Two More Muslim Countries, Two More Perspectives on Islam, Politics, and Society

Continuing my winter break sojourn, I left Israel just before Christmas and I’ve spent the past 2+ weeks in Tunisia and Mali. I am currently in Mopti, a transit hub on Mali's Niger River. Blocks of salt from Timbuktu, cargo pinasses (dugout canoes with outboard motors) loaded to the brim with food staples and other goods headed up the river, passenger buses headed to Bamako that are relics from a bygone era of transportation – it’s all here! Tomorrow morning, I am going to board a private pinasse and begin a leisurely three day journey up the river to Timbuktu. That world famous town is home to the Festival au Desert, a three day desert music spectacular that features both Malian and international artists. While the phrase “once-in-a-lifetime experience” has turned into something of a cliché, I think that it actually might apply in this instance.

The festival will be the culmination of my winter break travels, but I have also picked up a wealth of other experiences along the way. In particular, I have been fascinated by the different faces of Islam that I have seen in Tunisia and Mali. My reference point for Islam is, of course, Egypt. Thus, whenever I travel to another Muslim country, I find myself comparing it to the land of the pharaohs.

The Tunisian take on Islam is, from what I could tell, fairly similar to Egypt. Both countries are now about to usher in a new era of Islamist government, people who I interacted with asked me similar questions about my religious background and used similar arguments to try to convert me to Islam (they were just as ineffective in Tunisia as they have been in Egypt), and Tunisian Arabic, like Egyptian, is peppered with religious phrases. One major difference, however, is that the Salafi (hardline Islamist) movement that has taken Egypt by storm over the past decade has yet to manifest itself in Tunisia. I saw a few Tunisian men sporting the long beard that has become a Salafi trademark, but the phenomenon was nowhere near as widespread as it is in Egypt. Al-Nahda, the formerly banned Islamist movement that won a majority in the recent parliamentary elections, seems to be decidedly centrist, and people were quite happy about the appointment of a well-known secular politician as the country’s president (the prime minister is an Islamist). Just as many people who voted for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told me that they did so primarily because they respected the brothers and wanted to see how they would handle being in power (and not out of a fierce devotion to the party or a desire to see Egypt go the way of Iran), a number of Tunisians told me that they had voted for Al-Nahda for the same reasons. “Give them a chance,” one taxi driver told me, “and if we don’t like them we’ll find someone new next time around.”

Mali, on the other hand, is a world away from Egypt. The most notable difference is linguistic. The country is 90% Muslim and mosques abound, but the vast majority of Malians only know a few token Arabic religious phrases (perhaps a close analogy is that of American Jews who pray in Hebrew but have no practical understanding of the language). I enjoy using those phrases (Peace be upon you, God willing, praise God, etc.) when I speak with Malians, but the only full conversation in Arabic that I’ve had here was with the imam of the Great Mosque of Djenne (pictured below).

I was able to gain some insight into Islam’s place in Malian society when I ate dinner with a volunteer from the Peace Corps who is living and working in southern part of the country. The mosque in her village, she said, is largely the domain of the old men who study and pray there. The youth, she observed, tend to be fairly uninterested in religion. Nevertheless, the whole village does observe Ramadan (even the Christians join the prayers during Eid Al-Fitr at the end of the holy month) and Eid Al-Adha (the day of sacrifice), engaging in practices like fasting and slaughtering a goat that would be instantly recognizable to Muslims around the world.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the beautiful Islamic architecture that I have seen in both Tunisia and Mali. I have included some pictures of the exquisite doors on houses in the city of Kairouan in Tunisia and a white mosque wedged onto a hill in a Berber village in southern part of the country. Mali, on the other hand, is all about mud. The Great Mosque of Djenne surpassed my sky-high expectations that I held coming into this trip – it is, simply put, a stunning building.

A Kairouan door

A hilltop mosque in Berber country

The Great Mosque of Djenne

A Firsthand Look at the Muslim Brotherhood

Since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has emerged as a legitimate political force that is sure to play a large role in shaping Egypt’s future. Both Egyptian and Western media organizations have devoted a large amount of focus to analyzing the MB’s political prospects, its power structure, and its position in Egyptian society. While most Egyptians have plenty of opportunities to form their own opinions about the MB from their own interactions with members and the Egyptian media’s coverage of the subject, the only exposure to the MB that many non-Egyptians have is through the Western media. Those articles and news reports have alternately described the MB as a widely popular, democratizing force, or terrorist sympathizers bent on war with Israel and ensuring that Egypt becomes another case of “one man, one vote, one time.”

While I do not consider myself an expert on the MB, I want to share with the readers of this blog some of my experiences with the Brotherhood throughout the past few months in Cairo. Before this year, I had not had the opportunity to meet any Brotherhood members. Open membership in the MB during the Mubarak era could easily lead to expulsion from college or the loss of a job. This year, however, everything has changed. Membership in the Brotherhood no longer puts one at risk of intimidation or state-sponsored violence. As a result, I have had the opportunity to meet and befriend an MB member, and I think that his story is quite instructive for anyone wanting to learn more about the role that the MB plays in Egyptian politics and society.

The story begins with a discussion group that I attend every Thursday afternoon at a Cairo think tank. A group of Egyptian political activists and interested citizens from all sides of the political spectrum come together to discuss a specific political issue with an expert in the field – past meetings have focused on the relationship between religion and the state, the continued sit-ins in Tahrir Square, and analyzing the recently released electoral laws. I generally do much more listening than talking at these meetings (I consider it an achievement that I am merely able to understand much of what is being discussed…), and I consider each meeting one of the highlights of my week.

My friend Mohamed, a 27 year-old man who works at a pharmaceutical company, is the leader and organizer of the group. Until this past March, Mohamed was a member of the MB, but he and several hundred other young members formally split from the Brotherhood a few months ago. Mohamed had been a part of the Brotherhood for 12 years. While we had discussed politics and international relations several times previously, I did not learn Mohamed’s personal story until my last week in Cairo this summer. After we finished our weekly meeting, he asked me if I would come with him to a local café and serve as a translator for an interview that a Czech researcher had scheduled with him. The interview lasted an hour and a half, and, in addition to learning firsthand how tough it is to serve as a translator, I was fascinated by Mohamed’s story.

Mohamed grew up in a town in the Nile Delta near the Mediterranean coast, the son of a politically indifferent mother and a socialist father. At age 15, he decided to join the Muslim Brotherhood. He respected the local Brotherhood members and believed that there was a natural synthesis between the Islamic principles that the Brotherhood espoused and the establishment of a just, transparent government in Egypt (i.e. the opposite of the Mubarak regime). While Mohamed’s father was initially opposed to his participation in the MB, Mohamed recalled that his father’s opposition softened over time as he saw that Mohamed’s participation in the MB seemed to make him a more focused student and well-rounded person.

Mohamed climbed the ranks of the Brotherhood, and he continued to play a role in it throughout college and after graduation. He eventually reached the fifth and highest level of Brotherhood membership (although if he had stayed on he would have had a ways to go before obtaining a provincial or national leadership position). He participated in the January revolution that toppled Mubarak, but in the wake of Mubarak’s resignation Mohamed found himself caught in the divide that has currently split the MB in two.

In a meeting on March 26 with several hundred members of the Brotherhood’s younger generation, Mohamed and his colleagues declared that they were officially cutting ties with the MB. As Mohamed was careful to point out, he did not split off from the MB because he disagreed with the group’s political or religious principles. Instead, he fundamentally disagreed with what he saw as the MB’s mixing of preaching and politics as it sought to garner political support leading up to the first elections in the post-Mubarak Egypt. While Mohamed himself had taken part in both fields (preaching and politics), he steadfastly maintained that two must remain separate. The MB devotes a great deal of effort to maintaining a presence at local mosques and spreading its version of Islamic values to the attendees therein. In Mohamed’s opinion, however, the MB’s preaching had begun to cross over into the political realm. As he explained to me in one of our earlier conversations, bringing politics into the mosque has the potential to sow division and detract from the Brotherhood’s political and religious goals. “Politics is a matter of choice,” he said, “you pick the person or the party that you think best represents you. Disagreement is normal. The problem with mixing preaching and politics is that if someone disagrees with your politics, that disagreement can carry over to religion, too. Our opponents will then seem to be arguing not only against our politics, but also against religion as a whole. If that happened, it would sully both our name and Islam as a whole.”

That was Mohamed’s official reason for leaving the Brotherhood, and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. At the same time, however, he and his fellow youth defectors did not disavow the Brotherhood’s ideology. He joined a new party called the “Renaissance Party,” which he described as embracing almost all of the Brotherhood’s values without mixing preaching and politics. He also supports former Brotherhood leader and current presidential candidate Abd-Munam Abu-al-Futuh (who was expelled from the Brotherhood upon declaring his intention to stand in the presidential elections – the MB is not fielding an official candidate for this year’s presidential elections). Mohamed’s continued adherence to Islamist political platforms suggests that there is another factor that contributed to his decision: the split between the older and younger generations of the MB.

While people often think of the Brotherhood as a monolithic institution devoid of any differentiating views on politics or religion, it has become quite clear since the January 25 revolution that the Brotherhood is actually quite diverse. The Brotherhood’s leadership is largely composed of the old guard members whose political views have been hardened by years of repression under the Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak regimes. The younger generation, however, has shown itself much more amenable to cooperation with non-Islamist groups. Furthermore, the younger generation has publicly chafed against the old guard’s hesitance to turn over leadership positions to them. This split in the Brotherhood continues to grow, and, with defections such as those of Mohamed and his colleagues and the rise of more hardline groups such as the Salafis, the MB no longer has a monopoly on Islamist politics in Egypt.

Adventures in Alexandria

Upfront disclaimer: Really long post!

Word of the day: مغامرة - (mookhamara - "adventure")

On Mondays and Tuesdays I usually have a one-on-one seminar with a Alexandria University professor focused on "Geopolitics in the Middle East," but, since my professor is out of town this week, I had a full afternoon free today. With so much time on my hands, I decided to undertake an adventure that I had been planning to do for a long time. I have written before on this blog about how much I love the "مناطق شعبية" ("minataq shaabia" translation: traditional/working class neighborhoods) in Alexandria. They are full of life, hustle and bustle, delicious bakeries and street-food shops, and there are always people there eager to talk with me about anything and everything. I have been visiting these neighborhoods one by one, usually with Galal, my Egyptian friend and running buddy. Today, however, Galal was busy so I went out by myself. My plan in the beginning was to go to my favorite lunch spot, stroll through my favorite souq that is near the restaurant, and then hop on the one of the tram lines that runs through a neighborhood called "ميناء البصل" ("Meena al Basal" literal translation: seaport of onion), a "shaabi" neighborhood that few if any of the Egyptian students living with us had ever visited. After that, I planned to ride another tram to the main train station and then, after a short walk, ride another tram back to the dorms. I ultimately achieved all of these goals, but the best parts of the adventure was not the transportation but instead the conversations and interactions I had with people on the street.

Here's a link to Google Maps that shows the route I took: http://bit.ly/aUFUcU

After I eating a delicious lunch of "فول و فلافل" (fava beans and falafel) at my favorite restaurant, Mohammed Ahmed, I took a short walk to my favorite souq that stretches out through one of Alexandria's oldest neighborhoods. Everything under the sun exists there. Today, I talked with a man selling squid about the possibility of cooking calamari, and I saw, for the first time in my life, a series of severed cow heads sitting on the street. Clearly nothing out of the ordinary. A few seconds after I first noticed the heads, the butcher started swinging his hatchet to break down the heads. I now have a firsthand understanding of just how big cow tongues really are!

I finished my walk through the souq and ambled over to the Abu Al-Abbas Mosque - Alexandria's most beautiful, in my opinion. Set just off the Mediterranean, the mosque is an architectural and artistic marvel. I was planning to go in and poke around the mosque for a bit, but instead I found a group of teenagers playing soccer in the mosque courtyard. They invited me to join in, so we spent about 20 minutes playing soccer, using one of the mosque walls as one goal and the other side of the courtyard as the other. As I was about to leave, one of the boys piped up "Give us some money, maybe five dollars!" I was somewhat surprised upon hearing this request. Unlike my experience in Kenya last summer when I was constantly asked for money almost everywhere I went, I really haven't had any similar experiences during my time in Egypt save for the occasional beggar on the street. Whereas in Kenya I probably would have shrugged it off and just went on my way, I decided to ask these kids why they had asked me for money. "We just played a friendly game of soccer, why are you asking me now for money? Is it because I am a foreigner and you think all foreigners have lots of money?" I asked them. Instantly, they turned very apologetic: "Oh no no, we didn't mean anything, we just want to buy a new soccer ball...sorry!" "Ok" I said, "No problem. I was just interested in why you asked me that question." I still tried to ask them one more time what the logic was behind their initial request, but I got the same response.

We chatted a little more as I was leaving the courtyard of the mosque, and somehow the conversation turned to the recent events in Israel. There has been a lot of resentment and anger amongst the Egyptians over the last few days over the Israeli expansion of settlements into East Jerusalem and the perception that a newly rebuilt temple near Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is disrespectful and reflective of Israeli plans to desecrate the mosque. There was a protest yesterday at Alexandria University, and the newspapers have been following the story closely, too. Throughout the 2+ months I have been in Egypt I have never been reticent to tell people that I am Jewish, and I have never felt any threat to my physical safety as a result of telling people that I am Jewish. On the contrary, almost without exception I have been treated with respect even if the other person does not share my viewpoints. So I decided to seize the opportunity for another interesting conversation by telling these kids that I was Jewish. I think their being teenagers together in a group partially contributed to their initial reactions, which tended to be pretty negative. I had a few insults thrown at me and there was generally a lot of whooping and hollering among them. I kept completely calm, however, and made it completely clear to them from the beginning that I considered all of them friends and had tremendous respect for Islam. In the same way that I respected their religion, I expressed hope that they would respect me and my religion, too. Respect is a very strong word in Arabic and in Islam in general, and Muslims who I have talked with frequently quote the Qur'an as specifically telling them to respect Jews and Christians. So after the boys calmed down a bit, I explained to them that even though I am Jewish I do not automatically support everything that Israel does. "As a matter of fact," I told them, "I don't agree with the recent expansion of settlements and I think that Israel needs to reconsider its projects near Al-Aqsa seeing as to the extremely negative reaction from Muslims throughout the Middle East." Having established that I generally agreed with their current grievances, I went on to say that my overarching hope was that the two sides would find a way to work together to achieve peace and a two-state solution. "I don't respect any side - Israel or Palestine - that uses violence to further its causes," I told them, and most of them nodded their heads in agreement. At the same time, however, they became increasingly interested in the idea of convincing me that I had to recited the Shahada (There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger) and become a Muslim then and there. Staying patient, I explained to them that although I deeply respected their religion I did not want to convert. The conversation then reverted back into commotion, with some of them chanting the Shahada and some of them singing other random songs, so I sat back and waited for them to finish so we could return to our civil conversation that we had been having earlier. They eventually did, and we spent the last few minutes discussing the differences between the actions of the Israeli government and the general desire of the vast majority of the Jewish people for peace. I never felt any physical threat from them, but it was interesting from my perspective to see how they reacted upon hearing that I was Jewish and to hear some of their initial insults. I am happy, however, that the conversation took a turn for the better and I think we did reach a point of mutual understanding by the end of it.

After eating some delicious ice cream at the end of the peninsula in Alexandria that juts into the Mediterranean, I hopped on my first tram of the day and struck up a conversation with Mohammed, an old man who was sitting next to me. After the obligatory initial exclamation of surprise that I inevitably hear when I start to speak to someone in Arabic, we struck up a really interesting conversation about how Alexandria has changed throughout his life. He was born and raised here, and he spun the classic "back in my day" narrative about how life here used to better than it is now. At the same time, however, we did discuss some real issues such as the problem of youth unemployment. Mohammed said that when he graduated from college, a degree automatically earned you a stable job. For those without degrees, work was readily available in skilled trades. His opinion on the situation today was that fresh graduates feel entitled to instantly jump into a high level job in engineering, medicine, law, etc. Problems arise, however, when many of them realize that that option is not available. He said to me that the main problem is that they are unwilling to take any lower-paying or less-skilled job in the meantime. I have heard this story from many Egyptians - including my fellow Egyptian students at the university - and I have yet to hear any convincing ideas on how to solve the problem. One observation that I do have is that the idea of "entrepreneurship" is not particularly prominent in students' thinking about their options after graduation. A possible reason for this lack of entrepreneurship that I have heard from many of my fellow students is the Egyptian education system's seemingly endless quest to privilege memorization of information over creativity, critical-thinking skills, and discussions with professors instead of one-sided lectures.

In yet another example of the generosity that I have been so fortunate to have received here in Egypt, Mohammed absolutely insisted on paying my fare (5 cents) on the tram, and before he got off he made sure everyone else on the tram knew where I was trying to get to and would direct me accordingly.

The neighborhood Meena al Basal that I had planned the adventure around turned out to be fairly uninteresting. Just a conglomeration of light industrial factories and trucks coming and going from the port. Definitely working class, but generally without the general vibrancy that I have repeatedly found in other neighborhoods. Because I only saw it from tram, however, I think I owe the neighborhood another visit to poke around some more before I fully pass judgment. As I approached Alexandria's main train station, I was vaulted back into the working class world full of honking horns, crowded streets, and overwhelming sights and smells. After picking up a small pizza at one of the bakeries - and having yet another conversation on Israel, this time with the baker - I strolled down the main street of another working class neighborhood taking in scene. Bustling souqs, vendors hawking their wares, Egyptians relaxing in street-side cafes smoking sheesha and drinking tea, and mothers shepherding their children through the hustle and bustle of it all. I had to interrupt my walk for one of Alexandria's finest treats: fresh orange juice. And by fresh I mean literally juice squeezed from an orange on the spot. Delicious.

I finally reached my last tram of the day, and, of course, had to strike up a chat with everyone on the train. I was especially interested in a 10 year old kid who informed me with absolute certainty that he planned to visit me in America. I didn't realize how tired I was, however, until my eyes started to slowly glaze over in the middle of the ride, and before I knew it I found myself being tapped on the shoulder by one of my newly-made friends on the tram telling me that the tram had reached my stop. After bidding the people on the tram goodbye, I bought half a kilo of bananas from my favorite fruit stall and picked up a piping hot piece of of pita bread for 5 cents at the bakery. Finally, 5 hours after I started, I ended my adventure by triumphantly walking through the dorm gates and making a beeline for dinner.

Alexandria is truly the gift that keeps on giving. Not too big and not too small, I always find something new to surprise me when I go out exploring in the city. The best part, though, is the interactions that I have with people in places like the mosque courtyard / soccer field, the bakery, or the tram. Luckily for me, everyone's interest in chatting with the tall, undoubtedly foreign, blonde-haired guy who speaks Arabic never wanes.

Settling into Alexandria

It has now been five days since I arrived in Alexandria, but it feels like it's been five months! The past few days have been filled with orientation activities, crash courses in Egyptian Amiyya (colloquial Arabic), hanging out in the dorm with our Egyptian dormmates, and exploring the city. The program "officially" started today when we all took the language pledge - thus, I am now speaking exclusively in Arabic.

Many of the sights and sounds in these first few days in Alexandria have on the whole been quite unlike anything I've seen or heard before, although there are many things that seem normal to me, too. After my experience in Kenya last summer and after hearing about the city from friends who did this program in the fall, I had prepared myself for an experience similar to the one I had in Nairobi: a third world city, crowded, polluted, and chaotic. I might use some of those adjectives to describe life here in Alexandria, but for the most part I have felt quite often during the first few days that life in Alexandria is not too far from what I'm used to at home. For example, the roads are nicely paved, there is a tram that runs throughout the city, some beautiful architecture, and great views of the Mediterranean along the coast. There is a lot of traffic, crossing the street is an exhilarating experience in and of itself, the trams aren't necessarily state-of-the art, and people tend to walk on the street instead of the sidewalk, but as a whole my impression so far is that there is certainly a logical way that this city works. The divide between private and public space (houses / shops and the street) just isn't as "clean-cut" as it would be in the US.

On the other hand, this is the most foreign place I have ever been to. I had no idea how present Islam is in everyone's daily lives. I wake up every morning to the call to prayer outside my window, religious sayings are commonly seen on car bumpers, storefronts, and even graffiti on the street. On top of that, the clothing that people wear makes you feel that you are in another world. Of course many people wear Western attire, but I would say that 99% of the women here wear hijabs (head scarves) and about 10% have the hijab covering their whole face with only their eyes showing. Many men also wear Islamic garb, though none cover their heads. Despite the ostensible differences in clothing, however, there is no awkwardness once you strike up a conversation with someone. I have found everyone that I have talked to extremely kind and welcoming (it is not uncommon, as happened to me today, to be asked to sit down for tea or coffee and a conversation by a stranger on the street). As my Arabic improves, which it is already starting to, I really am looking forward to wading deeper into the culture.

Finally, and this subject certainly deserves its own post, Alexandria's history is very visible throughout the city. The new library is beautiful, Roman and Greek ruins are all over the place (including shipwrecks and pottery that are still being explored in the Mediterranean), and British and French style architecture, roundabouts, trams, and grand boulevards run throughout the city.

I have seen so many images in my first few days here that will hopefully help bring the city to life for any readers of the blog, and I will write about some of them later this week. I am exhausted from a long day today which included watching Egypt's national soccer team win their match versus Mozambique in the African Cup of Nations in Angola - You can imagine the celebration on the streets after both of Egypt's goals...