7406, RE: Karibu! Posted by Sopdet, Mon Sep-23-02 11:49 PM
it'snotjust in the sudan it is in my home country of egypt also
Northern egyptains which are mostly city dwellers think upper egyptains who have the cloest phenoptype to the ancient kemetians are not really arabs. They don;t accept the fellahin because of their apperance and the fact they look african. Most westners are ignorant of these people,andI am a fellahin living in cairo. Cairo is full of arabs,lebanese,and other foreigners. Except for his curly black hair, with its hint of African negro blood, he looked more Arabian than Egyptian; most of the men in the village were shorter, more heavily built, and had strong cheekbones, thick noses, and heavy jaws. Among their rugged faces, Shahhat's stood out as singularly expressive." The reader might conclude from such a description that Critchfield's initial attraction to Shahhat was due to the fact that his features were much less African than those of the majority of Upper Egyptians. Ironically, that is the attitude of some inhabitants of northern Egypt, who refuse to acknowledge Upper Egyptians as Arabs, and consider darker skin to be a negative trait. Such prejudice is the second challenge which faces Upper Egyptians, in addition to poverty: racism. Although I did take issue with the presumably inadvertent racial implications of Critchfield's observations, Shahhat, an Egyptian is an entertaining and vivid introduction to the richness and diversity of rural Egyptian life. Uzra Zeya is a program coordinator for the American Educational Trust specializing in Islamic affairs. Advise and Dissent and Shahhat, an Egyptian are available from the
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