Football Beyond Borders Middle East 2011 - Entry Three

By Nicholas James Rodrigo

As we enter Cairo I realised why it is called the city of a thousand minarets. Dotting the skyline, competing for space amongst the cities many luxurious hotels, the minarets waved in the smog and haze of one of the worlds most polluted cities.

Our hotel is a mere ten minutes away from Tahrir sqwuare and now, even after the revolution, the square is alive. "Tahrir is a day out in itself" said Shahinda, one of guides. Indeed, families enjoying the four days eid, were playing on the square grass where protestors were picked off by government snipers months before. Riot police still bordering the square with the army over looking iver as well, "we are here so Egypt stays together" said one if the troops, leaning against his armoured vehicle.

There are conflicting accounts of how Cairo has changed since Mubaraks overthrow. One student, studying at the affluent AUC, said to us that since Mubaraks overthrow people have lost respect for authority, smoking hash openly in cafes. Others, like a security guard at Alex Bank, said that the revolution has brought about the unification of the country and the dawn of a new age. One student living in the Egyptian Diaspora in the US, visiting family in Cairo, expressed the current climate as this, "The revolution has not transformed Egyptian society overnight, however it has created the environment for a better Egypt in the future.

On the second and the third of September the team went to a charity called Coptic Orphans. Coptic Orphams is a charity concerned with the welfare and social development of Orphans belonging to the ancient Christian sect. I was initially surprised by its sectarian nature. When asking one of the volunteers at the orphanage whether they coordinated events with Muslim orphanages, I received a nonchalant response, "This is the way it is in the Middle East, I you are Christian, so are your friends and your work colleagues. Your life revolves around the church. You don't really mix with Muslims.". This was a real surprise to me as some of the most striking images of the revolution were those of Christians helping Muslims pray during the protests. Of equal surprise the orphans, was the multi-faith and multi-ethnic makeup of the Beyond Borders team "I wish Egypt was like that" said one Coptic girl, who described Egypt as country with "Sectarian strife".

Outside a fascination with our flashy cameras, one of the most striking things about the orphans was the united awareness of their identity. Copticness is imprinted on the children's sleeves, literally, at a young age. Dark, faded tattoos of Coptic crucifixes emblazoned the wrists of all of the orphans; a branding obtained at birth.. When I asked why I received a passionate response "We have the crucifix on our wrist because that is where the Messiah was nailed to the Cross". The cloistered nature of the Coptic community seems to be a rather recent Following in recent phenomenon. Following in toe with the synthetic inclusiveness of Nasserism and the Arab nationalism that included, underlying conflicting concepts of what it meant to be Egyptian had not been addressed. With the entrenchment of a few Coptic elites in the state and in the business sector under Sadat and the neglect of the poorer Copts by Mubarak, the community served as a scapegoat for Egypt’s social problems. With recent Church bombings and shootings, the Coptic community has become even more insular.

Two days of organizing workshops, interacting and playing with Coptic children has not aided us in fully understanding the social fabric of Egypt. More research is needed to do this. What these workshops have shown us is that Egyptian children, even those family, have their identity, and along with that their expectations, hopes and perceptions imprinted upon their mind at a young age. The revolution has done much to provide a platform to address these issues of identity, "Egyptianess" and equality. However, if Egypt is to now exorcise her demons, inter-faith interaction as a tool for social cohesion is needed.