It seems like last
week’s article has triggered nostalgia at tens of readers who honored me with
their comments… in addition to hundreds others who pointed that they read the
article.
First, I’d like to say
that I know how little I am compared to the intellect and experience of some
who honored me with their comments… I also know that contributing to the
dialogue is mostly because the idea being discussed is important to those commenting
and really touches a nerve in their human composition…
So here we ask: why
have many intellectuals and other public interest involved people become more
passionate about what is written in sociology, cultural and civilized aspects
and human interactions including memories than what is written in politics?
The answer can definitely
have many interpretations… first of them is that some have a psychological or
psycho-sociological explanation as they consider the matter an escape from the
burdened bitter reality and its nearly-blocked horizons… and so they consider
it a symptom for an illness that hits societies in weakness or transformation
eras… and so those societies possess a state of unhealthy nostalgia for past times.
There are other
answers including one I personally believe is right; the matter is connected to
what may look like organic diseases when body is in need of “Stem cells”… and
also like in historical cases when society is in need of recalling its high
spirit and strong will by recalling points of power in its history…
In our case, “Stem
cells” are moments in our history that represent the civilized existence which
we accumulated through thousands of years and which we used to refer to in all
our history phases in the form of cultural and social traditions… those
traditions that represent our identity… and that’s why we take care and yearn
to those practices and traditions, simply because we have a great interest in
the interactions of our Egyptian sociological existence through ages.
Many cannot resist their nostalgia
to wander in the alleys and streets of Coptic and Islamic Cairo with mosques,
cafes and markets lying here and there… those places where you see buildings
belonging to past eras dating back to the time when the Egyptians first
believed in Christianity during the Roman empire and later in Islam during Islamic
Fath, Umayyad dynasty, Abbasid dynasty... etc...
There is also another
kind of nostalgia… that one when you feel you want to wander in the same places
which you knew very well and played in during your childhood or early youth… for
example, I find myself interested in both kinds of nostalgia as I go walking
from my office in Kasr en-Nil St. to Al-Azbakiya square and watch Ibrahim Pasha
statue and read what is written on its base… then I recall the story of late
journalist as-Sa’adani about “abo Esba’a” or “the one with the finger”…
The story starts when
this area surrounding the statue was neglected… and so whenever it gets dark,
pimps used to gather at night under the feet of the statue to practice their
profession… and here came the name – as Ibrahim Pasha lefts his arm up and
points with his finger to the West – “the one with the finger” denoting an bad
figurative meaning… then I go directly to al-Attaba al-Khadra… then to Bab
el-Khalq… Darb Sa’ada… and then to Gohar as-Sekelli or al-Azhar st. and then I stand
a lot before the mosque of Sharaf ed-Din and his brother where I used to serve
for long time in Mawaled of Imam al-Hussain bare-footed wearing Galabiya…
I used to serve beans and meat porridge for Dervishes and visitors… I also used
to handle ordering shoes at the entrance of the mosque…
Moreover, I used to take
part in Hadra and reach the epic when I feel myself flying while the singer
is crying and chanting: “Oh you my lord… fill my heart with light”… or when chanting
the famous poem of Ibn el-Fared: “you are my prayers and rituals… you are my
great interest…”… until he says: “in death, there is life… and in life, there
is death”… then I go to al-Mo’aez st., by delving through the covered ally
leading to Bait al-Qadi, to see the mausoleum of Imam al-Hussain.
On the other side;
meaning the second kind of nostalgia, whenever I go to Tanta and my home
village “Ganag”, I go directly to the alleys surrounding Sa’ad ed-Din st… those
allies are very long and narrow that they are shadowed all day long… I remember
when I used to walk in those allies and not the main street lest I might have
been caught smoking while I was still a young boy… there, I have memories that
have and will never be erased from my memory and which I have written about many
times.
Such kind of nostalgia
is healthy… it’s when you become aware of your national belonging and identity…
when your Stem cells regenerate making your national immune system stronger in
order to be able to stand against all the vicious present-time-Tatar attacks on
our present and future… those attacks storming us under the false pretext that “our
nation will have no good in its present time until it follows its past”!!
That’s how they
confiscate our history, civilization and culture… but we have to stand firm
against those attacks… first, by cherishing our glorious past and essence of
our Egyptian cultural and civilized composition which have a distinct attribute…
away from chauvinism… also, away from the unbias that makes treason a point of
view.
Last week’s article
has stirred debate over a range of subjects… over the art of writing… the
Egyptian personality… characteristics of normal balanced family composition…
traditions, habits and behaviors… over alienation in terms of psychology,
sociology and culture… and that’s why I find myself in the dilemma of continuing
to regenerate our sociological memory Stem cells on the expense of paying
attention to our daily life problems… so please, help me.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This
article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on June 15, 2016.
To
see the original article, go to:
#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #national_identity #history
#Egypt #nostalgia
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