Don't miss 'My Son is Not a Project, My Son is a Human Being' symposium at El Sawy Culturewheel - Lectures - Al-Ahram Weekly
Diwan Bookstore
105, Abu Bakr El-Seddiq St, Heliopolis, Misr Algedida, Tel 02 2690 8184/85/ 0122 6000168
Thurs 26, 7pm: Discussion of Salah Essa's book Afyoun wa Banadeq (Opium and Guns).
El Sawy Culturewheel
End of 26th of July St, underneath the 15th of May Bridge, Zamalek, Tel 2736 8881/6178/2737 4448
Word Hall
Thurs 26, 5pm (Public invitation): 'My Son is not a Teenager' a lecture by Sheikh Ahmed El-Abady, preacher and researcher at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, Religious Media Department, Cairo Region.
Thurs 26, 5.30pm: 'My Son is Not a Project, My Son is a Human Being: The Proper Upbringing of Children' symposium features mental health and educational guidance consultant Omnia Abdel-Mo'aty, who will tackle several themes such as the difference between normal education and negative education, the
basic psychological needs of the child, and the proper tools for bringing children.
Mon 30, 5.30pm: 'Mamluks ruled Egypt before and after the Mamluks' a lecture by archaeological lecturer and Islamic antiquities researcher Hossam Zedan.
ALEXANDRIA
French Cultural Institute
30 Al-Nabi Danial St, Mahatet Misr, Alexandria, Tel 03 3913435/3918952
Thurs 26, 6pm: 'Forgotten Heritage: The Santons of the Mareotide' conference presented by Professor of History Ismael Awad, in Arabic and French, will be moderated by Giuseppe Cecere, Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, University of Bologna. This is a scientific research project documenting all the shrines and tombs in the Lake Mariout area. It is led by the French Centre for Alexandrian Studies, in collaboration with the artist Samar Bayoumi as a professional photographer. Funded by the Barakat Trust Charitable Foundation in England, the project is based on a cartographic study conducted by Dr. Ismail Awad on numerous topographic map collections, ranging from maps of the French expedition engineers in 1801 to modern satellite images. The project aims to document all the shrines existing since the beginning of the nineteenth century and trace their development through maps until 2024.
(7pm) Following the conference will be the opening of the exhibition 'In the Presence of the Sacred' organized by photographer Samar Bayoumi and Ismael Awad.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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Al-Ahram Weekly
21 hours ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Stories from the land of Egypt - Features - Al-Ahram Weekly
Dina Ezzat talks to geographer Atef Moatamed about the changes taking place in the human geography of Egypt as a result of modern attitudes and the loss of traditions 'We will only understand our country when we walk its roads and deserts and move around its villages and cities, whether in the Nile Valley or further afield at its borders,' said Atef Moatamed, a geographer and writer, commenting on the many festive occasions that take place across Egypt such as the slaughter of sheep for the Eid Al-Adha or the end of Muslim fasting at the end of Ramadan and the Eid Al-Fitr or the celebration of Christmas or Easter. * A version of this article appears in print in the 26 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly 'Religion and religious festivities are always subject to folk influences, and they are inspired by the nature and habits of communities,' Moatamed said. He added that while there are of course common elements that connect the country together, there is no denying the fact that for centuries Egypt was as diverse as it was unified. This diversity, he said, is a fact about the place. A professor of geography at Cairo University, earlier this year Moatamed saw the launch of his book Sawt al-Makan: Sayran ala al-Akdam fi Goghrafia Masr (The Sound of Place: A Walk through the Geography of Egypt), a 270-page volume published by Cairo publisher Al-Shorouk. It is neither an academic text on the geography of Egypt nor a traveller's chronicle, however. Instead, it is a dedicated attempt to explain the impact of the diversity of the country's topography on the cultural makeup of its people, including in the Nile Valley, the coastal cities, and at the borders. The book does not cover the country's entire 1,010,408 square km, of course. But it is representative of what could be called the 'many profiles' of Egypt – profiles and not faces, Moatamed says, because he is convinced that Egypt's diversity does not undermine its core uniformity. He reminds us that similarities are always there to qualify diversity in one way or another. It is hard to overlook the imprint of ancient Egypt 'as a culture and an identity' on the habits and practices of modern Egyptians, for example. Moreover, it would be hard to argue that the three Abrahamic religions are practised in Egypt in the same way they are elsewhere, he said, despite the fact that they vary 'from one part of the country to another.' In his book, he reflects on the way religion changes into cultural practices in different locations in the country. 'Across Egypt, tolerance is hard to miss,' he said, adding 'this is a function of how all Egyptians perceive religion – as a concept and not just as a faith. But it is also a function of the impact of the topography of Egypt, which prompts unity and a sense of togetherness,' he added. But there are differences. One example mentioned in the book is the cemeteries of Al-Shatbi in Alexandria, which Moatamed says are as serene, but less sombre, than those elsewhere. This is the inevitable result of religious diversity and its impact on practices of remembering the dead. In Nubia in the far south of the country, Moatamed sees an openness to colour that is not easily spotted elsewhere. This is the case despite the displacement of the Nubian population in the 1960s as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam. But there is still a lot that residents of the Nile Valley share, despite their local differences. 'Today, there are many references to the word Kemet, which means the 'Black Land' or the fertile land where the ancient Egyptians lived in the Nile Valley,' Moatamed said. The name is not designed to reflect a sense of ethnic superiority as some might think today. 'It is a sense of identity that comes from the geographical core of the country,' he stated. Over the centuries, the geographical scope of the country has changed, mostly by expansion, allowing the introduction of neighbouring cultures 'including the Nubians, the Amazigh, the Arab tribes, the African tribes, and others.' This expansion and the closer association between the Black Land of the Nile Valley and the Red Land of the Desert to the east and west created new cultural rhythms, according to Moatamed. He argued that it is hard to underestimate the impact of incoming influences, especially that of the Arab Conquest, which introducing a new language – Arabic. ARRIVALS: Egypt has worshipped countless deities over its millennia-long history, Moatamed said, and religions in general have had a wide impact. 'It might not be something that many people know, but the Nubians embraced Christianity first and then Islam,' he said. He noted that geography was not neutral in the way that different religions gained ground in Egypt. The spread of each new religion avoided parts of the country that were surrounded by mountains. Moreover, the way religion ended up being perceived and practised in different parts of the country was influenced by local cultures. The impact of geography was also important in the choices made by invaders who have conquered Egypt over the centuries. 'Both the Arabs and the Europeans, whether the Greeks in 300 BCE or the French and the British in the 18th century CE, came to Egypt via the north coast, where the city of Alexandria came to be founded,' he said. But in the case of Arabs, who came in the seventh century, it was impossible for them to settle in Alexandria or to take it as their capital 'because Alexandria is about the sea, and the Arabs who came from the heart of the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century had no association with the sea. They knew the desert better and preferred it.' Diversity continued to influence space in Egypt over the centuries, especially with the improvements in connectivity that allowed people from the north to get a taste of the life of people of the south and vice versa. 'Today, we see that the ethnic roots of clothes and jewellery are being celebrated – from Nubia, Siwa, and Sinai – but they are all celebrated as authentic Egyptian arts,' he said. 'Egypt is one land, but it is not one thing; this is something we should be happy about because it is ultimately a source of richness,' Moatamed added. In ancient Egypt, all Egyptians worshipped one God, but each of its over 40 provinces had its own deity. Today, each province exhibits a cultural duality – one side owing to its association to the whole of Egypt and the other owing to its particular geographical and topographical identity, with adjacent provinces sharing much of this. However, modernity has been affecting this ancient pattern. 'Weddings across Egypt are becoming less unique and more standardised and more in line with norms generated from the centre, for example,' he said. There is less space for local songs than there used to be, for example in the Oases of the Western Desert, and all brides now go to beauty salons to have their hair and makeup done before the wedding, even waiting at the salon for the groom to pick them up from the doorstep. 'This would not have been the case in the past,' Moatamed stated. What goes for social occasions also goes for religious ones, he argued. More and more of the specific practices associated with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan or the Eid Al-Adha are disappearing in favour of more standardised behaviour. This is a function of modernity whose advances are curtailing the uniqueness of different places and bringing more connectivity. 'When I think of peasants in the villages of Sohag [in Upper Egypt], for example, I can see the change,' Moatamed said. 'In the past, their lives were all about farming. They were attached to the land, and they would not want to leave. This is no longer the case.' 'With the increasing demand for workers for the mines across the Red Sea desert, these farmers are leaving their land,' Moatamed said. This, he explained, is a function of the changing nature of the local geography due to the greater connectivity between Sohag and the Red Sea. It also leads to another change, namely the decline in the use of agricultural land. CHANGE: Modernity is not the only bringer of change to Egypt, Moatamed said, since there is also climate change. He referred to the erosion of the North Coast in and around Alexandria, something reported on in his book in detail. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly before the storm that hit the city in late May, Moatamed said that he was as worried for Alexandria as he is for Port Said and the entire north of the Delta. 'I am not sure we are ready to deal with the consequences of climate change on the North Coast, and my fear is that we could lose some of these cities or at least face a dramatic change in their nature and consequently in the story they have contributed to the overall story of Egypt,' he stated. There are other factors whose impacts are coming, among them economic. Moatamed said that economic pressures are prompting more and more people to abandon their land in favour of more profitable jobs in the country's cities. The construction and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that is feared will influence the flow of Nile water into Sudan and Egypt is another factor to take into account with regard to the possible impact on agricultural land, he said. 'It is painful to see the decline in agricultural land, whatever the reason,' he said, adding that this will impact the villages of the Delta and Upper Egypt and consequently also their cultural practices. In his book, Moatamed pays tribute to the commitment that the people of Nubia have shown to their traditions even after their displacement from their traditional land with the building of the High Dam. He writes at length about the 'right to place,' the title of the second chapter of the book, where he laments the inegalitarian access to Mediterranean beaches that have become closely associated with the financial ease. He also laments the lack of access to Red Sea beaches, which 'again is about economic limitations,' he says. In the latter area, the issue is not just socio-economic inegalitarianism but also industrialisation and a development plan that gives hardly any consideration to the 'right to place, including the right to access the beaches that people are supposed to be entitled to,' he said. 'We have forgotten that the banks of the River Nile in Cairo are often no longer accessible for strolls for those without financial means, unless they work in the restaurants and cafes that are dedicated to those who can afford them,' he added. In the central chapter of the book, Moatamed reminds readers that the 'relationship between people and nature – be it the river, the sea, or the land – is not about leisure and pleasure,' but instead is 'the main motive for creativity and productivity.' 'Zoning off the river and the sea with gates that only the rich, and never the poor, can get through does not just lead to short-term socio-economic grievances but also actually undermines the [inspiring] concept of endlessness... in favour of the [constraining] concept of limitation,' he said. He said that his book is a testimony about things that are endangered. 'I am not sure that we can be accurate when we talk about endangered things, because at the moment it seems that so many things, or almost everything, is somehow at risk,' he added. Worrying about the loss of connections between places and people in Egypt is not an idealistic thought, he argued. It comes from an understanding that the more these connections decline, the less association people will have with places and for that matter with the culture that they have given rise to, he said. Such changes also affect the relationship between the tribes of the Eastern and Western deserts and the land, which has now become more about making money through tourism or other activities than about traditional affinity. 'Some 20 years from now, those who are currently in their 30s will not be the 'elders' of their local communities. Unlike [those who are in their 50s today], they will not have sufficient knowledge to share the incremental story of Egypt,' he stated. In the introduction to his book, Moatamed writes that his decision to share his trips across Egypt and the research associated with the impressions he has gathered is about sharing testimony but also about calling attention to the need to think carefully about what must be done to keep the Egypt story intact. It is time for other people to set out on tours of Egypt, even in the simplest and most basic ways, in order to get a close and first-hand look at a story that might impact them in different ways and to take ownership of it. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
CairoScene
2 days ago
- CairoScene
The Other Albert: Egypt's Nihilist Who Gave Camus a Run for His Money
Somewhere in Cairo in the early 1940s, an idle figure reclines on a wicker chair, not reading, not writing, simply breathing. "Doing nothing," Albert Cossery would later quip, "is an act of revolt." Albert Cossery stands as one of the few Arab writers to embody what might be called passive nihilism, a philosophy that mocks power, revolution, and ambition - not with rage, but with a disarming, almost elegant indifference. Born in Cairo and shaped by its languid rhythms, he would eventually make his way to Paris, where his name secured a quiet permanence in French literary circles. And yet, for all his sharp prose and radical detachment, Cossery remains a faint presence in Egyptian cultural memory, a local son more revered abroad than at home. In 1945, Paris was piecing itself back together from the ruins of war. By then, Cossery had already settled into a rhythm of deliberate indifference. He lived in a small, unassuming room at Hotel La Louisiane on Rue de Seine. The space was tiny, but perfectly sufficient: a bed, a desk he rarely used, and a window overlooking the boulevard where life hustled below. Cossery lived a life measured not by accomplishment, but by the perfection of repeat ad infinitum. In the shrine of literary Alberts, however, one name has long overshadowed the other. Albert Camus: philosopher of the absurd, moral voice of occupied France, reluctant existentialist, and grudging Nobel laureate. His name brings back visions of plague-stricken Oran and mythic Sisyphean struggles. But Albert Cossery? Even in Cairo, his birthplace, he remains, at best, a vague idea. And yet, the two Alberts, Camus and Cossery, offer us a strange, inverted mirror of the 20th century. One laboured under the weight of moral responsibility in a world devoid of real, inherent meaning; the other shrugged, lit a cigarette, and asked why everyone was making such a fuss. In Paris, it was not unusual to see the two Alberts strolling side by side through the Latin Quarter, pausing at bookstalls and exchanging barbed observations over coffee. One carried the burden of the world's absurdity; the other, its futility. "Cossery is, in a way, the most extreme passive nihilist of all," says Léa Polverini, whose thesis at Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès charted the Egyptian writer's long, improbable career. When we spoke, Polverini painted a picture of a man at once radically disengaged and deeply embedded. "His early works still held some hope: In 'La Maison de la Morte Certaine' (House of the Dead, 1944) a revolutionary character of communist influence fighting greedy landlords, poor men scheming to overturn oppression. But with time, even that dissipates." Indeed, by the time of 'The Lazy Ones' (Les Fainéants dans la vallée fertile, 1948), Cossery had perfected his paradox: a fiction in which no plot moves forward, because to act is to be complicit. "The more you struggle and push back through enticing an act, the more you submit to the farce of social order," as his characters imply. "Better to sit back and enjoy the sunshine." Born in 1913 to a wealthy Syro-Lebanese family in Cairo, Cossery emigrated to Paris at 17, where he remained for the rest of his life, living most of it in the same small room at the Hotel La Louisiane in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He published seven novels and one collection of short stories (Les Hommes oubliés de Dieu), and one collection of poetry (Les Morsures, no longer edited) over six decades - always in French, but with a vocabulary so infused with Egyptian vernacular that scholars like Frédéric Lagrange have debated whether Cossery was writing in "Arabic disguised as French." "His language," Lagrange observes in his seminal essay 'Albert Cossery écrit-il arabe?', "has an imaginative syntax that feels Egyptian, even though the words are French." His characters speak in certain metaphors, their insults drenched in the improvisational sharpness of Cairo's tongue. Yet the literary establishment placed him squarely within the French canon, if only on its margins. "He erases almost any historical reference point to his novels," Polverini adds, "and this refusal is telling. His work is not Egyptian in the historical sense, nor French in the cultural one. His settings are not necessarily depictions of a certain place but stylized archetypes of power, sloth, and futility." If Camus's Algeria was a tortured pentimento of colonial guilt, Cossery's Semi-Mythical Cairo is timeless in its corruption. In Cossery's 'The Lazy Ones', a family of aristocrats idle away their days in a decaying villa, each finding new ways to avoid work, responsibility, or even thought. The characters of 'The Lazy Ones' live this credo to the letter. They have no ambitions, no goals, not even real desires. And yet they are not entirely unhappy. Their inertia is almost erotic, their indolence bordering on a mystical state of grace. The conflict, such as it is, revolves around a character named Serag's half-hearted attempts to break out of this life of idleness. He briefly thinks about joining a political movement, tries to seduce a woman, considers starting a business, but every time, his own cynicism defeats him. The family's shared philosophy always pulls him back into inaction. In the end, nothing changes. The family remains in its comfortable bubble of laziness, detached from the city's wider poverty, oppression, and political turmoil. The villa, like their existence, quietly rots in the sun. "At first glance, it seems like political satire," Polverini says. "But in truth, Cossery believed that nothing mattered enough to deserve struggle. His passivity was devoid of any care for ethics, because for him, even witnessing atrocities was not sufficient cause for moral indignation - he fosters a radical indifference that 'resolves' everything with unconcerned laughter.' Here lies the essential divergence from Camus. Both recognised the absurdity of existence: life's refusal to yield meaning, the universe's indifference to human suffering. But while Camus made this his moral starting point, proclaiming that rebellion is the only dignified response while Cossery took it as permission to withdraw entirely. "For Cossery, you exhaust yourself if you try to change anything," Léa remarked. "If nothing can be changed, one might as well enjoy the futile pleasures of life." And yet, Cossery's characters are not simple hedonists. They are ambiguous figures, convinced that their very refusal elevates them above the mediocrity they despise and mock. "They think by rejecting work and ambition they have transcended society," Polverini explains, "but in truth, they become trapped within their own inertia. They they simply play a different score of this very mediocrity they claim to escape." This ambiguity gives Cossery's work a strange resonance today, as younger generations confront their own version of paralyzed rebellion: the climate crisis too vast to reverse, late capitalism too entrenched to dismantle, political regimes too demonic to confront directly. The temptation of Cossery's passive nihilism, its chic disavowal, its knowing smirk, feels dangerously seductive. When Andrew Gallix profiled Cossery for The Guardian in 2008, shortly after his death, he called him a man whose lifestyle amounts to a "mummified existence", a self-styled voluptuous idler. In an era that fetishises hustle culture and productivity metrics, Cossery's contempt for work reads almost radical. But his idleness was not resistance in the sense that Camus understood revolt. For Camus, to revolt was to say yes to life despite its absurdity. For Cossery, revolt was pointless theatre. He shares with Camus the diagnosis, but not the prescription. There is also, unavoidably, the matter of colonial position. Camus, the French-Algerian, was forever implicated in the uneasy ambiguity of the pied-noir identity. His call for moral responsibility was deeply shaped by his own proximity to, and distance from, colonial violence. Cossery, by contrast, floated above these entanglements, neither fully Egyptian nor French, his novels intentionally dehistoricised, his characters too aloof to even notice the empire that encircled them. "In a way," Polverini suggests, "Cossery's refusal to name regimes or dates makes his work simultaneously timeless and irresponsible. Just the spectacle of human folly endlessly replayed. Over and over and over.' One might argue, of course, that Cossery's work offers its own kind of critique; a satire so brutal it refuses even the solace of moral engagement. His landlords are cartoonishly greedy; his revolutionaries, bumbling opportunists; his policemen, absurd caricatures of authoritarian stupidity. In 'Proud Beggars' (Mendiants et orgueilleux, 1955), the police inspector begs a suspect to confess, not to punish him but to "give meaning" to an otherwise pointless investigation. There is a certain grim comedy in this: the bureaucracy is so obsessed with its own rituals that it fabricates guilt simply to preserve its own sense of purpose. It is bureaucracy as metaphysical farce, a darker Kafkaesque echo filtered through the Cairo sun. Yet to linger only on Cossery's pessimism would overlook the strangely buoyant texture of his prose. His characters drift through corruption with a lightness that seems, at times, enviable. Life is so short. Why make it heavier with illusions of progress? Camus offers the ethics of resistance; Cossery offers the pleasures of defeat. Camus made this his moral starting point, rebellion as a dignified response. For Camus, the absurd doesn't mean despair or absolute nihilism. His famous formula (in 'The Myth of Sisyphus', 'The Rebel', etc.) is: once you recognise the absurd, you must live in defiant awareness of it, through rebellion, creativity, engagement. It becomes an ethical imperative to live fully despite the absurd. Cossery took it as permission to withdraw entirely but with nuance, not despair. Rather, they mock it, refuse to take part in its seriousness, and live lives of deliberate laziness, detachment, and ironic distance. Their withdrawal is both a personal liberation and a kind of passive rebellion, but not in the heroic or existentialist sense Camus proposes. In fact, Cossery saw inaction, indolence, and idleness as a superior response to the absurdity of oppressive power structures. One insists that meaning must be constructed, even if the universe is deaf; the other simply leans back and watches the spectacle collapse under its own weight. There is, of course, an unsettling edge to Cossery's serenity. "At some point," Polverini reflects, "his indifference risks becoming complicity. If nothing matters, if no atrocity deserves indignation, then at what point does passivity enable unmorality?" In 2008, Cossery died in Paris at the age of 94, still living in his tiny hotel room. And yet, as his novels quietly endure on the fringes of literary conversation, one suspects he maybe knew better.
Al-Ahram Weekly
3 days ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Cairo celebrates Alexander Pushkin 226th birthday, Russian Language Day
The Russian Cultural Centre in Cairo celebrated the 226th birthday of Russian poet and writer Alexander Pushkin, as well as Russian Language Day, with a ceremony that highlighted his literary legacy and Russia's cultural ties with Egypt. In a vibrant cultural celebration, the Russian Cultural Centre in Cairo and the Cairo Governorate marked the 226th birthday of the late renowned Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, alongside Russian Language Day. The event took place at Al-Horriya Park, home to the Pushkin statue in Downtown Cairo. Arsenii Matiushchenko, Acting Director of Russian Cultural Centers in Egypt, places flowers at the Pushkin statue. The event highlighted the cultural ties between Egypt and Russia, as well as the timeless relevance of Pushkin's poetry in promoting cross-cultural understanding. The ceremony was attended by Arsenii Matiushchenko, acting director of Russian Cultural Centers in Egypt; Sherif Gad, president of the Egyptian Association of Graduates of Russian and Soviet Universities; Olga Beskilenina, head of the Russian community in Egypt; members of the Egyptian-Russian Friendship Association and the Russian House Youth Club; and professors of the Russian language. During the event, floral tributes were placed at the foot of Pushkin's statue in recognition of his literary legacy. Speaking at the event, Matiushchenko praised Pushkin's enduring influence on the Russian language, described his works as 'immortal,' and emphasized that the poet had shown interest in Egypt's culture and history — a lesser-known but meaningful connection. Meanwhile, Gad highlighted the growing interest in the Russian language across Egypt, citing the existence of 11 departments teaching Russian in Egyptian universities. He also highlighted the growing popularity of Pushkin's works among Arabic-speaking readers, with many of his poems and stories having been translated into Arabic. Larisa Razova, a member of the Coordinating Council of Russian Expatriate Associations in Egypt, explained why Pushkin remains such a powerful symbol of Russian culture: 'He had the rare ability to express the very soul of Russian identity.' The celebration concluded with a series of poetry recitations by students from Cairo University and scholars at the Russian Cultural Centre. They performed some of Pushkin's most beloved works in Russian, showcasing both their linguistic skills and deep admiration for his art. Arsenii Matiushchenko with Sherif Gad with the statue of Pushkin in the background at Al-Horriya Park. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
