A friend sent me
this NYTimes article about the religiosity of the youth in Egypt to ask about my observations here in this regard. Once again however, the NYTimes doesn't blink in presenting a piece of blatantly sensational and Islamophobic writing. I couldn't really get past that enough to make any sound comparisons. Plus, I don't mean to get personal, but with all the lazy generalizations in this article, I couldn't help but smirk at the author's name: Michael Slackman.
First of all, the point of the article is to explain that in an economically struggling country such as Egypt, the poor and disenfranchised seek out alternative populist ideologies that distance themselves from economic stratification: here, religion. In other words, when something isn't working out for people, they look to somewhere else. This is an incredibly basic concept of sociology, and it doesn't take a journalist or scholar to figure it out. What catches me here is the insistence of using the word "Islam" rather than "religion" over and over again, despite that there is nothing in this trend that is particular to Islam, but as far as many journalists (and unfortunately, many readers) are concerned, "Islam" makes for a more interesting, exotic, and immediate topic than "religion".
So after the provocative headline, "
Dreams Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor," the article sets out to describe Cairo as a wasteland of opportunity, a failed economy that is bearing down on the social fabric of its millions of citizens. Hopeless graduates are plunged into a desperate Islam, clamoring for identity after the failure of "Arabism, socialism, and nationalism." In opposition to this, I'll discuss the current resurgence of Arabism in an upcoming post, and if you think that nationalism here is a failure, I advise you to watch the videos of the prior post. (If that isn't a nationalist expression, I'm terrified to know what is.) But moving on, ending every personal story the author describes the subject's increase in religious observation as the direct result of some psychological/emotional ailment, whether they are chronically "bored" or generally "hurt." The description of their changes in practice come between the stories of economic hardship and mental frustration, as if being religiously observant is a symptom and something to lay our pity on. Combining that with the Islamic fixation, we get the implication that Islam is less of a legitimate religion and more of a pitiful symptom of depression. (Prejudice? in the US media? Where??)
"Back in Cairo, every Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, Mr. Sayyid’s mother cooks him something special, so that when he returns from the mosque he has something to look forward to." ...because, of course, congregational prayer and social gathering are incredibly depressing...
"In Egypt, where the people have always been religious and conservative..."
... .... ...what?
After the story of an observant Muslim: "He could walk unnoticed in the West." ..!!!!!!!
Lock your doors! Lock your doors, Westerners! There are people in the street who might be Muslim, and you don't know it! It could be anybody!
"Mr. Sayyid, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Muslim faith?"
Give me a break.
So what happens when young Cairenes read this article and challenge the author's generalizations? Someone writes a follow-up piece noting their youthful, near-sighted ignorance.
"The fact that they would not associate the two points is meaningful. This was the heart of the article: alienation from the public sphere is driving people towards religion, toward something they see as a private gesture at a moment where the sense of collective action is losing its meaning."
...On the contrary, religion is seen as a quite public endeavor here. People can be seen praying from the side of the street, to the market, to our campus. The author mentions the 'zebibah' ("raisin") that a surprisingly large number of older men don on their foreheads in Egypt to announce their adherence to daily prayer. Hardly a simple "private gesture."
Yes, there are some heavy duty economic problems in Egypt and the government is impenetrably corrupt. Yes, religious observation is growing here, as it has been since 1980 and as it is too in the West. There's no need to sensationalize this; I would very much contend the use of "fervor" in the headline. Returning to the issue of catch-word dropping, if it is an issue of specification, then it is really quite redundant to keep using "Islam" when you're talking about religion in Egypt when it is at least 85% Muslim. On the other hand, the significant Coptic Christian population here is not mentioned at all. They must all be rich and emotionally sound.
I only read this article online, but I'm wishing I had a paper copy so I could have the satisfaction of throwing it in the garbage. (recycling bins are rare here.)
***EDIT: I just re-accessed the story and noticed the editors have changed the headline from "
Dreams Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor" to "Stifled, Egypt's Young Turn to Islamic Fervor." They have apparently decided that Egyptians still maintain the capacity to dream.
