Saturday, 28 January, 2023
(Egypt according to Hollywood -- https://www.britannica.com/place/Egypt/Land)
This week, I was planning to write a post about representation, but unfortunately I didn’t have the time to finish it. It’s a topic that I have A LOT of opinions about, because I genuinely believe that it’s such an important topic, so I didn’t want to just rush it. However, I also didn’t want to skip posting when it’s just week 3, so here’s a piece that I wrote last year which is also pretty relevant to the topic of representation and how it affected the way I formed my identity. Hope you enjoy it and tune in next week for my deep dive into why representation matters and how Hollywood gets it wrong.
“For a while now, I’ve been wanting to write this piece about Egypt, but I didn’t know where to begin. It’s such a strange topic for me that I never expected to write, not because I don’t like Egypt, but simply because I have always had this complicated relationship with my identity. Through out my life, I’ve always felt ‘not Egyptian enough’ and I’ve been told so way too many times. It all started when I was young, a lot of people would just assume that I’m not Egyptian, while other would comment about how ‘foreign’ I looked, simply because I used to be blonde. I think the biggest problem was that they would actually say it as a compliment and sometimes people would phrase it in an even more problematic way saying something like ‘you look really pretty, you don’t look Egyptian at all’ which was translated in my mind that I can’t be both pretty and Egyptian. I was young and, at the time, I didn’t realize that a lot of Egyptians suffer from Xenophilia — which according to wikipedia is ‘the love, attraction or appreciation for foreign people, manners, customs or cultures’.
As I grew up, I became less blonde and more tan, so I guess ‘less foreign’. However, I still got the same comments, because of the way I spoke, the area I grew up in, the social class I belong to and mostly because of my weakness in the Arabic language. For so many years, I was planning to leave Egypt for good after finishing university… mostly as an escape from personal problems, but to be honest, I think that along the way, I, myself became kind of xenophilic. 2018 was a very tough year for me, because reality hit me and I realized that my naive fantasy of just leaving Egypt doesn’t make sense, because I have responsibilities, so I couldn’t just leave everything behind. Thus, my bachelor project came to life, it was a way for me to learn more about my culture and connect to it... It actually worked! I learned so much about Egyptian culture and realized how deep and rich it is… I started seeing the beauty in Egypt and only then I began to really understand why so many expats love Egypt so much and even some decide to settle there.
(A shortened version of my bachelor project "عيش و ملح” (Bread and Salt) from 2019. A documentary that celebrate Egyptian cuisine and its importance in our culture.)
Afterwards, I got to work on another project that made me connect even more with Egyptian culture. More importantly, it introduced me to Egyptian handcrafts, and since then I’ve been collecting authentic Egyptian handmade pieces and wearing them as a part of my identity. Finding this connection to Egypt made me feel more authentic to myself. Therefore, when I decided to travel abroad to do my masters, I knew that I wanted to come back when I’m done, which came as a surprise to a lot of my friends who, like past me, believe that I’d definitely wouldn’t want to come back.
(Ink painting I created during my MA, inspired by traditional Egyptian embroidery)
Being away from Egypt led me to this new found appreciation towards it. Recently. I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie ‘Lady bird’ in which Saoirse Ronan plays the character of a teenager from Sacramento who’s always complaining about Sacramento and applying to colleges in other cities to get out of there. Towards the end of the movie, she meets up with the advisor from her school to discuss her letter of motivation and to Lady bird’s surprise, the advisors comments about how she was very moved by how much the letter shows Ladybird’s love for Sacramento, because of the attention she pays to even the smallest of things. I’ve been thinking about all the little things that are different in here compared to Egypt, things that I only lately realized that I love, because I was so used to them, so I took them for granted… the non-stop street noise even through the night, the way everything looks so saturated in color, the bizarre conversations I overhear in the streets, the randomness in the designs of buildings, the pattern everywhere,... etc
(Lady Bird movie poster, 2017)
Ever since I arrived here, there’s a part of me that has been feeling guilty towards Egypt… Although I’m very proud of being Egyptian, I’m always afraid of anyone commenting about me coming from a ‘third world country’ which made me question my identity AGAIN. This was very confusing for me, because I’ve been for several years now working on my connection to Egypt, so why the sudden change? Then I remembered this conversation with my bachelor supervisor about how she always felt ‘not German enough’, but only when she left Germany she realized how German she is. This is exactly how I feel right now, I feel extremely Egyptian! In my own way at least, which might not suit the stereotypical Egyptian profile, but what is a stereotypical Egyptian anyway? (Well, the silhouettes of Beduins riding camels in front of the Giza pyramids)
(Egyptians according to Hollywood -- https://unsplash.com/s/photos/egypt)
Being here made me re-evaluate my definition of Egyptian. Now, I believes that ‘Egyptian’ is a very diverse word, there are so many different ways one can be Egyptian, and maybe that’s what I like the most about Egypt, that we’re so diverse — probably the one common thing is our jokes and sarcasm (especially the way we recite certain movie lines at very specific situations). Anyways, after realizing this new appreciation for my Egyptian identity, I decided that I wanna embrace my culture through my work during the MA and to start looking into ‘what authentic Egyptian’ aesthetic looks like.”
Now that I’ve re-read this piece, I actually think that it's a good introduction for next week’s blog, so stay tuned and subscribe to get a notification when the blog is out!
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