Monday, January 15, 2007

The Iraqis in Egypt

In 1930s and in 1940s Egypt reached to the top of began a real cosmopolitan society , a mix from every country and culture living in the valley of the Nile peacefully in an amazing way , from all nationalities from Europe they came to Egypt as a safe place

Egypt was always the safe place for refugees since the holy family came to Egypt , it is in the holy Quran in surat "Youssef" which is about the story of Prophet Joseph and his brother

 
012.099 فَلَمَّا دَخَلُوا عَلَى يُوسُفَ آوَى إِلَيْهِ أَبَوَيْهِ وَقَالَ ادْخُلُوا مِصْرَ إِنْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ آمِنِينَ
012.099 Then when they entered the presence of Joseph, he provided a home for his parents with himself, and said: "Enter ye Egypt (all) in safety if it please Allah."

Al-Qur'an, 012.099 (Yusuf [Joseph])
Text Copied from DivineIslam's Qur'an Viewer software v2.910
 The safety of Egypt and the generosity of its people and their kindness made it the destination across time till now the safe place for some people
after the revolution and the nationalization law of 1960 ,the cosmopolitan Egypt began to disappear especially with the departure of western communities from Egypt
Yet the safe place didn't close its door ,it still received people from around the globe who needed shelter
Egypt's ethnic communities now beside the Greek , Armenian and Sudanese are Syrian.Lebanese ,Yemeni,Somali and lately Iraqi
The Iraqi community began when Saddam Hussein began his crime against his people , when I was in School I had several Iraqi friends in all stages , among them was the daughter of the Iraqi journalist and constant guest in Egyptian TV shows "Abdul Karim El-Alogay" whom surprised me to turn to be a Shiite , as from my knowledge and my person experience with the man I only knew who was more a nationalist Nasserist ,you know that helped me to understand that not Shiites are not bad nor agents to Iran
This man is from the victims of Saddam and comes from a wealthy family whose personal possessions from buildings and horse farms were taken ,strangely the man was sad for Saddam , man I would never know how those Nationalist Nasserist really think ??
Anyhow I know also from my experience that many of the Iraqi families left Egypt after the invasion of Iraq ,I was in the primary stage when several girls left the schools as their families were ordered by the embassy to go back to Iraq
I even remember that I listen to mother talking to one of my teachers saying that they were afraid to stay in Egypt despite they know very well the kindness of the Egyptian people but this kindness can end if they know the real number of the flying dead coffins ,you know the one used Saddam to send with the dead bodies of Egyptian workers he used to kill
Anyhow the Iraqis again returned back to Egypt last year mainly from the Sunni areas ,the genocides are scary enough for Sunni families to let their women,elder and children to stay , they have only one option to stay and defend and send their women and children to safer place
I can't imagine how it is hard to send your family to another place sorry to another country for safety ,it is hard ,so hard
Iraqi families prefer come to Egypt instead of the Arab countries because of our kindness and hospitality
Taking in consideration that most if not all of these families are Sunni ,naturally they will head to the Sunni biggest and greatest countries ,they can't go to Saudi Arabia taking in consideration the freedom issues from women freedom and so on , don't forget the Iraqi families don't escape from the hell of the Shiite militias but from the hell of the radical wahabi groups
The numbers of the Iraqi families in Egypt reflects the size of terror in Iraq
the official number that was announced from few days in Al-Akhbar was 80,000 ,huge number is n't it ??!!!
well this is what the Egyptian state announced ,of course the official statements most of the time are not to be trusted
The real number according to El-Wafad newspaper based on the Iraqi commissioner is even bigger than that number , according to 150,000 Iraqi refugees already in Egypt since the invasion of Baghdad and the rest are coming in the way
Didn't I tell you it is even bigger and reflects the size of terror in Iraq ??
The UN number of Iraqis in Egypt is 11,000 refugees since the invasion 
Already I found a thread in the DVD4Arab made by Iraqis who are asking about prices and places in Egypt
Iraqis come and live in Egypt especially in the new urban cities like 6th of October , my friend since summer told me that there were great number of Arabs who drive badly ,she thought they were from the Gulf but most those from Gulf and stay in October city are from the students of the Universities there ,but it wasn't the time of the universities ,also I heard that there were complete streets in that city inhibited only Iraqis
yet October city is not the only place they live in , there is also El-Rehab city which is expensive at least for Egyptian , there are also Faisal area in Ahram ,which is very populated yet less expensive than October and El-Rehab.
October and El-Rehab are very expensive ,El-Rehab is already a private compound
Yet life is not easy at all for those refugees either ,they escape from the hell of death to hell of prices in Egypt and red tape
Already Life now for the Egyptians in Egypt are very expensive ,young people can't find a good small flat easily so you can imagine how hard it will be for those families
To take the residence permission in Egypt if you are foreigner ,you must buy a house in Egypt whose price is more than 250,000 E.P , big useless number
Anyway I believe this residence permission doesn't imply on the refugees ,those are political refugees got special rights and treatment as I thin
Anyhow it is not the huge expensive tag price of houses in Egypt but also the schools and education tag prices
Egyptians most of them are complaining day and night from the Schools fees in Egypt , the high fees ,every year the fees go up with the parents anger and Schools administration greedy ,the same old arguments in TV shows and Newspapers reports ,and the ministry of education do nothing ,just watching
Now if it is hard for Egyptians ,it is impossible for Arabs ,you see Arabs except for Palestinians who got the same treatment like Egyptians , The fees for Arabs raised for 200% of the Egyptians it is not fair at all ,even in University ,the public ones owned the State like Cairo and Alexandria ,do you know that foreigners regardless of their nationalities must pay in American dollars !!
It is silly because in the old days all the Arabs especially from the sons and daughters of leaders,ministers,presidents and Kings came to Egypt and learned in its schools and universities which made Egypt the Arab dream country for education for the rest of the Arab people
Already Egypt got many problems that I can't imagine that it is the perfect place to escape in to ,it is like the one who escapes from the ashes to the fire like the famous Arabic proverb says
but may be the Iraqi refugees act in the term of the famous Egyptian proverb "what makes you go for the bad? the worse"
 
 

2 comments:

  1. Interesting topic. Just wanted to say that even in Nasr City, where I currently live, there are an Iraqi community. moreover, Iraqi restaurants began to spread all over Egypt to meet the needs and tastes of such community which is fleeing from the critical situation in Iraq.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Eman ,first welcome to my blog ,about the Iraqi restaurants well they are just like the Syrian and Yemeni restaurants ,in fact I really love those restaurants because they gave this cosmopolitan taste to Egypt

    ReplyDelete

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