Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Occupation
Well to be honest, after the first episode my immediate response was what a load of c***p
But having persevered with the second episode I admit it is getting better
A BBC Ireland production, a drama of three episodes aired over three consecutive nights on BBC1.
The first episode tells the story of three “brave lads” from Manchester, soldiers in the first wave of “liberators” entering Basra in April 2003.
They are involved in a messy raid on a residential block of flats that ends with an explosion that costs one of their mates his leg, and nearly kills young Maysaa, an Iraqi girl, cue violins as brave Brit (James Nesbitt) runs across the screen carrying blood stained child into Basra hospital.
When the three return home, Maysaa and Aliyah her chain-smoking Iraqi doctor (Belgian / Moroccan Lubna Azabal) are flown to Manchester to receive treatment at the local hospital.
Within a year all three of our “brave lads” return to Basra.
Two as mercenaries working with the American businessman er sorry soldier, and the “hero” to find his new love the Iraqi doctor (so 2/3 mercenary, 1/3 seeking meaningful relationship with locals).
The drama continued today with families back home baring the brunt of their returning damaged goods.
Some of the inaccuracies irritate, Dr Aliyah’s French accent, the North African hooded clothes worn by passers-by (filming in Morocco), and some of the Arabic graffiti.
Some of the storylines I just cannot get my head around, a married Basrawi doctor falling into the arms of a British soldier within a few weeks of arriving in the UK? really?
Other storylines are getting rather worn the smartly dressed 30s something American who take the two members of the newly created “security company” into a storeroom full of stacks of dollars waiting to be spent on “reconstruction”.
But there are also storylines I am pretty sure most local viewers would have never heard about; Younis (Lewis??? Al Samarai) the “interpreter” who studied in Leeds and managed to have three children before he could grow a beard, who explains to his companions that Sunni’s hate shia and Shia hate Sunnis but they both hate you more, and ends up drowning in a pool of his blood thanks to the British trained “Shia militia” IP.
Today’s episode concluded with the filming of the kidnapped security guard by the carving knife wielding IP.
Can’t wait for the third and final episode tomorrow.
Update:
Well turned out to be rather interesting, with lots of observant nuggets of info, the dramatic change in lives of women, the unemployment of professionals in Jordan and Egypt, the corruption of everyone, the Arab sheiks doing shady deals in Dubai
But ultimately it was all about death.
Death of individuals,
Death of hopes,
Death of conscience, and ultimately the death of a country.
The British forces are out of Iraq
So now the British public can have drama like this
And they can have enquiries public or otherwise into the war
They can go through "due process"
And everyone can feel less bad about it all
Life goes on
Except for the dead
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Youthful Dreams
Their enthusiasm was palpable
"Stop all the talking, let us start working"
The audience was composed mainly of twenty-something British Iraqis, graduates and students of medicine, engineering, and pharmacy.
They had all come to hear four "seniors" tell us about the current situation, the desperate need and their ambitious plan.
Four individuals, living and working in the UK, two doctors, one lawyer and a journalist, sat down one day in January this year and decided they wanted to create a brand new, state of the art hospital for children with cancer, in Iraq, providing free medical care for patients, funded entirely by charitable donations.
The project is going by the name of NOAH Iraq.
The meeting yesterday was the first open to the public, aiming to recruit volunteers to help make it happen.
The few doubting questions came from the token parents, and retired charity workers that come along, and although the team appreciate some of the difficulties ahead, they had a "we will cross that bridge when and if we get to it" attitude.
It would appear that building a new hospital funded by charity rather then investing in the existing unmaintained and dilapidated national hospitals is in keeping with the official health policy of the country "let the people sort it out themselves"
Applications from those wanting to set up private hospitals are apparently met by offers for land to build them on, and having broached the subject of a National Oncology and Haematology Hospital (NOAH) with a certain Mr Al-Dabbagh a few weeks ago, one of the team has received numerous emails (very modern and in touch, or not very busy?) of support and a pledge for both money and land.
There was no mention of site but I have heard rumours that against the intitial plan of the teams both here and in Iraq, the land on offer is in the home town of the current minister of health rather than the capital.
The official launch of the project and when donations can start being collected is end of September to coincide with the end of Ramadan. If anyone is interested I will try and update you.
The plan is extremely ambitious, and if achieved according to plan a dream come true to those working in the field in Iraq for the past twenty years, including my personal Idol and Iraqi angel Dr Salma Al-Hadad who attended the meeting.
It would also be a dream for all of us Iraqi haematologists / oncologists practicing in the West and painfully aware of how much better life and outcome could be for Iraqi children if their doctors and nurses could work under better conditions.
Maybe it is a reflection of my age, but I am very cautious about the reality.
The speaker derided Iraqis for expecting the government to do everything, instead of taking responsibility for ourselves and doing something to help ourselves.
Although true to some extent, there is I think a deeper reason why some people will be cautious.
I was not around to see the enthusiasm of my great-grandparents' generation, nor that of my grandparents, or even my father's generation.
These were people who after experiencing life in other countries spent much of their life nurturing establishments based on these better standards, in hospitals, schools, factories and universities, they probably felt and thought very much like my young fellow listeners did yesterday.
I and many others were around and have seen and heard all about how our grandparents and parents went on to watch their life's work being destroyed and dismantled by the combined effects of incompetent governments, and decades of a vendetta of sanctions and wars.
The youthful enthusiams made me smile with pride, but the current situation in Iraq is such that collecting donations to invest in building a hospital will be possible, the hospital may even be built and benefit some people for a while, but unless everything outside this imported bubble of hope is fixed I think it unlikely the majority of Iraqis will be willing to invest anything more yet.
Monday, 25 May 2009
Tartar' ears
Mix two cups of plain flour with one egg a pinch of salt, and enough cold water to form a malleable dough.
Fry 250g minced meat with a chopped onion and a handful of chopped parsley.
Flavour 500g of Greek style yogurt with a little salt and a couple of crushed garlic cloves and chill.
Roll out dough as thin as possible and cut out small circles (using the rim of an istikan or eastern tea glass)
Place a teaspoon of meat in the centre of the dough circle, fold in half and pinch edges closed.
Place the crescent shaped dumplings into boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.
Remove from boiling water and place into cold yogurt
Serve cold
Cooking is not one of my strong points
Once at an interview for a research post I was asked about my cooking abilities, and I honestly answered that I could follow a detailed recipe repeatedly, but struggled with "creating" new dishes.
This was compounded by always being too busy to concentrate, too distracted to notice the finer details whenever anyone prepared a special dish.
When I did learn how to make something I would often later discover that no-one else made it that way, it had somehow been modified in our house.
But eating the authentic dish, unlike my sister I could not unravel the ingredients and methods from a morsel.
Tatar Qulaghy has always been a family favourite.
My Bibi made it, but never shared the recipe, my mother figured it out and reproduced it without a recipe, but that's not the way I cook, and although I tried the "just mix flour and water until it feels right" method it didn't work.
I had always suspected it was Turkish in origin, but having mentioned it to a couple of Turkish people, and asked for it in a number of Turkish restaurants I was met by blank stares, and I started to doubt the origin or my pronunciation of the name (the family tradition states that the name means Tartar's ears).
And now at last I have found it under the alternate name of Tatar Boureg
And when searched in Arabic I even found a recipe, and with my little helpers have reproduced the meal (I forgot to take a picture, and I can smugly say that they have all been consumed)
I love the idea of Turkic and Mongol horsemen on the move are supposed to have carried frozen or dried manti, which could be quickly boiled over a camp-fire
Now all that remains is to find out where the Iraqi name for this dish "Qulaghy" comes from?
Fry 250g minced meat with a chopped onion and a handful of chopped parsley.
Flavour 500g of Greek style yogurt with a little salt and a couple of crushed garlic cloves and chill.
Roll out dough as thin as possible and cut out small circles (using the rim of an istikan or eastern tea glass)
Place a teaspoon of meat in the centre of the dough circle, fold in half and pinch edges closed.
Place the crescent shaped dumplings into boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.
Remove from boiling water and place into cold yogurt
Serve cold
Cooking is not one of my strong points
Once at an interview for a research post I was asked about my cooking abilities, and I honestly answered that I could follow a detailed recipe repeatedly, but struggled with "creating" new dishes.
This was compounded by always being too busy to concentrate, too distracted to notice the finer details whenever anyone prepared a special dish.
When I did learn how to make something I would often later discover that no-one else made it that way, it had somehow been modified in our house.
But eating the authentic dish, unlike my sister I could not unravel the ingredients and methods from a morsel.
Tatar Qulaghy has always been a family favourite.
My Bibi made it, but never shared the recipe, my mother figured it out and reproduced it without a recipe, but that's not the way I cook, and although I tried the "just mix flour and water until it feels right" method it didn't work.
I had always suspected it was Turkish in origin, but having mentioned it to a couple of Turkish people, and asked for it in a number of Turkish restaurants I was met by blank stares, and I started to doubt the origin or my pronunciation of the name (the family tradition states that the name means Tartar's ears).
And now at last I have found it under the alternate name of Tatar Boureg
And when searched in Arabic I even found a recipe, and with my little helpers have reproduced the meal (I forgot to take a picture, and I can smugly say that they have all been consumed)
I love the idea of Turkic and Mongol horsemen on the move are supposed to have carried frozen or dried manti, which could be quickly boiled over a camp-fire
Now all that remains is to find out where the Iraqi name for this dish "Qulaghy" comes from?
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Farhoud
They had sat talking jut a few days before, just four elderly people, sharing a bench by the garden.
The spoke in a mixture of Arabic (for Mrs Israel’s benefit), interspersed with English when my Mum could not understand a word, a conversation that spanned knee aches, and headaches, lives of grown up children and school holidays of grandchildren, memories of shopping on Al-Rashid street and stories about Mosul and Basra.
But at the end Mr Israel was lamenting the loss “it was all taken, the house, the land everything”.
“You have your health, your children, and lovely grandchildren, and all those wonderful memories" he said reassuringly
It reminded him of an incident in his childhood, a friend of his father paid them a visit one night, he was leaving, and he was taking his family, “would they be interested in buying his house? Any price would be fine at least we would know it was going to friends”, the offer had been turned down, “don’t talk nonsense” he had responded “I could not take your home, it will always be yours, you will return in a little while and it will be here waiting for you”.
How strange that he should remember this, how strange that we never learn
The long awaited sale of the house is on hold once more, with a drop in prices as the official excuse
In reality it is the squatters that put them all off
They moved in over three years ago, at a time of when our relatives where cleansed out of our house, and these people where cleansed out of another part of Baghdad
They have since resisted all attempts to remove them, the promise of instant action from the prospective buyer who was also a police official has come to nothing
And today for the first time in three years, H has eventually entered the house; he and my parent have spent the past two hours in intermittently interrupted telephone conversations
“There is nothing there”
“What do you mean nothing? U moved everything into the bedroom upstairs before he left”
“It was a complete set, Royal Doulton, my wedding gift, my friends bought me pieces, my mother bought me the teacups and saucers, I even took back a gravy boat when one was broken”
"There is no china"
“It was my mother’s, I took it back when she died, small, probably only big enough for two people, white with silver-plated top, and a silver tray?”
“There is no silver”
“The carpet was rather old and the edges worn, it was red and brown, it had a distinct pattern with central circular areas, we would place the marbles in the circles, and try to displace each other’s marbles out of the circles”.
“There are no carpets”
“It was on the bookcase, in the back of the room, very old, but it had an inscription on the inside, a gift from King Faisal to the top graduate, it was my father’s”
“There are no books”
“You have your children, and lovely grandchildren, and all those wonderful memories "I say lamely
Friday, 17 April 2009
Using casualties to modify policy, and policy to modify casualties
Two interesting perspectives in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine.
The first a depressing perspective
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/16/1585
from the founders of the IBC (I hate this term. No-one is keeping records of the ABC are they?) And is a detailed analysis into the exact cause of death of Iraqi civilians in the five years from 2003-08.
After incomplete reports and the thousands killed in particular massacres are excluded (my terminology not theirs) a total of some 60.480 deaths are analysed.
The largest individual cause of death, accounting for 33% of those killed was execution, one third of whom had been tortured.
And for the first time to my knowledge a medical journal has published the detail of torture inflicted on these people who made up the numerous –unidentified bodies_ that were discovered on a daily basis.
Of the bodies of those who were executed, 5760, or 29%, showed marks of torture, such as bruises, drill holes, or burns. (A typical media report about this particularly appalling form of violent death reads: "The bullet-riddled bodies bore signs of torture and their hands were tied behind their backs.")
The victims are analysed by sex, and by age, and the findings are that when civilian populations are targeted by the military directly a large proportion of women and children die, whereas when people were abducted and killed, or specifically targeted by gunfire the vast majority were males leading to the conclusion that:
The character of this form of killing, combined with our findings that a great many civilians were killed by execution, in many events, with strong selection according to the sex and age of potential victims, supports the assessment that executions have been applied systematically and strategically to civilians in Iraq.
A somewhat wishy-washy conclusion is reached on the choice of weapons to be used in future by liberating armies.
So for those who are busy planning wars and wish to look good (to suggest they would actually want to limit civilian causalities really does require stretching the imagination beyond human capacity) consider this advice:
Aerial bombs killed, on average, 9 more civilians per event than aerial missiles (17 vs. 8 per event). Indeed, if an aerial bomb killed civilians at all, it tended to kill many. It seems clear from these findings that to protect civilians from indiscriminate harm, as required by international humanitarian law (including the Geneva Conventions), military and civilian policies should prohibit aerial bombing in civilian areas
The second amusing perspective comes from the US army medical research and material command
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/360/16/1588
And is an argument to re-examine the definition of mild traumatic brain injury, as far as I can see because it will cost too much to sort out the estimated more than 300,000 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (20% of the 1.6 million) have sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), also known as concussion, with the majority going untreated
Does anyone remember the 80s song
“The average age of a soldier was ne ne ne nineteen”
I will leave you with this interesting little medal by Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, which will be on show at the British museum’s forthcoming Medals of Dishonour exhibition.
The text reads (Made in the USA)
The first a depressing perspective
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/16/1585
from the founders of the IBC (I hate this term. No-one is keeping records of the ABC are they?) And is a detailed analysis into the exact cause of death of Iraqi civilians in the five years from 2003-08.
After incomplete reports and the thousands killed in particular massacres are excluded (my terminology not theirs) a total of some 60.480 deaths are analysed.
The largest individual cause of death, accounting for 33% of those killed was execution, one third of whom had been tortured.
And for the first time to my knowledge a medical journal has published the detail of torture inflicted on these people who made up the numerous –unidentified bodies_ that were discovered on a daily basis.
Of the bodies of those who were executed, 5760, or 29%, showed marks of torture, such as bruises, drill holes, or burns. (A typical media report about this particularly appalling form of violent death reads: "The bullet-riddled bodies bore signs of torture and their hands were tied behind their backs.")
The victims are analysed by sex, and by age, and the findings are that when civilian populations are targeted by the military directly a large proportion of women and children die, whereas when people were abducted and killed, or specifically targeted by gunfire the vast majority were males leading to the conclusion that:
The character of this form of killing, combined with our findings that a great many civilians were killed by execution, in many events, with strong selection according to the sex and age of potential victims, supports the assessment that executions have been applied systematically and strategically to civilians in Iraq.
A somewhat wishy-washy conclusion is reached on the choice of weapons to be used in future by liberating armies.
So for those who are busy planning wars and wish to look good (to suggest they would actually want to limit civilian causalities really does require stretching the imagination beyond human capacity) consider this advice:
Aerial bombs killed, on average, 9 more civilians per event than aerial missiles (17 vs. 8 per event). Indeed, if an aerial bomb killed civilians at all, it tended to kill many. It seems clear from these findings that to protect civilians from indiscriminate harm, as required by international humanitarian law (including the Geneva Conventions), military and civilian policies should prohibit aerial bombing in civilian areas
The second amusing perspective comes from the US army medical research and material command
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/360/16/1588
And is an argument to re-examine the definition of mild traumatic brain injury, as far as I can see because it will cost too much to sort out the estimated more than 300,000 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (20% of the 1.6 million) have sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), also known as concussion, with the majority going untreated
Does anyone remember the 80s song
“The average age of a soldier was ne ne ne nineteen”
I will leave you with this interesting little medal by Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, which will be on show at the British museum’s forthcoming Medals of Dishonour exhibition.
The text reads (Made in the USA)
Monday, 13 April 2009
Spring cleaninig
The same questions every year
Keep or discard?
A tiny sock
A curl of hair
During one of the many "visits" and in the middle of another round of ferdesha (scattering just doesn't convey the total meaninig of the word)
What is this?
A lock of hair from my son's first haircut
huh, my mom had something similar
It was left behind
A baby's dress
A gift from friends
Just before a different type of "visit" and in the middle of another round of close attention
Where is that suit she sent for the baby?
I threw it away after last time
And the letters, and postcard?
All burnt
Rosemary used to say our sons may grow up to find themselves on opposite sides of a war, I wonder if she has to burn all evidence she ever knew us?
A suit
No wedding dress
A is in Baghdad
He arrived late, her house had already been spring cleaned
Amazingly there is a dress, cream with gold stitching, and a matching scarf, from the 1920s, I remember it from the photos.
One day, whoever has the job of clearing out my attic, will probably understand the tiny shoes, but they may pause at the strange plastic things they find and wonder why, even though "they stopped using them years ago" these were not discrarded
Keep or discard?
A tiny sock
A curl of hair
During one of the many "visits" and in the middle of another round of ferdesha (scattering just doesn't convey the total meaninig of the word)
What is this?
A lock of hair from my son's first haircut
huh, my mom had something similar
It was left behind
A baby's dress
A gift from friends
Just before a different type of "visit" and in the middle of another round of close attention
Where is that suit she sent for the baby?
I threw it away after last time
And the letters, and postcard?
All burnt
Rosemary used to say our sons may grow up to find themselves on opposite sides of a war, I wonder if she has to burn all evidence she ever knew us?
A suit
No wedding dress
A is in Baghdad
He arrived late, her house had already been spring cleaned
Amazingly there is a dress, cream with gold stitching, and a matching scarf, from the 1920s, I remember it from the photos.
One day, whoever has the job of clearing out my attic, will probably understand the tiny shoes, but they may pause at the strange plastic things they find and wonder why, even though "they stopped using them years ago" these were not discrarded
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Love hurts
It had been so many many years, I was sure the time was right.
Life goes on, and there comes a time when the heart is ready, and love becomes a possibilty once more.
I had fallen in love with you before we met, I was so looking forewards to our first meeting, that first sight, I just knew it was going to happen.
And I was right.
From the moment I first set eyes on you, from the very first smile, the very first word, I could sense my muscles twitching as a smile spread across my face, with every step I took, every corner I turned.
Love at first sight is not possible I had always thought, how wrong I had been, it is very very possible.
But what exacty was it? that instant attraction?
It was knowing we had shared memories without having to describe them, knowing we had shared experiences without ever having met before, moving to the same old rhythm, humming the same old songs, but even in the silent gaps a connection that needed no words.
Although I had hoped I would feel this way, I had not expected the feeling to be so intense and I had conveniently blotted out the possibility that allowing myself to experience this joy, could only mean that pain would not be far behind.
Sudden jolts of pain, tears that welled up and poured forth without warninig, embarasseing the youngsters watching, tears that threatened to disrupt an otherwise perfect evening, tears that I managed to control as I finally said my farewell, promising to return, tears I kept stored until you could no longer see them, until I was safely home.
I am in love with
Cairo
I knew I would
I didn't know how much
I didn't expect the feelings this city would evoke
We arrived after midnight, and for the first time in an Arabic airport we were recieved with smiles and pleasentries rather than the usual suspicious looks and extraordinary delays.
That was when I knew. This was going to be different to my previous experiences of both Amman and the Gulf.
We had barely enough time to skim the surface of this multilayered city, or rather this city of multiple personalities.
There is history everywhere, whether in the desert
or in the museums
and it is awe inspiring
There is everything from ancient civilisation, to medieval Islamic civilisation
from ornate Othoman mosques
to picturesque cathedrals and churches and even a few synagogues (when I tried to photogtaph this one from the pavement just across the road I was approached by a plain clothed gun totting security officer and asked politely to move along, which I did down the alleyway where I took this imperfect picture)
There are places like the Cairo University building
that seemed strangly familiar because we had seen so many Egyptian film stars walk past the building, or the Feeshawy cafe where well known novelists and poets had been inspired that they had almost become part of our "memories"
But perhaps the most eeerily familiar scenes were in the narrow streets lined by shops selling souveniers, a version of our own souk il saffafeer, roads lined with bookstores, filled with everything from CDs to teach children french, to first edition 1951 novels, to medical textbooks, all stacked in no particular order, and even the occasional booksellers spreading their collections on the roadside
Cairo or at least the fraction of it that we saw is a multicoloured, multilayered mosaic, old buildings competing with new,
imported goods competing with local produce
A city that was painfully familiar, why it even has cars that spray the streets with chemical clouds of mosquito repellent!
There is a familiar official narrative of continuous history that links ancient warriors to current leaders, I declined the offer to view the October Panorama (I wonder what happened to our Qadisyia panoram?) and I counted no less than five giant posters of the Egyptian version of the "beloved leader, creator of good fortune etc etc" on the twenty minute drive from the airport to our hotel.
But perhaps the most worrying observation was the contrast between the affluent "liberal" streets with their villas, eyebrow pierced jean clad youth filled malls, the masses of ordinary people who depend on handouts and bribes to survive, and the stiflingly packed blocks of flats with the washing hanging in rows from the windows, where almost all the females wear some form of headscarf, and a number of them the full niqab.
Life goes on, and there comes a time when the heart is ready, and love becomes a possibilty once more.
I had fallen in love with you before we met, I was so looking forewards to our first meeting, that first sight, I just knew it was going to happen.
And I was right.
From the moment I first set eyes on you, from the very first smile, the very first word, I could sense my muscles twitching as a smile spread across my face, with every step I took, every corner I turned.
Love at first sight is not possible I had always thought, how wrong I had been, it is very very possible.
But what exacty was it? that instant attraction?
It was knowing we had shared memories without having to describe them, knowing we had shared experiences without ever having met before, moving to the same old rhythm, humming the same old songs, but even in the silent gaps a connection that needed no words.
Although I had hoped I would feel this way, I had not expected the feeling to be so intense and I had conveniently blotted out the possibility that allowing myself to experience this joy, could only mean that pain would not be far behind.
Sudden jolts of pain, tears that welled up and poured forth without warninig, embarasseing the youngsters watching, tears that threatened to disrupt an otherwise perfect evening, tears that I managed to control as I finally said my farewell, promising to return, tears I kept stored until you could no longer see them, until I was safely home.
I am in love with
Cairo
I knew I would
I didn't know how much
I didn't expect the feelings this city would evoke
We arrived after midnight, and for the first time in an Arabic airport we were recieved with smiles and pleasentries rather than the usual suspicious looks and extraordinary delays.
That was when I knew. This was going to be different to my previous experiences of both Amman and the Gulf.
We had barely enough time to skim the surface of this multilayered city, or rather this city of multiple personalities.
There is history everywhere, whether in the desert
or in the museums
and it is awe inspiring
There is everything from ancient civilisation, to medieval Islamic civilisation
from ornate Othoman mosques
to picturesque cathedrals and churches and even a few synagogues (when I tried to photogtaph this one from the pavement just across the road I was approached by a plain clothed gun totting security officer and asked politely to move along, which I did down the alleyway where I took this imperfect picture)
There are places like the Cairo University building
that seemed strangly familiar because we had seen so many Egyptian film stars walk past the building, or the Feeshawy cafe where well known novelists and poets had been inspired that they had almost become part of our "memories"
But perhaps the most eeerily familiar scenes were in the narrow streets lined by shops selling souveniers, a version of our own souk il saffafeer, roads lined with bookstores, filled with everything from CDs to teach children french, to first edition 1951 novels, to medical textbooks, all stacked in no particular order, and even the occasional booksellers spreading their collections on the roadside
Cairo or at least the fraction of it that we saw is a multicoloured, multilayered mosaic, old buildings competing with new,
imported goods competing with local produce
A city that was painfully familiar, why it even has cars that spray the streets with chemical clouds of mosquito repellent!
There is a familiar official narrative of continuous history that links ancient warriors to current leaders, I declined the offer to view the October Panorama (I wonder what happened to our Qadisyia panoram?) and I counted no less than five giant posters of the Egyptian version of the "beloved leader, creator of good fortune etc etc" on the twenty minute drive from the airport to our hotel.
But perhaps the most worrying observation was the contrast between the affluent "liberal" streets with their villas, eyebrow pierced jean clad youth filled malls, the masses of ordinary people who depend on handouts and bribes to survive, and the stiflingly packed blocks of flats with the washing hanging in rows from the windows, where almost all the females wear some form of headscarf, and a number of them the full niqab.
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