A Study In Group Punishment

I still resent the day my fourth grade teacher stood up in front of our class and announced that Sally Robinson’s lunch money was missing from her desk.  If someone didn’t fess up, the entire class would be grounded from recess for the rest of the week.  ‘That’s not fair!” we cried.  Mr. Greene snickered:  “Life’s not fair.”  No one confessed to the crime, so despite our protests, we were confined to the classroom for the next three days.   I still haven’t forgiven Sally Robinson.  Or Mr. Greene.

Most of us can recall a similar event in which the bad behavior of a few resulted in bad karma for all.  Last week the people of Egypt—and perhaps the entire Muslim world—experienced a “group punishment” moment when demonstrations against an anti-Muslim film turned violent outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.  Before you could say “Sally Robinson,” protests had spread to other Muslim nations with the media riding side-saddle every step of the way.  By Sunday the cover of Newsweek featured a mob of angry, bearded men shaking their fists under the banner headline MUSLIM RAGE! suggesting that Muslims world-wide are girding up to annihilate the infidels, aka the USA and anything and everything American.

I’m not an expert on Middle East affairs, but I happened to be in Egypt last week when Muslim extremists demonstrated in Cairo.  I’d like to say that I was a fly-on-the-wall in-the-heat-of-battle witness to the event, but in fact my wife and I were a few hundred miles south blissfully concluding a four-day cruise down the Nile.  In any case, you can imagine our surprise when we turned on the news that night and saw a broiling mob brandishing anti-American signs, ingloriously torching Old Glory, hurling rocks, barbequing cars and buildings, and generally raising a ruckus in downtown Cairo, which just happened to be the next and final stop on our Egyptian tour.  On TV it looked as if Pharaoh was fiddling while Cairo went up in flames.     

We began speculating about the kind of reception awaiting us in the capital city.  Up to that point, the staff on board the boat and at the local hotels and restaurants had been consummate hosts—kind, friendly, courteous, attentive.  However, as my good wife noted, they were being paid to be polite;   the general population in Cairo wasn’t.  “They might be less accommodating,” she said.  “They might even be dangerous.”  Apparently the TV image of a flying brick knocking the Darth Vadir helmet off the head of a riot squad officer had made an indelible impression.     

That night our tour guide gathered our group together and assured us that the situation in Cairo was well under control.  I asked him what that meant, “well under control?”  Then I asked him how much it would cost to be air-vacked from Abu Simbel to Phoenix.  He laughed because he thought I was joking.  Then he reminded us that Cairo is a very big city of 18 million people and the dissidents represented a very small number acting in a bad way in a very limited area.   I asked him if we were going to be staying anywhere near that very limited area.  He smiled.  “That depends,” he said.  “Are you going to ask me any more questions?”  I laughed because I thought he was joking.

We arrived in Cairo on Friday, two days after the violence.  As our bus drove towards the hotel, my wife nudged me and said I could sit up and uncover my eyes now:  there were no fires or flying bricks.  In fact, if you were a block removed from the U.S. Embassy, it was business as usual:  the shops were open, traffic was flowing, the streets were teeming with crowds.  Most importantly, the pleasure boats were still cruising along the Nile.  

In retaliation for my incessant questions, the next morning our guide took us to visit Islamic Cairo, including the Citadel of Salah-al-Din, named after the valiant foe of the Crusaders, and the famous Mosque of Hasan.  He called it a journey into the heart of Cairo, but to me it sounded like a trip into the lion’s den and the infidels were on the menu.  My antennae really went up when our guide ordered our driver to take a more circuitous route so that (in his words) we could observe first-hand a larger panorama of downtown Cairo.  “It will open your eyes!” he exclaimed, probably because mine always seemed to be closed.

And eye-opening it was!.  We saw elaborate domes, arches, and latticework that summoned up images from The Arabian Nights.  We saw minarets standing high above the city like intricately carved lighthouses or missiles waiting to be fired, depending upon your point of view.   We saw women in burkhas and men in galabiyas, the traditional long, flowing robes worn by many Egyptians, and men and women in western clothing.  We saw people talking and bartering in the streets and thousands crowding the open-air bazaars.  We saw things you would never ever see in the U.S., such as cars dodging and weaving through the lane-less traffic while a donkey-drawn cart merged into the flow.  But we saw absolutely no violent protests or demonstrations.  We saw no anti-American signs, posters, or gestures.  The “city in flames” seemed remarkably at peace.   It was almost disappointing.  We had come all this way to Egypt and all we had seen was the most extensive and remarkable collection of artifacts and antiquities on the planet.  And that was before we had taken in the sphinx and the pyramids.     

What we did see, however, was extreme and abject poverty—row after row of half-finished  apartment buildings with cracked walls and missing windows; tight, crowded alleys overflowing with debris; crumbling mud-brick tenements that looked like Anasazi ruins—all of which made me think of Sally Robinson, not because Sally looked like an artifact but because the images spoke directly to the dire consequences of “group punishment.”   

Egypt is exceedingly rich in ancient treasures but dirt poor in modern material wealth, with thirty percent of its economy driven by tourism.  When violent flare-ups are not only highlighted but magnified by the media, Americans tend to get anxious,  angry, or both.  One member of our tour group commented, “When they start burning the American flag, that’s it for me!  I’m out of here!” (which is a bold sentiment but he didn’t know you can’t be air-vacked from Abu Simbel to Phoenix;  I’d done my research.)   When potential tourists cancel their vacation plans because of the bad behavior of a few, it’s not just the airlines, the hotels, the restaurants, and the travel agencies that suffer.  It’s  also the taxi drivers, the porters, the chefs, and the poor kids who holds the camel steady while tourists enjoy their photo op.  It’s the millions (not thousands) of street vendors trying to scratch out a living selling Nefertiti key chains and papyrus bookmarks. 

Our guide explained that tourism in Egypt took a terrible hit following the Arab Spring in 2011. Americans and other tourists put the Pyramids of Giza and the Valley of the Kings on hold to travel elsewhere.  But by 2012 the country had stabilized and foreign visitors were finally returning and opening up their wallets.  Tourism was on the rebound. And then this.     

The night of our farewell dinner our guide was almost pleading with us to go home and reassure our friends that Egypt is a safe country and friendly to Americans. “As we drove through the city today, did you see fires?” he asked.  “Riots?  Mobs?  Flying bricks?” No. No. No. And absolutely no. 

Images of extremists rioting in the streets can create the impression that the entire Muslim nation, from Cairo to Pakistan to L.A., is on the warpath.  In fact it is a relatively small number of extremists who always steal the headlines because smoke bombs seem to sell more newspapers than feel-good features about visiting King Tut’s tomb or a luxury cruise down the Nile.  

Of course some Americans who will judge the Egyptian people—and Muslims generally—by the actions of the Muslim fringe    Why are we sending Egypt over a billion dollars of aid a year when they burn our flag and despise our country?  Why can’t the Egyptian government  control those people?  Probably for the same reason that the U.S. Government couldn’t keep an anti-Muslim film off the internet or stop a twenty-something head-case in a Batman suit from shooting up a movie theater.  It’s the great trade-off in a free society:  you can’t control all of the actions and opinions of all the people all the time, nor should you.  If you are into control, visit North Korea.  Finally, Americans of all people should understand the inherent dangers of judging an entire nation by the behavior of a few.  Just watch  The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. 

My biggest take-away from Cairo can be summed up by an encounter my wife and I had with a vendor as we meandered the alleys of the great Khan-El-Khalili bazaar our final day in Cairo.  We wanted to buy three silk scarves, one for each of our daughters.  When I asked about the price, true to local custom, the salesman, a robust, bearded young man, proposed a preposterously high amount:  “Normally I sell these for forty-five dollars, but for you, my friend, forty dollars.” 

And so the wrangling began. “Forty dollars for all three?” I asked.

“No, no.  Forty dollars each!” he corrected. 

I laughed.  “I’ll give you twenty for all three.” 

He looked anguished, as if I had just shoved a dagger in his gut, mortally wounding him. “My friend, my friend—okay, sixty dollars for three. Three for sixty dollars!” 

We went back and forth for several minutes until I finally shook my head.  “I’ll give you thirty,” I said, adding an Arabic phrase that roughly translated means “that’s my final offer”:  “Aaghir kalaam!”

His eyes lit up and the old man behind the counter who had been reading the newspaper looked up and smiled. 

“What country you from, my friend?” the young man asked.

Summoning up my Arabic for Dummies, I replied, “Ana min Amreeka.”

“American?” he said. 

“Yes, American.”

He paused, and it was almost like a thoughtful moment of silence.  The assault on the U.S. Embassy was two days old, still very fresh news. 

“Yes, we’re the bad guys,” my wife said.

He looked at us with his Omar Sharif eyes and replied, “No, no,  you are not the bad guys.”

I think he was trying to send us a message.  I think he was trying to say, we are not what is happening on that little plaza in our great sprawling city. They are only a few hundred; we are 18 million. Americans are welcome here. Plus I think he really wanted to close the sale. 

“Thirty dollars!” he said. “Sold!”

“Maya maya,” I said. Perfect.