tomorrow night: the big game

With a World Cup berth on the line tomorrow night in Khartoum, there’s already worry of nasty scenes in Sudan… A colleague just told me on the bus that Algeria is sending 40 planeloads of fans (they haven’t been to the World Cup since 1986) and Egypt 20 planeloads at the very least (no World Cup since 1990). How will the Sudanese police react to any possible clashes?

There are lesser worries about Cairo this time, since the match is elsewhere. Although security police are still standing in front of my apartment watching to see who comes up toward the Algerian Embassy, I am delighted and surprised to report no harassment of the Embassy by horn-honkers this time, unlike in the days before the Cairo match.

We (U.S. citizens in Egypt) also just received the following email. We get these all the time for even lesser issues, but it gives some sense of the tensions still in the air in advance of tomorrow night.

“This warden message is being issued to alert U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Egypt that on Wednesday, November 18, 2009, at approximately 7:30 p.m., another soccer match will take place between the Egyptian and Algerian national teams for a berth at the World Cup. The game will be held in Sudan. Unlike last week’s game, the only expected traffic impact will be after the game. Crowds celebrating the event can create havoc in the streets. We do not anticipate any specific danger or threat, but, everyone should be aware of the potential for an increase in traffic and crowds after the game. Police preparations may cause similar traffic disruptions. As always, we strongly urge you to avoid areas where you see heavy police presence or crowds assembling and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any large public gatherings. As a reminder, even demonstrations or events intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence.”

How often are Americans harmed in Egypt? It’s very rare. And here, unlike in the USA itself, there is virtually no chance of being targeted by random street crime. You simply won’t ever be killed by a stranger while shopping in a Cairo convenience store. In fact, it is quite stunning that a gigantic city like Cairo is as safe as it is. I can’t think of a comparable example. Cairenes just aren’t very criminally inclined. If you ask Egyptians, they will generally shudder and tell you how dangerous Cairo is becoming, but there is absolutely no comparison to a place like Chicago, and remember I’m talking about my 1990’s Chicago which was already considered pretty safe. Nonetheless, during my Chicago years two parents down the street from me were murdered and their baby stolen in an infant theft scheme; I saw one gang member fire a gun across a nice park at members of another gang, and I had two burglaries and one attempted mugging by knife. In Cairo, I’ve had nothing but a single lamely aggressive pickpocketing that netted the laughing robber about $1 as he escaped via taxi. He must have been disappointed when he got to wherever he was going. A handful of my acquaintances have had worse incidents, but my fellow grad students in Chicago had many worse things happen to them there. There are times when I walk to or from the bank here with the equivalent of half a year’s average Egyptian salary in my pocket, past people who could easily use it and might even get away with taking it, but never do I worry for even a second. Egyptians are safe people to deal with in that particular sense.

During new faculty orientation my first year at AUC, the U.S. Consul visited us. Part of his speech was a sort of “scared straight” tirade about how they weren’t going to help us at all if we got picked up for a drug offense. That’s not in my range of activities anyway, but he’s right that it would be quite foolish– at the time, I think he said there 14 or so Americans in Egyptian prisons for drug-related crimes, mostly dealing (people in this city actually smoke pot here to a surprising degree for a legal system that can be as tough as this one). He also said that a few of those 14 were from extremely well-connected families and it didn’t help them a bit.

He then proceeded to say that an average of 2 Americans per year are killed in traffic accidents in Egypt, and if anything I’m now surprised the number is that low. While I will re-insist that Egyptians are only rarely criminals, it is probably fair to say that the average Egyptian is a bit of a crazy driver. The driving here isn’t as bad as the worst places I’ve seen: Goa would be #1, Brazil #2, with Goa far ahead of Brazil, including traffic fatality obituaries scattered through the Panajim daily newspaper to such a surreal degree that you think “isn’t there something they could do to stop this madness?” Egypt isn’t quite that bad, but it remains the case that on any given day I have a realistic chance of seeing the wreckage of a fatal accident, or of riding in a taxi or bus that strikes and kills someone (the latter has never happened to me so far, but has happened to people I know). When my father was departing after his visit, our taxi to the airport blew a tire and swerved wildly, and unnervingly close to a low railing and a dropoff of about 30 feet.

But back to the U.S. Consul… He told us that he had been on the job in Cairo for about 6 months, and at that point in his Consular duties he had had to attend to three deaths of U.S. citizens in Egypt, for the following reasons:

*a tragic case of infant mortality

*an unwise young man who decided to buy and drink an unmarked bottle of street alcohol

*another unwise young man who decided to jump off a sailboat and go for a swim at Aswan High Dam, despite the shouts and imprecations of his terrified veteran Egyptian boat captain (the poor kid drowned, unsurprisingly, after being sucked underwater)

As you’ll see, given the tens of thousands of U.S. citizens living and visiting here in any given year, it’s not a very dangerous place. Those things would happen in even greater numbers at home.

That said, crowds do tend to become collectively very angry, very quickly in this part of the world. I’ve witnessed any number of street brawls in Cairo, including one in which one guy slapped another guy across both cheeks with a butcher’s knife. So, I do take to heart the advice about staying away from street crowds tomorrow night.