Sunday, June 26, 2005
Cairo-Dodging blood-Feb. 12, 2003
Yesterday on the way to the gym, I dodged pools of blood. Sprawling pools creeping their way from driveways out into the streets. Here and there, a lamb skin. It was the first day of Eid Al Adha. The day before I spoke to three lambs awaiting their destiny. I told them not to be afraid, enjoy the immediate sunshine and that things are the way they are meant to be. Then today I saw the site of their demise. I wasn’t there for the actual slaughter but I stood there, staring at their bloodied coats, imagining how it all went down.
The ritual of the lamb sacrifice has survived for 14 centuries. My unease is moot, irrelevant. The story behind the sacrifice is one of the most famous stories from Biblical times, the story of Abraham and his son Issac. The moral of the story, or at least the moral that has survived so keenly in Islam, is obedience. Because Abraham was willing to kill his son, his loyalty to God was rewarded when his son was saved and God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead.
The morning of the sacrifices, which take place all over the city regardless of socio-economic classes, Muslims wake early and walk to the mosque chanting “We hear you calling; we are coming.” Over and over. Then they pray for a couple of hours and return home for the sacrifices. Most of the meat is given away to poor families.
According to some of my Egyptian friends, the symbolism of the slaughter is pure, unadulterated, unquestioned obedience. None of them particularly like it. They all expressed the same distaste for the idea of slitting the throats of the lambs, and sometimes calves.
By no means I am a vegetarian. I eat red meat about twice a year, but I eat plenty of chicken and fish. I, like any American, have deluded myself into thinking these animals suffer less in a processing factory. Here, where life is in your face, we have cut down on our meat consumption even more.
Part of me admires a tradition that has survived so many centuries. How many American “traditions” even exist? What is uniquely American? Not much except the diversity of our traditions and our differences. Maybe that’s exactly what being American is all about. Being different. Totally different from the rest of the world. Going our own way, global opinion be damned.
Egypt certainly is homogenous. It’s one of the reasons for Egyptians’ fascination with foreigners — we simply look, talk, even walk different. And different from each other even. But there is a certain security in sameness. When I walk the streets of Cairo, I know I am safe. I know that I can generalize about these people enough to say that in general, this city is the safest city I have ever been in. I can generalize enough to say that Egyptian men will almost always back off when talked back to by a foreign woman like me. I can generalize enough to say that Egyptians have an unspoken caring nature and go out of their way to help people.
The downside to all this sameness is that it seeps into areas where free thinking has served Western nations well. Think technology, science, medicine and philosophy. The lack of innovation in this part of the world is dismaying at best.
So why question the slaughter? You can’t. It simply is and always will be part of the religion, part of the culture. A culture of immutability, stagnancy.
How many people do you know who hate their job or their boss or their company, but enjoy the company of their co-workers? And more often than not, they stay longer at a job they hate simply because they like their co-workers? Imagine a country like that. Where everyone understandably hates their government — leaders whose every word is a lie. (A government that regularly lies about the temperature outside because it can.) So in this atmosphere, what do you do? You turn to your neighbor. You are all in this together. You take care of each other, despite it all. Loyalty to each other and what makes them the same – Allah. Where else to turn for guidance when you can’t turn to your leaders? You don’t have role models such as successful athletes, poet laureates, scientists looking for medical cures, university professors. Who do you have? You have Allah. God, who undoubtedly provides the answers to all questions.
Many of us Westerners look at Muslim women and wonder why they don’t stand up and change things. How? Why? When everything they are taught, everything in their lives informs them that things cannot, are not supposed to, change. And what kind of example do we set? In their eyes, Western women are more degraded and disrespected than any other class of people. The media. The media shows Western women in skimpy outfits, women whose good looks are their meal ticket. Even TV shows with smart women … they are still attractive, skinny and sexy. Think “Law and Order,” “ER.” What kind of role model is this? That in America, women are judged solely by their looks. Is this the kind of freedom they want? Of course not. And unfortunately, inevitably, TV is their teacher. The good female role models American women do have are not featured on shows like “Bachelorette” or “Baywatch.”
One of the best cultural critiques I read before moving here was Thomas Friedman’s “The Lexus and The Olive Tree.” I’m sure many of you have read it. I thought some of his examples of globalization were spot-on. And I have witnessed them firsthand, the mobile phone user sitting in traffic next to the farmer riding a donkey. However, after having lived here for seven months now, even I can see how oversimplified Friedman’s book is. Yes, globalization is inevitable. It is wholly unavoidable; it’s not an issue of pro or con. It is simply the ever-moving train of change. However, globalization hasn’t brought diverse cultures any closer to understanding each other. What was the number-one question on the lips of every American after September 11? It was why..Why us? What did we do? Why do they hate us? Only now have I learned what a stupid and irrelevant question that is.
And frankly, the more attention that the West has focused on the Middle East, the more confused average Americans have become. We were watching Fox News the other day (God help us) and Cavuto said something to the effect of ‘We will stop helping you if you don’t support us.’ He was referring to other nations’ rejections of war against Iraq. His dumbed-down message was basically that America pays for everyone else and if other countries don’t fall in line, the money will be taken away. In other words, he was scolding the world for biting the hand that feeds. Is this the America we want to show the rest of the world? Are we that arrogant to think that the rest of the world wouldn’t survive without us? That people (nations) shouldn’t speak up if they expect to remained favored by the good ole’ USA? What happened to the value of Free Speech? Isn’t that what America is supposed to be about? Or does that not apply when people are speaking against the US? You’d expect this message from politicians, but from the “free press?” Isn’t that what the media is about? Speaking up and speaking out?
This sham of a “news organization,” Fox News thinks it’s cute for its talk-show hosts to joke about how to pronounce Iran. The same week of Cavuto’s comments, some bubbly blonde Fox reporter giggled about how she can’t remember how to pronounce Iran. Tee hee. Aren’t Americans smart? Shouldn’t a society that slaughters lambs in the name of obedience learn from us? Or as Cavuto thinks, shouldn’t the rest of the world be obedient and fall in line with the US?
The ritual of the lamb sacrifice has survived for 14 centuries. My unease is moot, irrelevant. The story behind the sacrifice is one of the most famous stories from Biblical times, the story of Abraham and his son Issac. The moral of the story, or at least the moral that has survived so keenly in Islam, is obedience. Because Abraham was willing to kill his son, his loyalty to God was rewarded when his son was saved and God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead.
The morning of the sacrifices, which take place all over the city regardless of socio-economic classes, Muslims wake early and walk to the mosque chanting “We hear you calling; we are coming.” Over and over. Then they pray for a couple of hours and return home for the sacrifices. Most of the meat is given away to poor families.
According to some of my Egyptian friends, the symbolism of the slaughter is pure, unadulterated, unquestioned obedience. None of them particularly like it. They all expressed the same distaste for the idea of slitting the throats of the lambs, and sometimes calves.
By no means I am a vegetarian. I eat red meat about twice a year, but I eat plenty of chicken and fish. I, like any American, have deluded myself into thinking these animals suffer less in a processing factory. Here, where life is in your face, we have cut down on our meat consumption even more.
Part of me admires a tradition that has survived so many centuries. How many American “traditions” even exist? What is uniquely American? Not much except the diversity of our traditions and our differences. Maybe that’s exactly what being American is all about. Being different. Totally different from the rest of the world. Going our own way, global opinion be damned.
Egypt certainly is homogenous. It’s one of the reasons for Egyptians’ fascination with foreigners — we simply look, talk, even walk different. And different from each other even. But there is a certain security in sameness. When I walk the streets of Cairo, I know I am safe. I know that I can generalize about these people enough to say that in general, this city is the safest city I have ever been in. I can generalize enough to say that Egyptian men will almost always back off when talked back to by a foreign woman like me. I can generalize enough to say that Egyptians have an unspoken caring nature and go out of their way to help people.
The downside to all this sameness is that it seeps into areas where free thinking has served Western nations well. Think technology, science, medicine and philosophy. The lack of innovation in this part of the world is dismaying at best.
So why question the slaughter? You can’t. It simply is and always will be part of the religion, part of the culture. A culture of immutability, stagnancy.
How many people do you know who hate their job or their boss or their company, but enjoy the company of their co-workers? And more often than not, they stay longer at a job they hate simply because they like their co-workers? Imagine a country like that. Where everyone understandably hates their government — leaders whose every word is a lie. (A government that regularly lies about the temperature outside because it can.) So in this atmosphere, what do you do? You turn to your neighbor. You are all in this together. You take care of each other, despite it all. Loyalty to each other and what makes them the same – Allah. Where else to turn for guidance when you can’t turn to your leaders? You don’t have role models such as successful athletes, poet laureates, scientists looking for medical cures, university professors. Who do you have? You have Allah. God, who undoubtedly provides the answers to all questions.
Many of us Westerners look at Muslim women and wonder why they don’t stand up and change things. How? Why? When everything they are taught, everything in their lives informs them that things cannot, are not supposed to, change. And what kind of example do we set? In their eyes, Western women are more degraded and disrespected than any other class of people. The media. The media shows Western women in skimpy outfits, women whose good looks are their meal ticket. Even TV shows with smart women … they are still attractive, skinny and sexy. Think “Law and Order,” “ER.” What kind of role model is this? That in America, women are judged solely by their looks. Is this the kind of freedom they want? Of course not. And unfortunately, inevitably, TV is their teacher. The good female role models American women do have are not featured on shows like “Bachelorette” or “Baywatch.”
One of the best cultural critiques I read before moving here was Thomas Friedman’s “The Lexus and The Olive Tree.” I’m sure many of you have read it. I thought some of his examples of globalization were spot-on. And I have witnessed them firsthand, the mobile phone user sitting in traffic next to the farmer riding a donkey. However, after having lived here for seven months now, even I can see how oversimplified Friedman’s book is. Yes, globalization is inevitable. It is wholly unavoidable; it’s not an issue of pro or con. It is simply the ever-moving train of change. However, globalization hasn’t brought diverse cultures any closer to understanding each other. What was the number-one question on the lips of every American after September 11? It was why..Why us? What did we do? Why do they hate us? Only now have I learned what a stupid and irrelevant question that is.
And frankly, the more attention that the West has focused on the Middle East, the more confused average Americans have become. We were watching Fox News the other day (God help us) and Cavuto said something to the effect of ‘We will stop helping you if you don’t support us.’ He was referring to other nations’ rejections of war against Iraq. His dumbed-down message was basically that America pays for everyone else and if other countries don’t fall in line, the money will be taken away. In other words, he was scolding the world for biting the hand that feeds. Is this the America we want to show the rest of the world? Are we that arrogant to think that the rest of the world wouldn’t survive without us? That people (nations) shouldn’t speak up if they expect to remained favored by the good ole’ USA? What happened to the value of Free Speech? Isn’t that what America is supposed to be about? Or does that not apply when people are speaking against the US? You’d expect this message from politicians, but from the “free press?” Isn’t that what the media is about? Speaking up and speaking out?
This sham of a “news organization,” Fox News thinks it’s cute for its talk-show hosts to joke about how to pronounce Iran. The same week of Cavuto’s comments, some bubbly blonde Fox reporter giggled about how she can’t remember how to pronounce Iran. Tee hee. Aren’t Americans smart? Shouldn’t a society that slaughters lambs in the name of obedience learn from us? Or as Cavuto thinks, shouldn’t the rest of the world be obedient and fall in line with the US?
.jpg)