The view from outside

Cairo's chaos mirrors Pakistan's challenges, revealing a shared struggle for dignity amid US aid complexities.

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Egypt reminds me of Pakistan. It is not simply the busy streets of Cairo, the directionless traffic that produces toxic smog and the chaos of an overpopulated city. It is also the deep, and seemingly bottomless economic crisis that has engulfed the country in recent past that reminds me of Pakistan. A parallel sense of securitisation is not hard to miss as one walks the streets of Cairo and sees police and army trucks everywhere. The idea that people should only promote the 'positive image' of the country has also been there for a long time. This fixation with the positive image has troubled many thinkers in Egypt as it has in Pakistan. Naguib Mahfouz, the most prominent Egyptian writer of the last century and the only Arab to ever win the Nobel Prize in literature, once said that "the delusion of a number of right-minded people is that portraying negative sides of life constitutes an offense against the reputation of society at home and abroad, and that it is our priority to portray what is beautiful or of value as a form of public relations for us and our country" – further commenting in his typical style that for people to not talk about the dark side of society was like expecting "the police and prosecutor to ignore delinquents in order to avoid giving ourselves a bad reputation".

Of course, the parallels between Cairo and any of the older cities of Pakistan break down often. Cities in Pakistan are different in both their past and their present. The monuments in the alleys of old Cairo have no parallels in the world – and the bookstores that carry deep treasures of modern Arabic literature (original and translated from other languages in Arabic) are light years ahead of what one is likely to find in our cities. But when I encounter the locals – both who want to take advantage of me because I am not a local, and those who show incredible hospitality and insist that I break bread with them because I am not a local – I am reminded of the complexity, richness and beauty of our own people.

Egypt, like Pakistan, has also had a strange and complicated relationship with the US. It is one of the largest recipients of aid from the US. Beyond the military support, the fingerprints of US support are all over the country. For example, precious monuments across Cairo – including mosques and tombs of prominent religious figures – would proudly say that the repairs were made possible by generous support from USAID. The young colleagues I spoke to often wanted to move to the US. Yet, just underneath the surface there is plenty of frustration and anger at the US. The situation in Gaza is just one recent example on the long list of grievances.

I was in Cairo last week, as part of a workshop to discuss healthcare access among refugees in camps and in urban settlements. The Egyptian situation is particularly complicated – not just because of Gaza but also because of the forgotten war in Sudan. I had arrived from the US, where the only discussion these days is about elections and its implications in the country and the world. There is often an inflated sense among Americans that the rest of the world revolves around them. Given Egypt's unique situation, I asked my colleagues, some friends who live and work in Cairo and even strangers who I just met in cafes, about what they thought of the American presidential election, and who they would like to see get elected. The answer was not what I expected – but perhaps should have. They simply did not care. Not because they are ill-informed, but because from their vantage point, there is no difference. So I asked: what should change? One young colleague remarked that it is not just about policy, it is about humanity. What we want is a world where our lives and our dignity are just as important as anyone else's. I could only agree. I hope that someday, some election, somewhere, takes us closer to that world.