective power of “Liberation Square” within the context of modern Egyptian history and cultural production.

The book includes a preface, introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion. The preface, introduction, and chapter one set out the main conceptual and historical framework within which Naaman situates her literary readings. Chapters two through five each deal with a contemporary novel by a leading Egyptian author—Radwa ‘Ashur’s A Piece of Europe (2003), Khayri Shalabi’s Salih Hisa (2000), Idris ‘Ali’s Poor (2005), and Alaa al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building (2002)—while the conclusion, “Wust al-Balad as Neo-Bohemia: Writing in Defense of a Vanishing Public Sphere,” raises some very interesting questions about location and the relevance of national narratives to the contemporary political imagination.

In the preface, Naaman takes note of the political impetus underlying modern Arab fiction as a whole, tying this impetus to the framing and contestation of real and imagined spaces: “Contemporary Arab authors,” she writes, “have used fiction as a way of responding to crucial, and often traumatic, historical moments…where questions of political authority and power are largely enacted through struggles over public space” (xx). She then sets out the framework for her reading of her chosen novels against the background of a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical interests and concerns—urban and postcolonial studies, architecture and art history, and globalization theory:

I hope to show the way in which the notion of the modern Egyptian subject has evolved in direct relationship to the changes manifest in the space of the downtown….Ultimately I hope to show how the contested nature of the downtown—as a spectacular imitation of European modernity, as Egyptian public sphere, as a site for staging revolution, and as a modernist ruin—was and continues to be central to the notion of what it means to be Egyptian. (xxi)

Naaman goes on to reflect on Cairo as an “oscillating landscape” whose neighborhoods are situated as “allegorical spaces through which we can read the history of the nation” (xxv). Through the accumulated passage of time and the imprints of generations, streets and neighborhoods take on the phantom nature of the palimpsest; “home” is constantly rewritten as part of an uncertain yet imperative project of liberation. The downtown, she writes in a poignant assessment, “remains a contingent space, marked by traces of the past and spaces of familiarity, but never offering a sense of a secure present” (xxv).

Naaman uses the Arabic term “Wust al-Balad” (center city; downtown) throughout the book rather than an English translation to signal the iconic status of this particular space in modern fiction as well as national history. She weaves a careful account of the area’s dramatic architectural and political history into her literary analysis of the way in which the four novels inscribe questions of agency, identity, language, critique, and nostalgia in spatial terms. The famous history of Khedive Isma‘il’s new city, Isma‘iliyya, or “Paris on the Nile,” and the great Cairo Fire of 1952 (during which furious crowds burnt a large chunk of this new city to the ground) are thus both major leitmotifs that recur at key points in the book. Naaman’s description of the process by which the novels’ characters engage in revisionist “mappings” of these histories in space is thus also an apt description of her own critical method (7). The bulk of this critical method is presented in the book’s introduction, “The Urban as Critical Frame,” and covers a broad cross-section of works and authors: the Cairo School of Urban Studies; Gwendolyn Wright’s work on French colonial design; Chicano border studies; and the work of Timothy Mitchell, Arjun Appadurai, and Sabry Hafez on (respectively) colonial modernity, global flows, and the “new novel” in Egypt.

At times, Naaman’s theoretical framing sits uneasily with her evocative and subtle readings of the novels themselves. Naaman closely follows a certain strand of postcolonial studies that proposes a spectacular, Western-authored (colonial) modernity as the presumed antithesis of a kind of authentic or antediluvian local identity and where points of contact or relationship are somehow inevitably defined by suspicion, corruption, or violation. Isma‘il’s new city is offered as “a spectacular imitation of European modernity,” a place that has “internalize[ed] the gaze of the West” (xxi, 1). In such a place, the circulation of capital takes the primary form of staged spectacles of consumption and public entertainment (the lavish department stores, clubs, and cafés of Cairo’s rich). Modernity then becomes an ontology: a fixed and external object (of desire or refusal) rather than a social habitus shot through with contradiction and struggle. The notion that “Egyptians [were] mere spectators in the staging of their own modernity” leads Naaman at times to problematic culturalist readings of political events (Timothy Mitchell quoted in Naaman, 12). For example, the Cairo Fire of 1952 becomes “a debate over what it meant to be modern” rather than a violent rejection of the political and economic structures of a collapsing colonial regime (16). She further argues that “the ‘Urabi rebellion of 1881-2, the revolution of 1919, the workers’ protest in 1946, and the fires and subsequent revolution in July 1952” were all a result of “the Khedive’s complete indifference to the older districts of Cairo (in terms of their architectural and infrastructural neglect)”—or more simply put, to “colonial modernity” (23, 32).

Naaman’s capable and sensitive close readings, however, point to the limits—if not the inadequacy—of this theoretical staging to describe and elicit the rich and complex texture of the novels themselves in their reflections on agency, identity, and loss in the modern Egyptian context. In chapters one and two (“Specter of Paris: The Staging of Cairo’s Modern City Center” and “Reconstructing a National Past: Radwa ‘Ashur’s Revisionist History of Downtown”), Naaman beautifully captures the way in which both the urban-architectural and the textual function as narrative acts that produce legibility and meaning for subjects and readers alike. She further builds on this insight in the next chapter, “The Indigenous Modernism of Khayri Shalabi: Popular Intellectuals and the Neighborhood Ghurza,” by elaborating on Michel de Certeau’s poetics of walking as a form of pedestrian enunciation and Jonathon Shannon’s exploration of modernity and musical improvisation in Syria. In her reading, the palimpsest of the city—the downtown and its “shadow thoroughfare[s]” (77)—is metaphorically composed by the active handling or use of its material structures (‘Ashur’s narrator, The Gazer, “re-members” the downtown by walking its streets and visually summoning its ghostly monuments) or by the continual crossing and re-crossing of porous, shadow borders inscribed into the urban landscape (Salih Hisa’s celebration of multiple social identities and languages; The Yacoubian Building’s crumbling vertical hierarchies). Ultimately, the book’s greatest strength lies here: in its compelling, engaged, and almost tender attention to the materiality of urban space as a lens that brings a whole history of collective desire, aspiration, and struggle into focus through the medium of fiction.

Toward the end of the book’s final chapter, “The Nation Recast through a National Bestseller: Alaa al-Aswany’s Ode to Downtown Cairo,” Naaman tentatively suggests the possibility of claiming this history-in-fiction as a living portrait of the imagined nation—“a master-narrative” as she puts it, “for the Egyptian experience” (167). Meanwhile, the resurgent “neo-bohemian” public sphere of the downtown that she describes in the book’s conclusion has once again metamorphosed into a fully insurgent space of struggle and contestation (169). In this moment of exhilarating and dizzyingly unreadable futures, Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature does an admirable job of underlining the ways in which “a reworking of the past vis-à-vis our cities is an important part of the process in determining who we are (and want to be) in the present” (176).

Samah Selim is assistant professor of Arabic literature at Rutgers University and the author of The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt 1880-1985 (Routledge, 2004).

[This review was originally published in the Spring 2012 issue of Arab Studies Journal. For more information on the issue, or to subscribe to ASJ, click here. This review was also published in Jadaliyya]

Is informality being disallowed by government?

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