My trip to America…

That was ten years ago when I made that decision and swore to some whom I was talking to about my trip to America at that time, that I will not go to that place once again, even if it was heaven there. However, and despite the 73-years-old age and my dilapidated lumbar and coccyx, I did not hesitate to travel again as there is another kind of very worldly heaven there now. I took the plane on an economy class reservation, flew for 12 hours, and same number of hours in the return, not to mention waiting in airports for more than 5 hours!

In 2010, I was invited by Yale Divinity School near New York to a seminar. I was accompanied by a nice bunch of people including Dr. Mohsen Youssef, Dr. Ibrahim Abu-el’aish, Dr. Ali As-Semman – May they rest in peace – Mr. Nabil Abdel-Fattah and Mrs. Maha Abdel-Fattah. The seminar was about the relations between the Islamic World and the West.

After the seminar, I was invited to visit some relatives and friends in Ocean Side near San Diego. Everything went fine until it was time to leave. In San Diego’s airport, and just because my passport is Egyptian, I was picked up from hundreds of passengers to a side place with a footprint for two feet on the floor. I stood on this footprint. Body inspection started. I took off my clothes piece by piece while raising my hands up. They also went through my luggage, books, and files paper by paper using a manual device. No one dares to object.

After that incidence, I kept that promise not to go there just until 5 months ago, as I got a grandson; Zain. He lives with his parents in a small city called Hopkins close to Minneapolis; capital of the 1000-lakes Minnesota state where temperature falls to -45 degrees in the winter. We were lucky enough to go there 3 weeks ago as temperature was a bit above 20 degrees! Regardless of relatively repeating the same tragedy at the arrival airport, which we may talk about later, however the weather made me think of the inherent way in our Egyptian genes that knew, thousands of years ago, that sunset, sunrise and having the green valley next to the yellow desert mean that there is some kind of after-life.

I found that this death due to the below-zero cold followed by the shining and flourishing greenery is maybe the reason behind the people’s insistence there to work, produce, move and learn. Perhaps this is the difference between our reaction for contemplating the sunrise, sunset, greenery and yellowish desert, and theirs regarding the clouds, ice, snow, winds and hurricanes followed by the warmth, sun, greenery, flowers and fruits; we transformed our contemplation into ever-lasting temples, statues and pyramids describing our relation with the after-life. While they transformed their contemplation into work, productivity and challenge with time to achieve progress without getting themselves busy thinking about the past, including questions regarding the beginning of life and relation with the unknown!

I met pure Americans. I also met recently-nationalized Americans whom their ethnic and cultural roots are still apparent. I met also resident Egyptians working in more than one field. The common thing among all of them was being busy with the present and the future. I did not meet a single person; not a 2-days-old baby or a hundred-years-old man or whoever of age in between, who is busy asking the question that some “geniuses” of those we have ask; which is “What if?”. Because they realized that asking such question will trigger an un-ending pointless conflict. For example, we can imagine the aboriginals whom the invaders called “Red Indians” inquiring: “What if Amerigo Vespucci did not discover this land? What if those criminals and out-laws along with all the religiously and ethnicity persecuted people did not come here? What if we have resisted and fought?... We can also imagine the descendants of some of the invaders inquiring in turn, what if the American Revolution did not erupt? What if the American Civil War did not end with that outcome as it did? What if the slaves were not liberated and discrimination continued?.. There will be also others asking more What-if-like questions… Perhaps it was God’s mercy that they do not have those people we have here whom if I mentioned their names here, the editorial administration of Almasry alyoum newspaper will not allow the article to be published!

It was also there where I knew what it means to go into a competition, the pursuit to achieve your goal, intelligent architecture and cashless transactions in more than one place… I cannot deny that even when I was there, I could not stop following the news of our swamp of “What if?” that we have, that swamp that still attracts more people into drowning in it.

We shall continue later…

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on September 11, 2019.