MENTON : Was Mubarak the Stalin or the Tsar of Egypt?
Echange d’article avec le journal MEDINAT ASHABAAB du campus de Menton
There’s no gridlock like Cairo gridlock. After driving across Sinai and past the Suez Canal, we reached the city for the evening rush hour. Like a combination of Traffic Jam and Grand Theft Auto, the crowded, lawless streets showed the scope of Cairo’s staggeringly large population.
This is how I spent Christmas, in a world where pedestrian crossings, street lights, and lines drawn to mark the lanes are completely disregarded. Several days after our arrival we were sitting in a bar called After Eight (entrance through a door at the back of an alley) waiting for local band Wust el Balad to make its appearance.
We sat on stools in the dimly-lit interior. There were three of us: Michel, Abdalla, and myself—a Christian Egyptian, a Muslim Egyptian, and a foreigner. These two Egyptians have been friends for at least six years, and yet that night was only the second time in their friendship they had tackled the topic of religion. Six years is a long time; lunar eclipses occur more frequently, and lunar eclipses are a big deal. The last time there was one I woke up at four am to stand outside on a freezing Montreal night. So why the taboo on religion? Lire la suite »
