Now They Call Me Infidel

by Nonie Darwish

  Sadat’s bold move eventually led to the Camp David Accords in 1978, which finalized the peace agreement with Israel. After the peace treaty with Israel was signed, the Sinai was returned to Egypt. This was the second time Israel handed back the Sinai to Egypt after a war. As Egyptians got a glimpse of the returned territory, many were in awe of what Israel had done with the Sinai Peninsula. Previously, Egyptians viewed it only as a buffer and a military zone. During their occupation of the Sinai, Israel had managed to develop an infrastructure, building hotels both on the beautiful Red Sea and the Mediterranean beaches. They even dug oil wells in those few years. In its thousands of years of history on this land, Egypt had never thought to make the Sinai habitable or use its beautiful coastlines for resorts. They thought it only fit for habitation by Bedouins, people whom Egyptians did not really recognize as part of Egyptian society. Israel had managed to change Egypt’s perception of the Sinai and set an example of how that large peninsula could be turned around from a desert sandbox for the military into a multipurpose useful space that could help defuse the crowding in cities around the Nile Valley. All of this thanks to the peace treaty with Israel that resulted in the Sinai becoming a demilitarized zone.

  However, even though the Sinai was now back in Egyptian hands, the “treasonous” peace plan horrified the extremist Islamic fundamentalists who had been gaining more and more support during the years since the 1973 war. Radical Muslims, who for years were indoctrinated to hate Israel, simply could not switch gears and accept a peaceful existence with Israel. It was unthinkable. They simply did not want peace and regarded Sadat as a traitor to the Arab cause.

  My father’s friend Youssef el-Sebaee, the famous writer and minister of information, was one of Sadat’s companions on his 1977 trip to Israel. A few months after he accompanied Sadat in his famous trip to Israel, he was gunned down by terrorists in front of a hotel in Cyprus. A wonderful, gentle man who wanted nothing but peace was assassinated for daring to support Sadat in reaching out for peace with Israel. I was devastated, again.

  The peace-hate machine represented by extremist Islamic groups would eventually succeed in assassinating President Sadat in October of 1981, ironically during a military review celebrating the 1973 Suez crossing. I was already in America then. He was killed by the fanatical Muslim Brotherhood. (Bin Laden’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was a member of that group.) The message that many Egyptians got from such assassinations was loud and clear: Those who work for peace and recognition of Israel are going to be killed. The radical Islamist movement then spread very fast all over Egypt.

  With Sadat’s assassination, I realized that tyranny in the Muslim world does not just come from the leadership but also from the society itself and the radical elements in it. That is why Arab governments are constantly struggling to stay in power and always under the threat of a coup d’etat. If they befriend the United States, they have to do it in secret. Leaders like Sadat who want peace, an open economy, and less government control are killed. The Arab League and Arab media will gang up against such leaders. That’s why only tyranical governments can survive in the Arab world.

  The billions of dollars in aid the United States sent to Egypt as part of the Camp David Accord did not bring America much appreciation among the Egyptian public. Attitudes toward America began changing. The Egyptian public’s perception of the United States as the savior when Nixon was received in the early 1970s changed to one of regarding the United States as the Great Satan due to Islamists and Arab secular leftists in the Arab world media who bombarded the Arab street with misinformation, propaganda, and outright lies. Even foreign media in the Arab world played along, not daring to expose the realities of the Middle East to Arab citizens for fear they would be ousted and their offices closed. The gap between the reality of what was happening in the international arena and what Egyptians knew was very wide and created just the right climate for Islamic fundamentalism and extremism to grow and flourish in Egypt. In addition, the great wealth from oil in Saudi Arabia was being used to spread its Wahabi Islamist agenda in Egypt as well as in other moderate Arab countries. That was not difficult to do in a desperately poor country just emerging from several wars in total defeat. Saudi Arabian Wahabism and the Iranian civil war, another coinciding event, succeeded in changing and radicalizing all moderate countries in the Arab world. On the Arab street, desperate Egyptians chanted, “The answer is Islam.”

  As the radical Islamist movement gained power, it began affecting the upper classes as well. I began seeing changes in people I knew. Baba Abbas’s wife started covering her hair for the first time in her life. Her sister followed. Then I began seeing many other women cover their heads. An older woman I knew criticized me for having long manicured nails. She told me that if you shake the hands of a man you might scratch him and that could be very seductive. I started getting lectured on the virtues of Islamic head covering. Some said, “We have to tell the world we are Muslims and we are proud.” That was very unusual in Egypt in the seventies. Only peasants and the uneducated classes covered their heads. Everything was changing.

  Despite the gradual improvement in my work situation because of Sadat’s more open policy, I still felt I wanted to leave Egypt. I needed to get away from it all, the total control over the minds and behavior of citizens, the culure of jihad and the hatred of Israel and the increasing Islamic fundamentalism. I felt the Middle East was a ticking time bomb that would soon explode. The mid-twentieth century had seen three major events that had contributed to this dangerous level of confrontations in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has suddenly started enjoying unprecedented wealth from oil, a wealth that came without lifting a finger of hard work or innovation. A poor nomadic tribal state with a mission to conquer the world to Islam suddenly has the money and power to do it. At almost the same time of Saudi Arabia’s dream of expanding Islam, Israel became a state. I often wondered if the Arab-Israeli conflict would exist today if Israel had been established as a state a century earlier. At the same time, the British and French were losing their power to keep the peace between all these nations, minorities, and tribes. They lost their large empire and evacuated their presence from the region also by the mid-fifties. Regardless of the negatives or positives of the British and French presence, their departure marked a point in Arab history where no neutral authority was present to keep the peace.

  In January of 1978, my boyfriend left for California to join his brother and cousins. He called me several times asking me to come and join him. I began finalizing my plans to leave. My mother and family were very understanding and wished me good luck. My mother planned on coming to America to attend our wedding. Some friends and relatives told me they wished they could do the same.

  It took a few visits to the Mugamaa, the Egyptian government office that handles passports, to renew my passport. It was a simple thing, yet it was tied up in endless red tape. Every time I went to the passport office, no one knew where my paperwork was. (Part of it was that Egyptian policy of hiring ten people to do the work of one.) But finally fed up, I went to the office and gave them two or three Egyptian pounds. And somehow my paperwork was then miraculously “found.”

  In November of 1978 I left for America.

  Our old military driver, Hassan, volunteered to drive me to the airport when he heard I was leaving for America. He had retired from the army but still drove my mother and our family for special occasions. The drive to the Cairo International Airport from Maadi was long in the heavy Cairo traffic. I started reflecting over my thirty years of life in Egypt and Gaza. I saw very little change in the lives of people. Most people lived and died in the same apartment, worked the same government jobs, and struggled to feed their children. They rarely complained publicly or blamed their government for starting unnecessary wars or for controlling every aspect of their lives. They treated their rulers as pharaohs for life. They let off steam by using that famous Egyptian sarcasm and self-pity, but did very little to change their con
ditions. Yet Egyptians, coming from this ancient culture, are probably one of the most content, durable, and adaptable people on earth. Sadly, mistakes from Egypt’s five-thousand-year history keep being repeated, and no one seems to learn from history’s lessons. But, despite all the misery, wars, and poverty, the Egyptian people, my people, are still predominantly good, decent, and law abiding. Like people everywhere, all they have ever needed was a job and an apartment and the ability to take care of their children. Cairo, in comparison to many cities around the world, was safe to walk the streets in the late hours of the night. Driving to the airport, I wept as I was looking at my fellow Egyptians on the streets of Cairo. I felt deep love and respect for my people and wished them peace and a better future.

  But as for me now, I was on my way to a new life in America. I was finally able to jump over of the invisible wall. It wasn’t easy, but I did it.

  Six

  A New Beginning in America

  I arrived at Los Angeles International Airport in November of 1978. I loved America even before seeing it. My first experience was with airport workers who graciously helped me as soon as I asked for assistance. When I cleared customs and made my way into the waiting area, my boyfriend’s whole family was waiting for me with flowers and big smiles. I could not have asked for a nicer reception. I basked in the kindness and generosity of this wonderful Christian Coptic family who had left Egypt for freedom from oppression and was now welcoming me into their family.

  As we drove from the airport, I looked out the window of the car in fascination, marveling at everything I was seeing around me—Los Angeles, its bright lights, its freeways and mountains looming in the distance. Coming from a flat desert country made me truly appreciate the green mountains and hills of Los Angeles. Everything seemed so large—streets, stores, buildings. Traffic seemed to move very smoothly, compared to Egypt or even Europe. I noticed that drivers respected pedestrians and stopped for them—very different from how pedestrians were treated in the Middle East. Respect for the individual was evident everywhere. I marveled at how spread out the city was, giving people privacy and plenty of room to breath. Californians, and Americans in general, clearly preferred living in single-family homes rather than apartment buildings, which gave Americans a style of life that is different from the rest of the world. Family life included things like outdoor barbecues and entertaining and simply more freedom and privacy. Homes were built with wood frames and slab foundations that made the homes part of the landscape and close to the outdoors.

  It was a truly an eye-opening experience to have lived half my life in one country then suddenly move to a totally different culture. Coming to America after living until age thirty in the Middle East was like a Back to the Future film experience. I left behind an old society with archaic customs, values, and expectations for a new, more comfortable, and easier life. The discovery process in itself was fascinating and exciting, but what made it special was that this new country was welcoming, accepting, and gracious.

  A few days after arriving in America, my fiancé and I then went to a Los Angeles mosque where he converted to Islam. His face was white when he came out. Something about the experience was troubling to him, but he never talked about it. He was doing this for me and my family. It would assure my safety if we returned to Egypt for a visit, as we would later discover. We then were married in a private ceremony in his brother’s home, held just for family and close friends. My mother came from Egypt to attend the wedding and gave us her blessing, which meant a great deal to me.

  My mother stayed for a few days to sightsee and was fascinated with America. She loved it as much as I did. I don’t remember ever seeing her that happy. Before leaving the United States, my mother shopped for the whole family, especially her grandchildren. When she looked at her receipts, she realized that she was being charged tax on her merchandise. I remember her response. She said that in America one is allowed to question the government about where the tax money is going, and she could certainly see that it was going to good use to build this wonderful country. That is something Americans often forget, the extraordinary infrastructure and services they enjoy in this country—their taxes at work.

  At that time, Egypt did not have supermarkets. Most markets in Egypt were very small and specialized in a few things. Many had empty shelves after the wars. My mother loved the large variety the supermarkets offered. She said it was a pleasure to do grocery shopping. Egyptian women we knew rarely went to the market themselves. They usually sent their maids to shop for them. In fact, I never saw my mother go shopping for food in the marketplace in Cairo by herself. I found the price of food in the United States in relationship to income to be very reasonable, even for new immigrants like us. After seeing a special aisle for dog and cat food, my mother remarked, “Even animals have more rights in America,” which she followed with a hearty “Long live capitalism.”

  Before leaving to return to Egypt, my mother handed me my inheritance money to help me buy my first home in America. After it was converted into dollars, the money was just enough for a down payment on a home with a swimming pool.

  From the very first, I wanted to learn as much as I could about my new environment. I bought maps of Los Angeles and California and studied them. Los Angeles is a very well planned city with wide streets and divided lanes that made driving a pleasure. I noticed that streets mostly ran north and south or east and west, which made it very easy to find your way around. That was very different from a very old city such as Cairo, where streets are usually narrow and zigzagged with little planning and with no concept of direction. I was quickly able to drive and find my way around. Because I was hesitant to drive on freeways with their entrance and exit ramps, I hired a driving instructor to help me learn how to negotiate the road system. All I needed was some guided practice, and I was soon comfortable with L.A. freeways.

  I was also able to quickly find a job—in fact, on my very first interview. I started work as a secretary in a small business. I thanked God for my British education and degree from the American University in Cairo. My mother-in-law was amazed at how quickly I found a job in America, and she jokingly told people, “If you want a job go with Nonie.” The owner of the small business I worked for was Jewish. He was a kind man with a great sense of humor. His parents were a lovely couple, and I was impressed by how much they seemed to adore each other, even after so many years of marriage. I heard the husband call his wife “Dolly,” “Darling,” and “Sweetheart.” Western men and women freely expressed affection for one another in public. That was not allowed in Egypt, where even a husband cannot express affection for his wife by a hug or holding hands in public. In the Middle East, men who do that are regarded as wimps. An Egyptian man who is affectionate with his wife in public is often ridiculed, especially by the women in his family, who say that his wife is controlling him. Being controlled by one’s wife is a source of shame to an Arab man. As a result, Egyptian men will often be cold or authoritarian with their wives in public, especially in front of their own families.

  When my husband and I rented our first apartment, my boss’s parents came into the office one day with a big box for me. It was filled with extra dishes and kitchen utensils they wanted to give me. I was very grateful for their kindness and generosity.

  America is now the country I choose to call home. I was surprised at how totally I was accepted as part of this great nation and how quickly I began to feel at home. I was like a child discovering everything. I was amazed at how friendly, generous, and decent ordinary Americans are. I want you to look at Americans through the eyes of a newcomer from another culture.

  Friendliness and helpfulness: I had never before seen perfect strangers on the street smile at you and say good morning. In the markets and stores people go out of their way to greet you. There is always a “Good morning,” a “Hello,” or a “Thank you.” It is very uplifting and makes you feel good all over. I noticed this on my very first day in America. I stayed at my brother-in
-law’s home in the San Fernando Valley and was surprised when neighbors who saw me walking the next morning came over to welcome me. When I went jogging people who passed me said “Good morning” or “Hello.” I was totally unaccustomed to such a thing. And appreciating this great tradition, I also began saying hello to strangers with whom I came face-to-face. The customer service in most department stores and supermarkets also amazed me. I loved the “May I help you” and “Thank you.” It showed they recognized me as an individual and a customer that counted to the store. I compared that to my poor treatment in the stores I had visited in France.

  Courtesy: Common courtesy was another surprise for me. In the United States, if people bump into you they immediately say “Pardon me” or “Sorry,” something seldom heard in Cairo, a crowded and densely populated city, where people bump into each other all the time without saying a word.

  Diversity and multiculturalism: Americans love to learn about other cultures and express respect for diversity and differences. When Americans met me, they were very interested in Egypt and its history, and they wanted to know all about me and my culture. Universities and workplaces considered diversity of workers and students to be a source of pride. In Egypt and the Arab world it was just the opposite. Anyone different from the majority is shunned as Khawaga. But in America, I soon realized that people of different nationalities, backgrounds, and religions routinely mixed socially. And I was very happy to be part of that. One of the other employees at my workplace was Jewish, and he became my husband’s best friend. His name was Larry. I invited Larry, his girlfriend, my boss, and his parents all to my little apartment for an Egyptian dinner of lamb, moussaka, and stuffed grape leaves. As I was cooking and cleaning for the dinner party, I suddenly realized how dependent I had always been on maids. I had to ask for a quick lesson in housekeeping from my sister-in-law. The simplest thing like washing dishes was a mystery to me. But I saw American women routinely cleaning and cooking, easily and quickly. I realized that in America, people take care of themselves and are self-sufficient.