The centrality of Cairo since it became the capital of the modern Egyptian state has prevented cultural services from reaching areas far from the so-called centre. Sinai in the far east of Cairo, Nubia and Aswan in the south, Marsa Matrouh in the west, for example, were all denied basic cultural services. While in some cases even daily newspapers were unavailable, snacks and soft drinks reached even to the heart of the desert.
A roundtable discussion during the Cairo International Book Fair tackled this issue of cultural isolation with a focus on literature. The session featured writers and novelists from the border areas, posing their views on why their literature has been excluded and discussing the way forward.
Yahia Mukhtar, a Nubian writer, opened the discussion by outlining around the Nubian tragedy throughout the twentieth century, referring to Nubia as the region behind the High Dam in Aswan near the border with Sudan. The area and its people, he said, have made remarkable contributions to Egyptian civilisation historically, but have been marginalised for decades.
According to Mukhtar, the tragedy began in 1902 with the completion of the Aswan Low Dam that flooded five villages, then with the continuous expansion between 1902 and 1933 flooding even more villages. The construction of the High Dam under President Gamal Addel Nasser brought new challenges of a different magnitude, flooding more than 45 villages at once and precipitating the largest Nubian migration to the north.
"The water took away our villages, with their distinguished Nubian architecture. Many monuments were flooded away, people immigrated leaving their homes, and these tragedies were only documented in literature, never in history books,” Mukhtar said. He described as the first attempt at literary documentation a 1968 novel ‘Shamandoura’ written by Mohammed Khalil Qassim following his arrest. Over the years, many young Nubian writers who migrated started documenting these tragedies according to Mukhtar.
Sinai is among the areas marginalised, and even sometimes defamed. This state of affairs led writer from Sinai Hatem Abdel Hady to write with the aim of bridging the Suez Canal that now separates Sinai from the rest of Egypt, at least to bring people's attention to what is happening beyond the Canal.
Abdullah, another writer from Sinai, refused to refer to his work as “Border Literature” preferring to call it just literature so as not to reinforce marginalisation. Rather than discussing this history of exclusion he wanted to look forward. Many things have changed with the January 25 Revolution, Abdullah said, arguing that “literary classifications should also be changed, speaking of 'border literature' entrenches this division between city and desert.”
“We do not want divisions, we all live on one soil. ‘Border literature’ is just a literature, distinguished perhaps by its combination of different cultures,” Abdullah argued. He described how in Sinai, they have been historically and geographically related to the Palestinians across the border, sharing literature. “Yes, it has been marginalised,” he said, “and this is the problem we seek to overcome.”
Hannan Said from Alexandria addressed the prevalent notion that as “the second capital of Egypt” the city of Alexandria must get a better share of cultural services than other areas. She described however how the state of affairs in Alexandria is just as bad as any other place outside of Cairo.
“Alexandria has three different generations of writers, most of them unknown to the Egyptian public. Border writers are not the only group suffering from exclusion, there are others such as women and Christians not related to geographical location,” she said, describing the marginalisation of certain groups of writers as a “general policy.”
Ahmed Abu Khunaygar, a writer from southern Egypt, also understood the classification of “border literature” as a means of exclusion. He described how the category of Nubian literature reinforces stereotypes turning Nubian writers into “cartoon characters.”
“The Ministry of Culture has in fact turned into a ministry of mass communication during the past decades, concerned with showing what it does rather than developing new mechanisms to deliver culture to these far areas. I must travel several miles to get the daily newspapers while I can find soft drinks a step away. Isolated while living together, we misread each other, we never listen to one another” Abu Khnaygar protested.
The way forward for the cultural ministry, according to Abu Khnaygar, is to change the way it works. He argued that if it is really willing to do something, it must develop new mechanisms to deliver culture everywhere and not just promoting its achievements.
It remains to be seen whether the positive achievements of the January 25 Revolution will include a different approach to culture, one that encompasses all of Egypt and not just the capital.
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