Death In Cairo: My Father’s Grave And The Ghosts Of Middle East Development

-Analysis-

CAIRO — For about five years, my mother has kept pushing me in a commanding tone: “Won’t you go and see your father?”

She meant my father’s grave, as we are increasingly worried that Egyptian authorities could raze it as part of its plans to build a network of highways through Cairo’s centuries-old cemeteries.

For the first time, I can feel the control that the state has over my personal history. There is an intersection between what the government wants, summed up in the word “development,” and the making of its own history, which is largely the history of removal. Perhaps this will prompt me to dig up my father’s grave? Or the graves of development? But when did it start?

Already hundreds of tombs and mausoleums — including those for Islamic figures, prominent Egyptian politicians, artists and scholars and the loved ones of many Egyptians — were demolished to build these multi-lane highways through the vast cemetery known as the City of the Dead. The demolition stunned preservationists, who say the construction of roads has destroyed a unique part of the county’s heritage.

This development turned Cairo into a city with high-rise gates, in reference to the “compounds” that are constantly being built without taking into account the largest proportion that inhabit the city: it looks increasingly like an attempt to copy the Emirati model.

And yet, for me, the development plans also turned into an attempt to understand my relationship with my father. And what vision and knowledge imprint in the intersection between an individual’s history and the modern history sought by the state — even if this history is one of removal. And why do the meanings of vision/removal/development/past/history all lead to one word, which is tragedy. It is the tragedy of Cairo 2050?

Ancestors’ graves

I searched in previous attempts to develop Cairo to know the starting point of a declaration that Cairo is a city that cannot house the graves, the cemeteries or the Qarafa, as such cemeteries are better known in Egypt.

The hope was to turn Cairo into the Manhattan of the Middle East

I found a project dating back to the era of former President Hosni Mubarak. The project was proposed by then Minister of Housing Ahmed al-Maghrabi who detailed it in an article published in the prestigious monthly magazine Weghat Nazar (Points of View), in August 2007. It was titled “All options are open/ Cairo 2050”.

Al-Maghribi said prohibiting the construction of housing in agricultural land was the root cause of the city’s urban problems. “This law harmed the urban structure of this city,” he wrote, adding that traffic congestion has harmed the city’s economy and made it less attractive to investment. “It is not right that Dubai can be more attractive to investors compared to the presence of a giant city with a history like Cairo.”

For al-Maghribi, the hope was to turn Cairo into the Manhattan of the Middle East. “There is nothing that prevents us from dreaming, and from realizing those dreams,” he said. “A large part of Cairo is occupied by the graves of our ancestors, but should this situation continue?”

The answer is that the situation did not continue, and Cairo has in fact became the city of the dead. Over the past two decades Cairo has shrunk as an ancient, touristic city resulting in great economic and social losses.

​Dubaization of Cairo

It has become clear that the ruling government is trying to establish a policy of “development” through copying other models – Dubai – without any basis of similarity between their urban form and that of the Egyptian capital.

What’s missing in this adopted model is the intersection of the economy and urbanism.

What’s missing in this adopted model is the intersection of the economy and urbanism, in addition to the thousands of people living in the cemeteries.

This development should have aimed at improving the social and economic conditions of such areas and their residents, and providing security to the people. And if the development aims to make Cairo look like Manhattan, then its urban planning must take into account the safety of women in its streets.

Ancient mythology

In ancient Egyptian mythology there is a creature called “Al-Saluwa” which is known as “The Grave Digger.” That figure is usually summoned by grandmothers and mothers to scare children until they sleep.

It seems that “Al-Saluwa” has appeared in the form of the “development ghost,” and dealing with symbolism in this way helps solidify it as an incurable cause not as a treatment.

Perhaps we have to find an alternative narrative or a new understanding away from romanticism, for the importance of Cairo not through history, but through the future.