Just because I'm a foreigner...

[newcastle]

As MT has (I think) been sentenced "to transportation to the Colonies" I thought, in his absence, I could revive a few moans & whinges with this perspective :

Excuse me, Egypt? I think there are a few things you don't quite understand...

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean I grew up having it easy. It doesn't mean I don't understand struggle or circumstances. It doesn't mean I have a silver spoon in my mouth nor does it mean that I don't know what it means to earn a living.

Actually... My parents and I are immigrants. They gave up everything they had and worked to establish a new life for our family abroad. I studied hard and worked even harder ever since I was able to get a job. Life abroad isn't rainbows and butterflies; no one rolled out the red carpet for us when we first arrived. Actually, they cut open our luggage and robbed us instead. I may not understand your struggle, but I grew up with struggles of my own. Life isn't easy irrespective of where you are.

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean I won't understand your culture. It doesn't mean I don't know how things function, what to expect, and what is/isn't okay. Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean I'm ignorant.

Actually... I appreciate your culture. I consider it now part of my own. I'm learning; I'm adapting. Perhaps I may not see your culture the way you see it - perhaps certain things may weigh more heavily on one of us than the other, and perhaps we'll disagree on a lot of things - but it's not that I don't understand; I'm just seeing your culture through my life lens. Culture is relative.

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean I'm easy. It doesn't mean I don't understand your catcalls down the street. It doesn't mean I'm open to doing whatever crosses your mind. Maybe I'm friendly, but my friendliness isn't an open invitation to have your way.

Actually... I'm really just a nice person. I assume the good in people and like conversation with friendly strangers. I'm as deserving of respect as anyone and everyone else. I'm also just not that into you.

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean I'm filthy rich. It doesn't mean that I convert from dollars to pounds whenever I spend. It doesn't mean I'm spoiled. It doesn't mean I'm going to leave you a giant tip even if you gave me crappy service. It doesn't mean you assume that you get to keep the change. It doesn't mean you get to rip me off and charge me triple the price.

Actually... If I live here, I'm probably living alone. I'm buying groceries. I'm taking taxis. I'm paying rent. I'll be a bit more generous should I choose to be, because I acknowledge the country's class differences, but that doesn't make anyone more entitled to my money than me. I worked hard for it. Where I come from, we haven't quite perfected the 'money tree' concept yet.

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean I want to do all the touristy things. It doesn't mean I can only eat from certain restaurants and need to be taken outside of the heart of Cairo so I can see 'how nice' Egypt is. It doesn't mean I need to see a version of Egypt with the Juno filter on it.

Actually... I'm perfectly content eating from Sobhy or grabbing breakfast off the nearest fool cart. And hey, where I grew up, they have the oversized malls and the luxurious living and the chain restaurants and brand names. You know what they don't have? The simple pleasures and people of Egypt.

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean I think I'm better than you. My passport doesn't mean that I'm any better than you; my education and knowledge of another language don't mean that I'm superior.

Actually... My passport and my language only have value in this country because institutions gave them value. Me? I'm just like anybody else.

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean you have to speak English to me in spite of yourself.

Actually... While it's totally endearing that you think I won't understand your Arabic, there's also a chance that I don't speak English, either; then we're really screwed.

Just because I'm a 'foreigner' doesn't mean you have to constantly apologize for the state of the country and try to convince me (or perhaps yourself) that Egypt is a good place to be.

Actually... If I'm here, then I'm already convinced.

Why do I keep putting quotation marks around 'foreigner'? Because I don't feel foreign. To me, this is home.

MONICA GERGES


http://www.cairoscene.com/LifeStyle/Jus ... oesn-t-Mea

[LovelyLadyLux]

Good article, interest read with quite a few truisms there.

The biggest flaw in Egyptian thinking IMO is that they really do think we are all rich and somehow magically just acquired extensive wealth with no effort at all. IMO the thinking is because I'm IN their country that I should automatically accept whatever it is they throw at me and tip to the extreme even if the service is bad.

[dsaxelby]

Just because I am a foreigner and a woman does not mean I am happy to marry your husband and bring him to the Uk where he can work and repay me the cost to get him here. Or that I am happy for him to live in my house and be supported by me (which would include you) until he can support you.......

[LovelyLadyLux]

Good point Dsaxelby.

I'd add, based on Intercultural comments, that just because I'm a Foreigner not any and all Egyptian men do I find enticing or even appealing enough to marry and then as you say support for the rest of my life giving him complete access to all bank accounts and any asset(s) I might happen to have in my name so as to make HIS family comfortable.

[dsaxelby]

It should be a funny story really but still blows me away..... this wonderful offer was from a woman I know quite well, not as well as I thought, I politely declined her elderly disabled husband, who she was willing to share with the right woman. She could attest to his work ethic and his morals to repay any costs involved one day. I gave her the website where such woman could be found and gracefully stepped back. Her next complaint was the membership fee for the site.........words failed me

[LovelyLadyLux]

Not that posts from Interculturally Abused women are common anymore but I really wonder how many of the single guys out there searching for a wife really already had a little women at home washing and starching his clothes to make sure he looked good for any potential catches she might catch.

My gf was caught by a single guy who it turns out had, not only a wife but a few kids as well. She found this out from yet another wife who caught him!!! Soap Opera central for a LONG time.

[Dusak]

Men have always strayed, as the women have. All started when the caveman suddenly discovered that a cave-woman was living in here own hole in the wall across the hills. Millennia later, that observation gave rise to the benefits of having a woman with a hole in the wall.

[newcastle]

Not that posts from Interculturally Abused women are common anymore but I really wonder how many of the single guys out there searching for a wife really already had a little women at home washing and starching his clothes to make sure he looked good for any potential catches she might catch.

My gf was caught by a single guy who it turns out had, not only a wife but a few kids as well. She found this out from yet another wife who caught him!!! Soap Opera central for a LONG time.

There's just no satisfying some of you women......moan. moan.

Surely you should be delighted to have a "marriage" with a handsome, virile Egyptian stud....knowing that all the messy bits - cooking, washing, cleaning and bearing children (ugh!) - were left to some drudge in the backwoods whom you rarely, if ever, saw. That, when you get bored, you just tear up the Orfi (no messy divorce process) and move on to the next. That there's no chance of him pursuing you outside of Egypt (unless you're daft enough to give him your UK phone number)

Worth paying for, I'd have thought

[LovelyLadyLux]

I think I've told the story before but whilst I was touring the VOK my gf was "struck with love" by one of the guys who worked in one of the stores there. She was a middle aged intelligent person when I left that morning and when I got back I didn't even recognize the school girl giggles as a sign her brain was en route to never never land.

She, I don't think, ever questioned that this guy wasn't telling her the truth but IMO he never told her a single truth.

Was a whirl wind that I saw the start of and it mushroomed like a dropped bomb. I think I witnessed or heard about (I stopped going with her - well - "THEY" actually didn't WANT ME with them nor did she really as things progressed want to hear from me or her adult children in the UK either - 'magine that) every classic scam there is over the next few years.

I never met her or talked with her ever but from all I understood his Egyptian wife was more than OK he was out there with another (ahem) wife who was fronting mega bucks for her family so to his credit he was keeping ONE of the little women 'habby.'

The entire soap opera happened cause she was a FOREIGNER!

[Hafiz]

Newcastle liked the post - Cairosecene has some good things but it requires careful readers, like yourself, to bring them to attention.

All that the post says- and I assume you agree with - is that people should be judged on who they are and what they bring to the Egyptian table.

Unfortunately not a major theme in modern Egyptian history.

Without going into the unwritten history of modern Egypt - for security reasons as much as anything - and ignoring that the archives are closed to Egyptian and international researchers - its not unfair to say that there has been a not inconsistent pattern of lack of sympathy towards non-nationals since 1947. Whatever the every day friendliness of the average Egyptian tells you.

History never repeats itself but the orgy of expulsions of non-Egyptians from 1947 to 1968 and beyond, the fact that this was during periods of social and economic anxiety, the wealth that was transferred from the expulsions to parasitic locals and 'Egyptionization' of industry and commerce is a lesson of sorts to thousands of French, English, Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Jewish, Italian and other ex-Egyptian communities now dispersed across the world and who are still in the courts and arbitration to get compensation for seizure. The lesson of the Egyptian, and German, past is that bad things happen to good people and that general provisions have no place for special circumstances and the good works of individuals. The Egyptian government is entirely un repentant for all of this and fights to this day to defend its seizures and expulsions,

The fact that a high percentage of doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, accountants and business managers were thrown out and Egyptian skills worse off did not stop them.

Its now a different world. Expulsions could not now occur. International capital and trade restrict any nativistic urges to sieze non Egyptian assets. Nevertheless non-national businesses are still not welcomed, unless they are majors, NGO'S with international 'connexions' are criminalized, western 'theories' like evolution are derided, democracy, free speech, women's rights, judicial process and freedom are regarded as western infections, local business interests are protected from international competition, I could go on and, whilst there is a good story about modern Egypt, there is a dark recent past of xenophobia.

Here is a speculation. The economic situation deteriorates, the terrorists target non nationals because its good copy, the poor look for scapegoats, the rulers look for scapegoats, there is only so much the Jews can be responsible for, outsiders are an easy target for all that is wrong. You understand where I am going - its almost like Brexit except there is no EU to blame.

My point is very simple - Egypt in a crisis has turned on foreigners in the recent past - even those who have lived here for hundreds of years and many individuals who had done good things. Even wealthy Copts migrate in numbers. Going back to the individual post, there was not much discrimination based on other than race or religion.

I'm being too negative and I don't entirely believe in where my argument is going but there is an argument based on past events and for which the government has shown no regret.

[dsaxelby]

I have been noticing certain changes and having just read Hafiz post the thought that popped into my head was 'out with the old in with the new'. People of all categories are living or being refused Visa's, businesses are closing or are up for sale, longer term residents are moving. At the same time new faces are appearing and asking the age old questions 'looking for premises for a new restaurant, bar or to live, is medical insurance available etc.. etc..

People usually move house every 7 years approx.... do you get where I am going with this....

I wonder where I fit into this picture, if at all?

[newcastle]

Hafiz said :

"Its now a different world. Expulsions could not now occur. International capital and trade restrict any nativistic urges to sieze non Egyptian assets. Nevertheless non-national businesses are still not welcomed, unless they are majors, NGO'S with international 'connexions' are criminalized, western 'theories' like evolution are derided, democracy, free speech, women's rights, judicial process and freedom are regarded as western infections, local business interests are protected from international competition, I could go on and, whilst there is a good story about modern Egypt, there is a dark recent past of xenophobia"

I would concur....and add that there's been a noticeable increase in the antipathy towards "whinging foreigners". Lots of " well - if you don't like it, GO HOME!" comments on social media chit chat. Now that tourism income has declined sharply, there is less deference to us ex-pats.

Whether this foretells a more draconian move, I doubt. After 2011, and all the problems since, it's hardly surprising that nerves are a little frayed and it's a human trait, not confined to Egyptians, to blame others when things don't go as planned or hoped.

To say things haven't gone "as hoped" since the overthrow of Mubarak is somewhat of an understatement!

Personally, I don't feel 'vulnerable'....but then escape for me, should the need arise, would involve no more than a trip to the airport

For others...it might be more problematic.