The War on Terror of 2001 and the Suez Crisis of 1956 made some Arabs in the U.S. and Britain go home. This was relatively easy for those brought up in the Middle East, but what about those who were not? What happens when Westerners of Middle Eastern descent decide to 'go home' to the East? Emigrating Home, a factional memoir, may provide some insights into this.
Yasseen, born in Jamaica and educated mostly in Britain, leaves England on his first visit to Egypt eighteen months after Suez. There, his Egyptian father and stepfamily welcome him, but he knows little Arabic and little about Egypt. This combined with his Egyptian looks, leads to misunderstandings.
The story opens in Cairo with his reflecting on how he got into this strange situation, while he practises Egyptian body language in a mirror and fends off a telephone flirt. He returns in memory to Southampton whence he began his voyage to Egypt on a P&O liner. As the ship journeys towards Port Said, he recalls his early life in Jamaica and his school and university days in Britain. He helped to organise a university demo against Anthony Eden's action in Suez, though he was once an admirer of Eden.
In Cairo his family advises him on how to behave. His father tells him he must try to be "less of a George and more of an Egyptian." To this he replies: "If you'd wanted less of a George, you should have brought me up as more of an Aly."
Yasseen doesn't find things easy, but he feels accepted and stays.
It was 1958. I was in Cairo and I spent a lot of time practising Egyptian body language in the mirror. Sometimes I left home to go out on my own. Sometimes I even ate outside. I was a bit scared. I was still young in those days.
Cairo: the voice of Om Kalthoum, the Arabic-speaking world's most famous singer, pouring out of radios everywhere, vying with the muezzin's call to prayer and car horns; minarets, domes, grinding tramcars, the charcoal and roast meat smell of barbecuing kebab, somebody's garland of jasmine fallen in the gutter; grinning urchins, hunkered down on the pavement knocking on their shoe-shine boxes for attention; cafes, cafes, cafes and men playing chess and backgammon amidst white tiles and sawdust.
"I got here from Khartoum this morning." He was a six-foot-four, blonde Englishman in whose mischievous blue eyes the world was reflected as an infinitely amusing place. He was a journalist. "The police came to my hotel yesterday afternoon. There was something going on and they didn’t want journalists about. They wanted to know where I'd been. I'd only been to the Khartoum zoo. Then they got me up at dawn and put me on a plane for Cairo."
We had been introduced over lunch at the Café Riche near Midan Suleiman Pasha by a mutual acquaintance. He was barely an acquaintance. He had sat at my table on a crowded day. I knew his name was George and that he was Irish. I knew nobody outside my family and was glad of new company. The Riche did not cater to chess players. It provided good, cheap meals. It had a clientele, George said, of impoverished schoolteachers, tourists, hippies, middle-aged delinquents and pensioners. The pensioners sat in the sunshine on the terrace in their fezzes drinking coffee. George, I gathered, taught Latin at Cairo University.
The Englishman, Desmond, he was called, had picked up two pamphlets somewhere. They were about the most important man in the country, but they contradicted each other. "Do you think you could find out about this for me?" He thought I knew Arabic. I knew very little. But my curiosity had been aroused. The man, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a hero of mine.
I thought about it. I could go to the department, but I knew I'd be better served from a distance. The Egyptians love foreigners. If I spoke to them in English on the telephone, they would 'see' my blue eyes, flowing, golden locks and florid complexion through the cackle. Had I gone there, they would have seen I was merely one of them, who spoke Arabic with a difference: like a bewildered British district commissioner talking to the chaps in Cox's Bazaar in broken Bengali. So I was once told. They would demand to know how this had come about. I would either have had to tell my life story, or give them my philosophical answer: "I, myself, ask God every day why He allowed this to happen to me."
I explained my odd situation to Desmond and he phoned from the café.
"Well, Mr Salah," he said, when the introductions had been made. "I’m writing something for 'The Times' and I need to know where President Abdel Nasser was born. I have two booklets published by your department about the President. One says he was born in Beni Murr and the other says he was born in Alexandria. Which is it?"
The telephone murmured. Desmond gave his number and put the phone down. It rang again in ten minutes and the barman summoned him with a wave.
"Fine," Desmond said. "But how come one pamphlet says he was born in Alex?"
"I see. Thank you very much."
He put the phone down and tears of suppressed laughter sprang to his eyes as he returned to the table. "Do you know what he said? He said the President was born in Beni Murr, but prefers to have been born in Alexandria!"
I wondered if the man he had been speaking to had been joking, or if he had meant it seriously. There was no doubting the sense of humour in these parts. The Egyptians, I had discovered, were similar to the British in one respect at least. They loved joking and, most especially, joking about themselves. I doubt that I'd have hung around as long as I had if that hadn't been the case.
How had I got into this strange situation?
Briefly, by going home.
