1998-03-27 Sightseeing in Cairo |
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By Donald H. Harrison Cairo, Egypt (Special) -- In this country, the 6th of October 1973 is celebrated as the beginning of an era. A major bridge in this city is named for it. A large monument on the eastern side of the Suez Canal testifies to it. A major museum documents it.
Shenouda's version of the 1973 war varies considerably from that known to us Jews and to historians. Whereas we might recall that the Israeli counter-attack was so successful that it crossed onto the western side of the canal, threatening Cairo itself, Shenouda gives a different reason for why Sadat, who started the war, suddenly wanted to end it. In the guide's version, it was the decision by U.S. President Richard Nixon to replace destroyed Israeli armaments that was crucial.
We Jews tend to remember Nasser as a threatening bully who vowed to push Israel into the sea, but by Shenouda--and one assumes the rest of the Egyptian people, who have named the big lake behind the Aswan Dam for him--Nasser is remembered as an anti-imperialist whose high stake gambles helped to secure Egypt's economic future. After Nasser took power in 1953, the guide said, he "wanted to industrialize the country, and not be totally dependent on agriculture" which followed the rhythms of the Nile River. "He wanted to build factories, but needed a source of power. He wanted a great dam at Aswan. He asked the World Bank to finance the project (but) the western world refused to give him the money to finance the high dam project." Shenouda suggested that the western decision not to help Nasser finance his project grew out of anger at him for helping to start the Non-Alligned Movement among Third World Countries which wanted to avoid alliances with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Whatever the reason for the refusal, the "only other possible source of money was the Suez Canal revenues," Shenouda said. The canal was controlled by a French-British consortium, but in 1956 "Nasser decided to nationalize it, and Egypt was attacked by England, France and Israel," Shenouda related. "England and France sent their airplanes to bomb the cities of the Suez Cana--Port Said, Port Suez and Ishmaelia, and the Israeli army started to penetrate the Sinai. Then there was a big intervention by the two major powers--the United States and the Soviet Union--who told the British and French to withdraw." Shenouda suggested that whatever the Soviet Union and the United States under President Dwight D. Eisenhower may have then thought of each other, neither wanted to see the old colonial powers of Great Britain and France reassert themselves.
Today another pyramid stands in Cairo, made not from the sandstone and limestone of the Egyptian desert, but from modern building materials. Sadat is buried below the pyramid.
Another project is to pump fresh Nile River water under the Suez Canal to the Sinai Desert in the expectation that with water the equivalent of 30 towns can be created, drawing another 2.5 million Egyptians from the overcrowding of Cairo. Shenouda, whose principal narration was about ancient Egyptian history, said the written record stretches back to 3,200 BCE when a king of Upper Egypt, in the south of the country, defeated a king in Lower Egypt, in the north, and unified the two kingdoms. That was approximately 1,200 years before the biblical patriarch Abraham arrived on the scene, he said. Asked to tell about the place of Moses in Egyptian history, Shenouda chose his words very carefully. "We don't have any archeological Egyptian records for that time," he said. "We know nothing about the time of Moses." However, he said, the name "Moses" probably was derived from the Egyptian name "Mes" which means "born of." The pharaoh Tutmoses was "born of Tut," an Egyptian god, while Ram-mes, was "born of Ram," another Egyptian god, Shenouda said. "Moses, we know from the Old Testament, was raised by Egyptians, and brought up in the palace," Shenouda said. "So he was given an Egyptian name, probably something "-Mes." "Of course, the editor of the Old Testament had to delete the first part of the name because it was the name of a pagan God, but he left 'Mes' which became 'Moses,'" the guide said. One point Shenouda said he especially would like to clarify was that the Pharaoh with whom Moses contested was not Ramses, notwithstanding the way the story was told in the American movie The Ten Commandments. "They were of two different periods," Shenouda said. "It would be like talking about the Civil War and George Washington." Whereas biblical chronologies puts Moses at approximately 1500 BCE, the 60-year-rule of Ramses was not until approximately 300 years later. Shenouda said Hollywood probably picked Ramses because his name was the best known of the Pharaohs. Where was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were supposed to have dwelled? the guide was asked. "In the northeastern portion of the country," he replied, "the same place where over many centuries many people entered Egypt from the east. There are many universites doing research on this." At the pyramids, we learned that Yiddish culture has penetrated even
to Egypt. A guide spread out a hand full of souvenir items. "I'll sell
you the whole schmeer for $10," he said.
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