Most news articles and blog posts deal with Egypt on political terms. Mubaraks’ succession and the role of Islam in politics is no doubt important, but the great attention paid to these issues can sometimes make us forget that Egypt is more than a topic in political science.
This is all to say that yesterday evening I broke the Ramadan fast with a dozen or so friends. We were engineers, students, an artist, a foreign embassy employee, a newscaster, a hospitality executive, an architect – three quarters Egyptian, one quarter foreign (including me). Every Egyptian I know lives at home with his or her family, but last night found us all parentless at an apartment shared by three Europeans. An Egyptian friend cooked a European meal topped off with apple crisp and homemade chocolate bonbons. We could have been anywhere in the world.
On any other weekend night we would have made off to a nightclub for a liquor tinged evening of dancing and cavorting. That's not unusual. No Egyptian girl in this group veils and everyone drinks. This may run counter to some of our western stereotypes of Muslim countries, but it fits perfectly well with the standing room only club scene of Cairo. Like most urbane cities several communities exist alongside each other. But last night the clubs were closed and the liquor cabinets were locked. It's Ramadan in Cairo and even my whiskey-drinking-sunni-muslim friends forsake alcohol and embrace the fast. So instead we took our cars and traveled to the Pyramids, where we rode camelback at midnight under a full moon. Someone in the distance lit fireworks. We watched them and joked around with a digital camera. No one spoke about politics.
