Counter-arguments against the existence of widespread racism in Egypt

-- Part 3 of my response to Mona El-Tahawy's Arab World's Racism post. See my Are you racist? earlier post.

Mona El-Tahawy says that Racism is the Arab world's dirty secret. On her side, stand pronouncements by newspaper editor Abdel-Bari Atwan who, on Obama's election, said Obama would be referred to as an 'abd' [slave] in some parts of the Arab world. Indeed, the witness accounts of people who commented on Mona's blog post indicate that, in Egypt for example, southern or Darfurian Sudanese people (pure Black Africans) are seen as inferior outsiders.

There are counter-arguments against the existence of widespread racism. The late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s mother was Sudanese (daughter, herself, of a man from Central African Republic). Sadat was quite dark. I have never heard anyone say "how can that dark man rule Egypt!" Indeed, many people revere Sadat as a great Egyptian nationalist.

Many Egyptians are dark, "black" by European standards. The Nuba region - which has been Egyptian territory for millenia - is populated by quite dark people. Nubians who have migrated to northern parts of Egypt have married other Egyptians with ease. Perhaps there might be early questions when a Nubian proposes to (say) a Cairo family as to the merits of giving their daughter to a man who comes from a social group that is widely perceived as poor and without advantages. But have a look around Egypt and you will see tens of thousands of families who took that leap of faith.

If we're going to be sticklers on prejudice, why should we not discuss the strong bias against the "fellaheen" (peasant farmers) amongst middle-class Egyptians. Why, some fellaheen women are blonde, blue-eyed but would never stand a chance against a middle-class, educated, dark Cairene. "Marry your daughter to a crocodile but not to a fallah." How's that for bias?

Mona brings up Egyptian bias against Darfurian Sudanese (causing deaths at the makeshift refugee camp, which Egypt's notoriously aggressive authorities gave ample warning to before they stormed). The BBC news article that reported on the story commented that the Sudanese refugees should not have expected hospitality in a country with 30% unemployment (if not more).

And how about Sudanese-Sudanese bias? Surely the Darfur conflict would not have come about had there not been intra-Sudanese issues! Mona mentions the shooting of Darfurians at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Recent events show that Egyptian border police has instructions to shoot at any unauthorised movements - at Palestinians even, not just Darfurians.

My personal experience shows that there is _some_ casual disregard for non-Egyptians who are perceived to belong to the less powerful of the world: Black Africans, Indians, and indeed other Arabs. Egyptians _may_ differentiate between themselves and others in an unpleasant manner. The discrimination is not only a black/white thing; you find Palestinians, Saudis, etc, also being discriminated against. Whereas many Egyptians will treat “white” people favourably, they do not hesitate to distinguish between “them” and “us”.

I was once walking down the road with my ex-fiance (who was white) in Cairo, and two girls of about 10 started bad-mouthing my companion (in Arabic). They were saying things like: “Yeah so what, you have blue eyes”, or “What, are you too good to cover up?”, etc. Essentially pointing out differences in a negative way. Does this mean Egyptians are racists? Does this mean Egyptians dislike white people? I think it reflects those kids' mothers' fear of the allure of white women to their men.

But there is something very important here: Egyptians do not treat each other well. They are constantly judging and discriminating against each other. The way you dress, the way you talk, what you drive, who you know, … these are all direct factors in how easily you live your life in Egypt.

My sister (who wears higab) was once standing in line at a nice bakery in Medinet Nasr, only to notice that an un-higabed Egyptian woman looking rather elegant got preferential treatment by the attendants. What annoyed my sister was the attendants did not even respond to her queries. They served the supposedly-elegant woman, got her out of the way, and then served “the rest of them”.

Many Egyptians are passed over, ignored, etc, on a daily basis. If you’re wearing a 3emma (the traditional hat of fellaheen) in Cairo, some people will automatically assume you unimportant. If you’re a se3eedi (traditional southerner), some people will tease and harass you mercilessly. (I once saw a se3eedi worker get into a fight with Cairene workers who were making fun of him - their boss quickly stopped the nonsense.)

Now, let’s flip it another way. I grew up in Nigeria. Was this Egyptian kid picked on, bullied, smelt, pinched, envied, looked down on, etc? Oh, yes sir! As a kid, I was routinely given lectures about “Black Power”. I was picked on and shoved around regularly. Derogatory comments on my skin colour were made all the time.

It is really important to confront the “bad side” of this human nature of ours: make sure it is clarified as wrong and immoral. But WHY do Egyptians not respect each other, why do they deal with each other as if some are “welad naas” and some are “welad kalb”? This - to me - is the root of the problem. If we can get Egyptians to respect each other and treat each other equally, discrimination against foreigners would fall by the wayside.

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Are you racist?

In this post, I want to examine what racism is. Followers of my blog will know this is one of a series of posts in response to Mona Eltahawy's post: The Arab World's Dirty Secret: Racism. (You may be interested to read my earlier post on why I started writing on racism in Egypt.)

UN definition

Let's start off with the UN's definition of racism:

According to UN International Conventions, "the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."
[UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, NEW YORK, 7 March 1966]

My understanding of the above definition is that a country or organisation practises racial discrimination if it tries to diminish someone else's rights based on their race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.

It would seem the easiest way you can nail racism down is if you show the existence of written laws or rules to that effect. For example, the apartheid regime in pre-1990 South Africa.

Practically, a judge or court can deem someone as racist if there is verifiable evidence of discrimination.

The cornerstone of the racism definition is the phrase: "race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin". Let's use one word to summarise this: "background".

Note that "background" excludes other things that people are prejudiced about: gender, height, wealth, obesity, status, age, religion, etc.

"Racism" is a political, past-orientated view based on current definitions of "colour", "race", "ethnic origin", and "nationality origin". I mean, in determining someone's background we typically rely on present-day convention.

Explicit and implicit racism

Imagine Mr X, a person in a position of relative power; he works in a company inhabited mostly by people of his background. Someone of a different background has interviewed for a job in his company. Because the applicant is qualified, Mr X hires her without hesitation.

At home, Mr X has a maid of a different background to his, and he has no issues with that. Mr X sits in the same bus as people of other backgrounds. He chats with them everywhere - at the newsagents, while waiting for the doctor, in a restaurant, etc. Mr X has no problems submitting himself to their professional judgment as doctors, judges, or driving-test administrators.

Mr X is not a racist, clearly.

But there is another side to Mr X. His wife is of a certain background and he never imagined her otherwise. If someone of a different background annoyed Mr X while driving, he factors their background into his voiced disapproval. He would not share a hotel room with people of certain backgrounds; nor would Mr X imagine his daughter marrying people of certain backgrounds. When he is surrounded by people of other backgrounds, Mr X feels suffocated. He cannot help but think certain things when he starts conversations with people of other backgrounds. After a few minutes of chatting with people of other backgrounds, Mr X thinks it is time to move on.

Is Mr X racist? Where is the threshold?

Trust and familiarity

To my mind, racist attitudes reflect "implied trust". If I trust people of a certain background (typically of my same background), and implicitly mistrust "others", I am taking a step in the direction of racism. Racists put trust, familiarity, relatability above everything else, including other people's rights and freedoms.

The everyday way of looking at racism is that: We assume those who look like us went through what went we went through and, so, we would relate to them easily. We feel closer to those we can understand, or those we think we can understand. Of course, we are often wrong about this assumption.

Academic research on prejudice is huge; it is impossible to do it justice here.

There is evidence to show that us-against-them thinking _is_ hardwired in the brain - mainly for self-protection. And often, racism is explained as an aspect of the mechanisms of instinctive us-versus-them. However, this theory is gradually getting discredited.

There is evidence to show that racist attitudes come about as justification after an event has caused some people to be cast as "others". For example, the US white settlers came up with their racist attitudes and laws because they were exploiting the black slaves and needed "good reason" to do so.

This is a powerful point: events cause separation of people into groups, and then one group begins to justify its superiority with "reasons" that connect directly to the other group's traits. Not only are people from our background relatable, familiar, and trustworthy, people of other backgrounds are nasty, ignorant, backward, hell-bent on destruction, primitive, unworthy, etc. And this is why it is good that we are superior.

Concentric circles of racism

Returning to my example above, was Mr X racist? Clearly not, he does not exhibit classic signs of _explicit_ racism. In fact, according to the UN definition, he is not racist. He has not diminished other people's rights or freedoms. Clearly then, he is not.

And yet, isn't he? Surely, his _implicit_ prejudices will eventually manifest themselves one way or another in a racist decision that affects other people's rights. Surely, he will unwittingly expose himself, every now and then, as suspicious and uncomfortable with people of certain backgrounds?

In fact, there is a very interesting phenomenon called institutional racism: when an entire organisation does not have a single person in it who publicises racist views, and yet as an institution, they pick up each other's unsaid prejudices and act as a thoroughly racist organisation. London's Metropolitan Police was famously found to be institutionally racist by Lord Macpherson in 1999. Five white men (very likely) got away with murdering a black teenager because the police refused to think the teenager was anything but a lowly drug dealer.

It seems to me there is a series of concentric circles. At the outside, lie things like slavery, segregation, apartheid. Then, as the circles get smaller, we get things like discrimination in employment and in education, and then as the circles get even smaller, we get subtle things like a waft of prejudice, a hint of disrespect (things like not taking a black candidate seriously because you expect him to break into a hip-hop dance routine, and so on). The circles get so small and so personal and so intertwined with other types of prejudice like, e.g., religious prejudice, or status prejudice, or careerist prejudice, that it is almost impossible to separate as distinct racism.

Intra-race prejudice

How often have I disrespected other Egyptians and Arabs, by refusing to hang out where they hang out, by avoiding to rent accommodation from them, and even by making fun of them with disrespectful, racist words.

I remember a white friend, who was driving us around town, criticising two elderly ladies who were a little slow in taking a turn as: "aaah, white women!"

I have a friend who is Asian (from the Indian sub-continent) who recently confided in me that he is prejudiced against his own race. Once he was in a bar, and as soon as two Asian men walked in, he told his friends to leave. On another occasion, he told me he hated the suburb in which his parents live because "there are too many Asians around". His comment was an almost word-for-word quote from a white English acquaintance of mine about the same suburb!

We all know about the Chris Rock routine about intra-black racism.

Can we put an end to racism?

It seems clear that we can only keep trying to limit racist behaviour in so far as it is visible and verifiable. But once it mixes with subtle forms of prejudice and limits itself to the personal domain, it becomes very difficult to confront.

One wonders if bi-racial couples and mixed-race people will eventually render this phenomenon one of the quirks of human history.

Related links

• Racism not hard-wired, say scientists.
• Are we hard-wired to be racist?
• Do you hold implicitly racist views? Test yourself!
• Lord Macpherson's report on institutionalised racism in British Police.
  
• Categorising people by race is not inevitable.
• Malcolm Gladwell's three criteria for assessing a racist.
  
• Wikipedia entry on racism.
  

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