Colonialism

I think I have finally found a word for a collection of uglinesses I find around me. Colonialism.

Supposedly the UK declared Egypt’s independence in 1922. Egypt didn’t even get to declare it itself. And Wikipedia says, “British influence, however, continued to dominate Egypt's political life and fostered fiscal, administrative, and governmental reforms.”

As my roommate started talking about this "colonialism" concept the other day I started to thinking and since then I’ve been feeling sicker and sicker about it all to the extent that I even want to leave this country just to stop being a part of it. But it still has a hold on the world, no matter which part of it I sit in. And while I’m seeing it so clearly here from where I’m sitting, which makes me exceedingly uncomfortable, maybe my uncomfortable situation here is making colonialism a tad bit uncomfortable as well. I hope so.

Every word that I utter in Arabic seems to be fighting a little for the home team, every conversation in English seems to be another point for the colonial power. My friend told me that people here respect foreigners more than they respect each other. He told me this because I was complaining about how no matter how stupid and poor and young and ugly and inexperienced and unskilled I am I will always be pampered and paid attention to and catered to, just because I’m a foreigner. I have been more and more happy about the fact that I can speak English to so many people, but then I’m getting more and more sick to hear the stories of my friends who say that they can’t get a job without good English, and they can’t get English without money, and this is for a job that pays an average 800 Egyptian pounds / month. If you want the real good jobs, you’re gonna need flawless English, the kind that comes from private foreign schools (American, Canadian, British) for your whole life (=uber rich). And as A reminded us, there are millions of people with flawless native English in the world, those with any flaws need not apply.

My roommate J works in a world of people who have learned English, but at the expense of their Arabic. The top of society is being trained to be dysfunctional and illiterate in their own language. Oftentimes they are dysfunctional in Arabic and English, in a kind of limbo between the two languages, this is the system. Me and two of my roommates have procured jobs here which are expressly for foreigners. Foreigners here are paid more and respected more in the work place. With absolute abysmal Arabic and no qualifications or knowledge of me beyond my foreigner status I’ve been asked to work in marketing a few times. This preferential treatment makes a little more sense in a country like America where I am the WASP majority. Here though, we are very much the minority, and yet, we walk in a room and we’re automatically important. We are an accessory for our friends to show off, kinda like a designer bag, foreigners classy. It will be an adjustment to go back to the U.S. where I am frumpy and normal.

People just ask us questions, we are assumed to be knowledgeable on any subject, even as scrubby just out of college kids on an extended year of travelling. Where is the justice? This world has been set up for us by our ancestors. They wanted a world where they were always able to feel smart and have an easy time navigating and ordering people around wherever they went. Heck who doesn’t? It’s easy, and I’m not gonna lie, if I felt only the utter inferiority and stupidity that comes with being in a strange country with a strange language and never felt the trust in my abilities and respect of my status that comes with being a foreigner here, I might not have made it so long.

But this superiority is cheap, it rings so hollow and painful. You can almost hear it in the voices of the men yelling at you: “Talk to me! Why won’t you talk to me?!” “F*** you!” It’s not just a sexual thing, it’s a fascination with the exotic and maybe a subconscious way to bring you back down to the level you should be at, an anger at the unjust distribution of power. I see it in the way that the police and security service here let the foreigners get away with whatever they want with a smile, while harrassing their Egyptian friends. I hear it in ex-pats telling me that Egyptians are just lazy and unreliable. I hear it in my friend F explaining to me that Egyptian are actually envious of the U.S. because it took all the power and beauty and morality even, and left Egypt with nothing. There's a hopeless sense here among so many, a sense that leaving the country or leaving the culture is the only way to move up in life. Some reject these ideas, some chase them vigorously, but Colonialism is living.