Danes in Denmark

I have now been home in Denmark for two days. Anyway, today I would like to share an experience i have had.

Currently, I am visiting my parents. We're leaving for Port du Soleil tomorrow, until then, I am alone in their house, doing all the stuff I have not had the time to du while being in Egypt and which I will not be able to do while skiing. So, I was working on a kinds of tasks, and suddenly, in comes the plummer. Apparently, my parents had forgot to tell that he would drop by. That is not unheard of in my family, but being a member of this family you quickly learn to take things as they come. So, I started chatting with the man about the royal family, business, and yes, Egypt.

When two men meet, they start a most interesting dance. It is highly ritualized, yet very dynamic and potent. The two men take turns in telling about their own or their loved one's lives. The other nots at the right times, hinting that the subject might not be the common denominator. The dance continuous until a subject is found, which satisfies both men. If it is difficult to find a subject, it is always easy to resolve the situation, by talking about the whether or politics - these are basically the themes that everybody can talk about in the same way, as they all have the same experiences.

My chat with the plummer came to the whether-or-politics moment - we chose politics of cause, and as I had just been to Egypt, the Muhammad Crisis was an obvious choice of theme. Do you know the way people say things, when they expect a nod and a 'yes' from the other part in the discussion? Sure you do. In this discussion, things turned out a little differently. The plummer said that 'the Arabs are from a totally different world'. I have tried Cairo's traffic, so I do not disagree completely, but of cause, the sentence was pregnant with meaning, which can only be interpreted by the ear trained in the idiosyncrasies of the local culture. Here's a translation: "the Arabs are from a totally different world" = "I do not understand the arabs, they speak another language, have a different religion, are probably very irrational - and they are probably all the same".

What is a man to do, when talking with a man with such views? I will tell you what I did.

I chose to tell him, how the boycott of Danish products may not have been a good thing, but at the same time i said that a boycott is not the act of a villain, but the act of a person who try to explain that the person does not consent with the behavior of other people and at the same time choses to use peaceful means to send a signal. A boycott is not a thing which is only used outside the Western civilization, it is the very symbol of civilization. Where there are boycotts, there is peace. Basically, I gave him another perspective and emphasized that the people I have met in Egypt are not all the same - they are in fact as different as him and me.

What would you have said?

/JJ

Cairo

Today we went to see the pyramids early in the morning. The weather was good; sun shining most of the time, though a bit windy and cloudy towards the end. It was a good experience to see the pyramids of which all of us have heard since primary school. However, there was an awful lot of "horse and camel-guys", as one Egyptian posing as a guide called them.

If you have not been to Egypt you might not know how close the pyramids actually are to Cairo. They are very close! Just situated in the outskirts of Cario, new and old Egypt meets each other. Of course, turists are abound and nothing seems authentic - but wow: those pyramids are breathtaking. Imagine that they were built about 4000 years ago.

After the pyramids we split up into smaller groups. Some of us visited Islamic Cairo and walked through the small streets with shops. Haggling is a national sport down here, which some of us Danes find particularly difficult. I think most of us are learning quickly though.

Today is friday and but also a holiday. I will get back to the specifics when I know more, bit suffice it to say that a lot of Egyptians had a day off. That ment less traffic but also different events around the city. The picture below is from a sufist dance act we saw in Islamic Cairo. One guy was singing while for dancers span round and round. They must have been spinning four half an hour when we finally left.

P.S. We know that we cannot spell human rights. We are working on a solution, but so far bare with us :-)

Partnership Project about Human Rights in Egypt and Denmark

The Danish Participants waiting at the airport in Cairo.

Welcome!

This is this the blog for the partnership project between Danish Social Liberal Youth and Andalus Institute in Egypt. The aim of the partnership is to promote human rights in Egypt and to work for cultural exchange between the Danish and Egyptian participants.

45 young Danes and Egyptian will meet for three seminars to learn about and discuss human rights. The first seminar is taking place this very weekend in Cairo, while the next is in May and the final in August.

The Danes arrived yesterday, very tired and stressed from the long journey. We left Denmark in the middle of a snow blizzard and through sheer luck (and German punctuality) we did not miss our connection flight in Munich. Here, the wheather is very mild compared to what we came from. We met up with the Egyptian Steering Committee last night and they and the Danish Steering Committee have spent the day preparing for the seminar.

We will write a lot more about our experiences on this blog.

Mark,

Member of Danish Steering Committee

(Writing from a café just off the Nile)