POV: Antiquities & Colonialism

© Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters. Courtesy The New York Times
Antiquities and its politics are hardly topics that stay for long on my radar screen, but this time it involves Egypt, my birth country so I'll take a stab at the recent news which involves the bust of Nefertiti, currently displayed in a Berlin museum. What does this have to do with travel photography, you ask? Not much...but I need this off my chest.

A New York Times' article (written by Michael Kimmelman) on this issue starts as follows:

"As thousands lined up to catch a glimpse of Nefertiti at the newly reopened Neues Museum here, another skirmish erupted in the culture wars. Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, announced that his country wanted its queen handed back forthwith, unless Germany could prove that the 3,500-year-old bust of Akhenaten’s wife wasn’t spirited illegally out of Egypt nearly a century ago."

The article goes to great lengths to describe this request as being a riposte to the recent political snub suffered by Egypt when its candidate for the UNESCO head position wasn't successful. It seems that a group of intellectuals (led by a triumvirate of Jewish writers or polemicists in Europe, as well as French and Germans) argued that the Egyptian candidate had expressed anti-Semitic comments in the past.

I don't disagree with that possibility, but so what? Egypt is well within its rights to demand the return of every item of its patrimony. The German museum generates a considerable amount of money from displaying what is Egypt's most famous Pharaoh queen (well, almost as famous as Cleopatra). Does Egypt see a dime from this revenue?

The article also informs us that over the years Egypt has requested for Nefertiti to be returned, but Germans point out that Ludwig Borchardt, who discovered the bust at in 1912, had Egyptian approval to take it to Berlin.

And 1912 is the problem. At that time, Egypt was ruled by Abbas II (one of the vestiges of the ruling Albanian house of Mehmet Ali) who, when showing a few weak signs of nationalism, was neutered (I hope only figuratively) by Lord Cromer. In 1914, Britain declared Egypt its protectorate and deposed of Abbas. Under these circumstances, an "Egyptian" approval is highly dubious, and Borchardt may have exploited a bureaucracy made malleable by the presence of various colonial powers, which at that time, had special privileges in Egypt. A similar case involved the Axum Obelisk which was plundered from Ethiopia by Italy, and was returned in 2005.

If Mr Kimmelman wanted to tie a more plausible news event to this request, he should consider the implications of the recent murder of Marwa al-Sherbini, a pregnant Egyptian pharmacist who was stabbed 18 times by an Islamphobe German man in a Dresden courthouse, and the flaccid response of the German media and its police to this hate crime. This was interpreted in the Muslim world as evidence of a deep-seated Islamophobia in Germany...so I'm sure that Germany is not on Egypt's most favored nations' list at this point of time.

Setting aside hypocritical politics and the residual ills of colonialism, there's no question in my mind that countries' patrimonies such as the bust of Nefertiti, the Elgin Marbles, the Ishtar Gate and a plethora of other lesser-known artifacts should be returned to their rightful owners.

Haven't the erstwhile colonial powers plundered enough?

It's off my chest now...sort of.

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Photocrati: Cairo Report, The Real Thing?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
Over on Photocrati, I've just uploaded a couple of photographs, along with an article, describing an authentic zeqr ceremony in a small village on the western banks of the Nile.

Here's an excerpt:

Following the sound of the rhythmic Sufi song booming out of loudspeakers, we turn into a narrow alley, crowded with people; some are standing but many more are sitting on simple straw mats, lighting the small pieces of charcoal that burns the tobacco on their water-pipes. The barely illuminated alley seems to be inhabited by ghosts, particularly as I now can see a row of elderly men slowly swaying to the rhythm of the song, as if they’re sheets hung up to dry in the wind. Curious eyes follow me as I make my way to the front; some noticing my camera and wondering what to make of me.

For the rest of the article and the photographs, go to Photocrati.

Here's my multimedia feature on Al Ziqr.

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Zekr or Soccer?

© Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Over at Photocrati.com , I wrote of my experiences in covering one of the Sufi ceremonies in a neighborhood of Old Cairo that is, shall we say...dodgy.

A few moments spent with its quirky denizens however, and I quickly realized that Cairenes never lost their warmth, humor and kindness.

I also concluded that soccer trumps religion, even among Sufis.

Read Part 1 of the Cairo Report here.

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My Work: Al Ziqr Multimedia

The ziqr is a form of ritual performed by Sufis, a sect of Islam frequently considered as too liberal and too progressive by the more orthodox theological authorities in Egypt and the Islamic world. Nonetheless, it is practiced in Egypt, particularly in the slums of Cairo and in the country's rural areas. There has been a recent revival of interest in Sufism, and many of Egypt's contemporary Sufis are young, well educated people in professional careers.

The devotions of many Sufis center on the ziqr, a ceremony at which music, body movements, and chants induce a state of ecstatic trance in the disciples.

I photographed two of these rituals; one in the Old Cairo area of Darb Al Ahmar, and the other in a small village called Manawat. (Click the small arrow to start the slideshow).

A large version of this multimedia photo essay is here.

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WSJ's Photo Journal: Islam in Cairo

©Dominic Nahr-All Rights Reserved
The WSJ's Photo Journal has featured some 21 photographs by Dominic Nahr in an interesting photo essay titled In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood Plays Defence and starts it off with this:

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is on the defensive, its struggles reverberating throughout Islamist movements that the secretive organization has spawned world-wide.

I'm somewhat puzzled by this statement, because as far as I know the Muslim Botherhood is a recognized political party in the country and from what I sensed during my just ended short visit to Cairo, it seems to be well entrenched in Egypt's social fabric. The Islamic movement fills voids left by a government overwhelmed by the explosive growth of its population, and by state organizations paralyzed by inefficiency and rotten by corruption. Truth be said, the Egyptian people deserve a better quality of life, and religion plays an important role in making their lives a little more bearable.

Irrespective of politics, I was amazed to see that all women employees in government entities wore the Islamic veil. Some of them even wore the "niqab" which covers the whole face. I had to spend some time at a couple of these government offices, and seeing this relatively recent change in women dress habits was shocking. I haven't been to Cairo for 8 years, and this was the most jarring change.

I'm told that many of the women dress so conservatively do so to avoid criticism and sexual harassment at their workplace. I'm also told by a local wit that some are "Saudi Arabian from the outside and French from the inside", meaning that it's all a show rather than based on conviction. It may well be true, since I noticed that the veiled young woman vendor selling me a SIM card for my cell phone was heavily made-up, with traces of glitter on her eye-lids.

Having said that, I can only reiterate what I wrote in an earlier post. There are no kinder people than Egyptians, and their courtesy and genuine warmth towards foreigners and visitors are wonderful attributes.

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POV: Cairo Report

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
I'm frequently asked to organize and lead photo~expeditions to Egypt (or more specifically to Cairo), and I've always resisted the temptation. People view this as strange and have difficulty understanding the reasons. After all, I was born in Cairo, I speak the language (almost a colloquially as its residents) and perfectly understand the culture.

My reasons for my resistance are many, but here's a few I can share on this blog.

1. I'm a travel-documentary photographer, and my primary interests for my photo expeditions revolve around photographing esoteric but authentic cultural and religious rituals and ceremonies. My trips are "event-specific" such as my recent photo~expedition to Kerala for the Theyyam rituals or my forthcoming trip to Morocco to photograph the Gnawa festival. These are highly colorful events, with powerful visual aesthetics. The visual aesthetics of authentic festivals in Egypt are not as colorful nor as "eye-candy" appealing. I don't mean to imply that these are not interesting; quite the opposite is true but they're usually monochromatic and much less flamboyant than in Asia as an example. Somewhat facetiously (and perhaps a bit unfairly) I described Cairo as being beige on beige on beige with hints of beige.

The ceremonies or rituals aimed at the touristic market in Egypt are contrived, and while these are designed to be colorful and attractive, I find their lack of authenticity to be unappealing. Yes, there are a few authentic and visually interesting religious festivals in Egypt but here's where my second point kicks in.

2. Egyptian bureaucracy (which is stifling and pervasive here) is an enormous turn-off for me. I'll be charitable and just say that fixers need fixers in Egypt to be able to fix anything. Nothing gets done in a timely fashion or efficiently unless one lubricates the system. Tipping is no longer an act of appreciation for good service, but is now an entitlement. Bait and switch in the tourist industry is frequently the norm, whether in terms of guides, transport or itineraries.

The success of my photo~expeditions is because I'm confident of the supporting infrastructure I've chosen to use...whether guides, fixers, agents, vehicular transport, hotels and so forth. In Egypt, unless I were able to use the people who are close to me (but they're not in the tourism industry) to set up my trips, I have no confidence that they would go as well as I would want and expect them to be. It's difficult to find kinder people than the Egyptians, but that characteristic is not sufficient to overlook the host of downsides.

I wish I could say otherwise, but Egypt will not appear as a destination for my photo expeditions.

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Cairo Report: Zekr at Manawat

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
It happened. Driven by Abdel Fattah ("Kojak") and accompanied by Badawi, then meeting with Haj Zakaria and Badawi's father at 11:00 pm, I was welcomed to an authentic zikr ceremony held at the village of Manawat. This is certainly not a venue for the faint-hearted or for foreigners (assuming they would even find the village). The ceremony starts after the night prayer and goes well into the dawn hours. I would go beyond describing the performance as totally authentic. It's a rural ceremony performed by villagers for villagers who follow a certain tariqah or Sufi way. The performance was held in a small alley, lit by a combination of fluorescent and dangling bulbs. The attendees, men and women, sat on straw carpets, and lined the walls of the alley smoking sheeshas or cigarettes.

As I wrote earlier, zikr is a devotional performance which includes the repetition of the names of Allah, supplications and sections of the Qur'an.

The music and chanting were mind-blowing. Very similar to the traditional rural songs called mawwal, the rhythm starts slow and progressively gets quicker while the attendees sway to its tempo, until they reach a state of trance. Not the easiest of photo shoots because of the confined space, mixed light sources and blaring loudspeakers, but I was transfixed by the authenticity of the event. Unfortunately, the monochrome of Egyptian traditional dress (browns, white and black) is not visually magnetic...but that's how it is.

Once I'm back in New York, I'll edit my photographs and review the quality of the audio recordings and determine whether a multimedia slideshow can be produced. In the meantime, here's one that caught my eye from last night.

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Cairo Report: Madh in Old Cairo

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Here's another of my photographs of the band at Monday's Sufi madh at the shrine of Sayyidah Fatimah Al Nabawiyya. The fellow on the left in his white galabeya is called the muallem or the leader of the band, while the other is called el-madah.

I'm hoping to attend a real zikr ceremony late tonight in one of the villages surrounding Cairo. Naturally, I'll be accompanied by the indispensable Badawi and Kojak, the driver. And even more naturally, it's incha allah.

Note: I don't have Photoshop installed on my Acer netbook (one of the disadvantages of going minimalist) so I'm using Gimp, the free and lightweight image editing program which I'm not familiar with...perhaps a reason for the images being either too soft or oversharpened.

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Zikr At Fatimah Al-Nabawiyah Shrine

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Well, it did happen. Driven in the rickety taxi expertly navigated by Abdel-Fattah (aka Kojak) in the grimy labyrinthine alleys of Old Cairo, and accompanied by Badawi and Haj Zakaria (an Imam by choice and a government employee by necessity), I arrived in reasonable good form at the shrine (and mosque) of Sayyidah Fatimah Al Nabawiyya just before the afternoon Muslim prayers. It is here, just outside the mosque, that a small Sufi zikr was scheduled to take place.

Sayyidah Fatima was one of the daughters of Imam Hussein, the martyred son of Ali (nephew of the Prophet Mohammad and revered by Shi'a Muslims), who is said to be the first to know of her father's martyrdom when a black crow soaked in the Imam's blood landed next to her. She is considered to be a saint by many in the local Sufi community.

The definition of zikr is that it's an Islamic practice and a devotional act which includes the repetition of the names of Allah, supplications and aphorisms and sections of the Qur'an. What I witnessed was a small manifestation of this practice, where a band of devotional musicians sang (rather than recited) homage to various saints such as Al Badawi, founder of the Badawiyyah Sufi order, among others.

A number of tiny street cafes offered tea to the spectators, while a few veiled women occasionally swayed to the tempo of the music. An elderly woman had to helped after she "swooned" from the exertion. I have no idea if it was caused by the exertion of having sucked on a water pipe for the better part of an hour, or by her entering a state of trance.

More a block party than a serious religious event, there was a sense of neighborhood fraternity amongst the attendees. I was viewed with amused curiosity, and treated with the Egyptian customary kindness. I realized that the event wasn't packed because it coincided with an important soccer match being televised and shown in various tea-houses. Religion is important, but it's often trumped by soccer.

I considered this as a precursor to other more important events, which I'm working on. Hopefully, there'll be more to come. However as I expected, it was monochromatic...and hence the black & white photograph of this post. The highlight of the performance was to hear my name being sung when I made a modest contribution to the band's "pension fund". I had my audio recorder on for a while, and the little I listened to so far is quite interesting.

Note: Technically-speaking, I was advised that what I saw is called Madh rather than Zikr. Madh is the giving of praise to various saints, which is exactly what this ceremony was about.

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Jason Larkin: Cairo's Souq El Gomma

Photo ©Jason Larkin-All Rights Reserved
Jason Larkin is a British photographer currently based in Cairo, and works extensively throughout the Middle East region. Recent commissions include Monocle, FT Magazine, L’Espresso, New York Times, Der Spiegiel, and The Guardian.

Jason chose the unusual subject of Souq El Gomma (Market of the Friday) to feature on his website, which he describes as "an exploration of the myriad people, objects and spaces that make up Cairo’s Souq El-Gomma, the Middle East’s largest informal market gathering."

According to my research, this market is nestled in a dusty patch beneath a flyover in the southern cemeteries of City of the Dead just beyond Cairo's Citadel. It's a repository of both cheap goods, discarded items found by Cairo's trash collectors, "antiques" and stolen goods. The hand gesture by the fellow in Jason's photograph is the typical Egyptian "what do you want? why are you taking my picture?".

All major cities have similar markets and while I haven't been to Souq El Gomma, Jason's photographs remind me of Bangkok's huge Chatuchak Weekend Market.

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Shawn Baldwin: Egypt

Photo © Shawn Baldwin-All Rights Reserved
Shawn Baldwin is a photographer based in Cairo, Egypt, whose work regularly appear in The New York Times. For the past 10 years he covered major news events in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East including the war in Iraq.

His work was recently been exhibited in New York and was published in most major publications including Time, Newsweek, US News, the Guardian and Le Monde. In addition to editorial work, corporate assignments included J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Nike.

Shawn's galleries are predominantly of the Middle East; Egypt (which I feature here), Iraq, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Algeria. His Egypt gallery is varied, with photographs of mass weddings to political rallies. His photograph of the sugar cane juice being poured by an anonymous hand and the expectant look on the young girl's face framed by the tap is a lovely story-telling composition.

I also featured Shawn's work on Cairo with the New York Times in a previous TTP post.

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Denis Dailleux: Egypt

Photo © Denis Dailleux-All Rights Reserved
"Between Denis Dailleux and Cairo, it is a true love story : on one side, an insatiable fascination for this unique place, its mood, its magical lights and an unspeakable tenderess towards its inhabitants ; on the other, a natural generosity, a city which offers itself to this subjugated look, inhabitants full of spontaneous kindness."

Denis Dailleux is a French photographer, who visits Cairo with regularity. He developed an obsession with this ancient city that teems with people, cars and activity. He doesn't seem interested in the superficial Cairo, but delves in the character of the "real" people...those he describes as possessing spontaneous kindness...those who live in the slums but who are willing to share the little they have with anyone...an Egyptian trait.

His gallery Egypt, My Love is replete with soft-hued images of Egyptians...some posing with candor, others exhibiting shyness in being photographed by a khawaga. In the above photograph, the young clashes with the old...the "in-your-face" of the young man showing off his torso, and his mother demurely looking away from the camera...the story of Egypt in one photograph.

Another photograph in his galleries is of a mosque caretaker beating an old carpet out of its dust in the courtyard of either Al-Hassan or Al-Hussein mosque. Just looking at it, I can smell the Egyptian dust.

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Peter Dench: Egypt's Zabaleen

Photograph © Peter Dench-All Rights Reserved
Peter Dench is a British photographer who works primarily in the fields of commercial and editorial photography. He was granted a World Press Photo award, and his work was chosen to participate in PDN's Photo Annual 2008.

His website offers many interesting galleries (his work on UK themes is thought-provoking), but I chose his work on the Egyptian Zabaleen to bring here on the pages of TTP.

A bit of background on this unusual community (excerpted from Wikipedia):

"The Zabbaleen are an Egyptian community of mainly Coptic Christians who are self-employed in Cairo to collect and dispose of much of the city's waste. They perform this service very cheaply or for free, making a living by sorting the waste materials for reuse or recycling. Waste food is fed to livestock (most often pigs) or poultry. Other materials, such as steel, glass and plastic bottles, are sorted by hand and sold as raw materials. Other items are repaired or reused. Some material is burnt as fuel. Traditionally, donkey driven carts are used by males to collect waste from homes, which is sorted by female members of the family in zabbaleen homes. It is claimed that zabbaleen reuse or recycle 80-90% of the waste they collect. "

An estimated 60,000 - 70,000 Zabbaleen live in an area known locally as Garbage City, and are mostly descendants of poor farmers from Upper Egypt who settled in the city in the 1950s. By virtue of their being Coptic Christians and of their occupation, the zabaleen are discriminated against, and face compounded hardships brought about by the pervasive corruption and kleptocracy of Egypt's governance. Since they're not Muslims, social services provided by Islamic organizations are not extended to them as well.

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Claudia Wiens: Egypt

Image © Claudia Wiens-All Rights Reserved
Claudia Wiens has been based in Cairo, Egypt as a freelance photographer since 2000, and immersed herself in this populous Arab and Islamic nation, getting as close as possible to its people. She's represented by Getty Images

Claudia attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) in Mexico City, and I initially met her while lunching over a few tacos near the workshop's center. She was wearing a red t-shirt advertising "SAVO", an Egyptian detergent that I remembered being used years ago when I lived there. I asked her if she had visited Egypt, and she shocked my socks off by replying in flawless Egyptian that she actually lived there in a neighborhood I knew well, and this was said in as good a pronunciation as mine, and truth be told, it sounded less rusty! We continued most of our conversation in Egyptian...it was certainly fun to be speaking my native language with a German in Mexico City.

Her project in Mexico City for FPW was documenting the female professional wrestlers known as luchadoras, a project which earned her much attention and compliments.

She has recently published some of her work on the Luchadoras on the BBC website.

If I'm not mistaken, the above photograph by Claudia is of the famed Cairene coffeehouse known as "El-Feshawy" where I had my first (and probably last) sheesha or hubbly-bubbly water pipe. If any of my readers have nostalgic memories of Cairo, have a look at Claudia's photo essay on Groppi.

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Petrut Calinescu: Egypt

Photograph © Petrut Calinescu-All Rights Reserved
Petrut Calinescu is a freelance photojournalist member of Panos Pictures, and is working from Bucharest in Romania. His photographs appeared in AP, AFP, Reuters, New York Times, Der Spiegel, National Geographic and a host of other international publications.

Take a look at Petrut's work in Egypt, and specifically his photo essay on the camel market near Cairo. The market is called Birkas, and is the largest of its kind in Africa...it has been in existence for as long as camels have been used for transport. It's certainly not as colorful as the Pushkar Camel fair, and it's not a place for camera-wielding tourists.

The first time I became aware of camel traders was years ago in Khartoum...where I saw many dusty camel traders with some of their herd just ambling down the streets of the Sudanese capital. It was there that I was told of the ancient camel route that traverses Sudan into Egypt.

Again, a few years back, I was interested in joining an expedition which would travel a section of the darb al-arbaeen (translated as the route of 40 days) from the south of Egypt to its capital Cairo. This ancient route -used since antiquity- was an important trade and pilgrimage "highway", and was used by spice, slave, camel traders as well as pilgrims from West Africa on their way to Mecca, and kings and princes visiting Egypt. Its importance has dwindled, but I understand that traditional camel caravans still use it.

Here's the website of Petrut Calinescu.

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New York Times: Cairo

Image Copyright © Shawn Baldwin/NY Times -All Rights Reserved
I haven't visited Cairo for more than 4-5 days since 1988, so I'm always interested to see recent photographs of its neighborhoods. Cultural, political, societal and economic upheavals have reshaped the character of this ancient city from a hub of Mediterranean influences to an amalgam of Islamic traditions and Arab culture mixed in with a hefty dose of Americanisms. Neighborhoods with Greek, Italian, French and British characteristics have now been "Egyptianized", with new gated communities springing up looking more like those of Scottsdale, Arizona than anything else.

As recently as 1988, few women in the posh neighborhoods of Cairo wore veils but now, it's the norm rather than the exception. One thing hasn't changed though: the photograph of a man riding a bicycle navigating Cairo's traffic with a ladder-sized tray of baladi bread balanced on his head, is a scene that will last forever. What if he falls or drops a few loaves of bread you ask? Ah, well...he puts them back on the tray and continues his delivery as if nothing happened.

The slideshow of photographs by Shawn Baldwin is worthwhile seeing to appreciate the "older" Cairo...the Cairo I recall. For instance, one of the photographs is of the famed El-Feshawi cafe where I had my very first (and probably the last) sheesha or water-pipe.

The NY Times' Weekend In Cairo

The accompanying article.

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Books: Down The Nile

I normally wouldn't post about a book I have yet to read, but this is a book by Rosemary Mahoney, whose earlier "The Singular Pilgrim" has the best description of Varanasi I've ever read...so I'm confident that her new literary effort is a treat. Secondly, Mahoney also writes about Egypt and its people...a country and people I know well. Thirdly, the book reviewer describes Mahoney as "This is a woman who doesn't suffer fools gladly."...a trait which I find not unattractive in people.

Another gem: "I have always resented imposed constraints, hated all the things people said one should and should not do," confesses Rosemary Mahoney in Down the Nile. "A woman shouldn't ... A man wouldn't ... People were always conjuring up a wall and telling you to stay on your side of it."

This warrants a trip to my nearest bookstore!

Here's the full review as it appears in the Christian Science Monitor.

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Pascal Meunier: The Baths of Cairo

Cairo hammam - Image Copyright Pascal Meunier
The featured photographs introduced in this post are a revelation for me, as I had no idea that public baths still existed at all in Cairo, the city of my birth. It appears that during the 12th century, the Egyptian baths were the most beautiful of the East, the most convenient and best laid out. Today, excluded from the government's restoration plans , the hammams of Cairo are decaying.

Pascal Meunier is a documentary photographer based in Paris, whose latest photographic works focus on Arab-Muslim culture. A culture which endlessly talked of and criticized these days, but seldom understood nor appreciated.

For the past eight years, Pascal has reported on cultural traditions from Mauritania to Malaysia, passing through Iran, Libya, Yemen and Egypt on the way. The objective of his photography is to capture the cultural heritage and traditions that are swiftly vanishing. He also shows a Muslim world in change, overtaken by modernity, but increasingly anxious to preserve its values. He photographs with a Leica MP.

I found his images of the Cairene public baths to be brooding, saturated and atmospheric. As I said, a revelation and certainly a potential personal project when I next visit.

Pascal Meunier's Les Derniers Bains Du Caire

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