The long and the short of it

As I prepare to head home to DC from Cairo today, my two weeks in Egypt and Libya seem enormously interesting and informative, even as they reconfirm how little can be understood from such short stays in complicated environments.  What do we really see of another society without speaking its language and living at length in its midst?

I am close to finishing Alaa al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building.  There is little in its penetrating accounts of abusive sexual relationships in Egypt that I would gather from staying at the Fairmont and running around Cairo to talk with various participants in its recent revolution, though I knew enough about harassment of women here to understand how fraught with sexual dysfunction the society is.

In Libya, the thing that struck me is how difficult it is to understand the role of religion.  Pervasive, but not really political, at least not yet, Islam seems more a unifying factor (again, for the moment) than a divisive one, as it certainly is among some Egyptians.  But that may be changing.

The east/west geographical divide in Libya appeared far less important to me (and to many journalists who have spent a lot of time in Libya) than some experts had predicted.  At the same time, the demands of fighters from Misrata are roiling what had appeared to be relatively tranquil regional relationships.  I understand they yesterday laid claim to the prime ministry in a reshuffled executive committee of the National Transitional Council, on grounds that they have fought more aggressively against Qaddafi’s forces, especially at Sirte, than anyone else.  The Benghazis, who claim to have initiated the revolution, did not react well.

Egypt and Libya are certainly not the only countries with sexual dysfunction, regional differences and problems with the role of religion in public life.  I didn’t live 10 years in Italy without hearing a great deal about all three.  But even after 10 years I wasn’t sure that I understood things the way Italians understood them–in fact, I’m sure I didn’t.  I was still an American with different cultural baggage and presumptions about gender,  geography and religion.

Societies in the midst of revolution are particularly problematic.  How much is changing and how much is staying the same?  Most historians would hesitate to say until years later.  Libya and Egypt have both decapitated their autocratic regimes, but they are still far from having established new ones.

For all the giddy enthusiasm of the revolutionary days and weeks, there is no guarantee that they will be democratic, or even much different from the old ones.  Libyans often say they know what they don’t want, namely a leader who tells them what to think (and enforces the dictate with violence).  But does that mean they won’t accept a softer autocracy?  No one in Egypt seems sure any longer that the military will be prepared to leave power, even if the generals seem ready to set a date for the first round of elections on November 21.

Short visits may be unsatisfying and even misleading, but it doesn’t follow that longer visits will be much more enlightening.  I wouldn’t want to wait until the history books are written to have a look for myself.  The point I suppose is to take the opportunities we can to expose ourselves to other societies and learn whatever can be gathered in the time available, remembering always that there is a great deal more beneath the surface that we can’t possibly fathom.

I certainly don’t regret having passed up a summer holiday for this September interlude in two very exciting places!