When you live in a city as large and overpopulated as Cairo, as I have this past semester, you see signs of poverty everywhere. Rarely, however, do you get a chance to glimpse the lives of those people who are ...(back to the article)
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Uhm, how are you guys coming up with these personal attacks from her columns? If you have a personal problem with her then tell her up front instead of hiding behind your computer screen and whipping out unrelated, childish barbs.
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It makes sense that Dajani would avoid identifying her subjects as Copts given her constant trumpeting of a kind of dated, anti-American Arab nationalism. I wonder if she's a Dajani of the Jerusalem Dajanis, and thus has to play by the Dajani, Husseini, Nashashibi, Khalidi, Nusseibeh, PLO line. Would make tremendous sense given what she spouts in these pages.
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St, I read the same article that you did and found nothing remotely close to arrogance. I actually don't understand your comment at all, considering she specifically spoke out AGAINST thinking of these people as an opportunity to make policies. If anything, I find your comment immensely arrogant. What do you know of poverty? I don't mean the guy sitting on the street corner asking for your spare change, I mean people who don't know if they will find clean water to drink in the next day, people who have to find food and someplace to sleep without luxuries like soup kitchens and shelters. Could anyone be content in that situation? One in a million. Explain to me why there's a correlation between poverty and crime? Do most people sit around smug and content? Of course not, they do close to anything out of sheer desperation and need. I've lived with people who, out of absolute poverty, live in huts made of twigs and thorns gathered from the desert, people who have to walk for miles to get a day's supply of clean water. Don't tell ME that they are content, that they have no life-long drive to better their condition. Utter nonsense.
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I think the previous comment is somewhat harsh... and unfair. The conditions in this place are almost beyond comprehension. It's a shame Sarah wasn't able to take any photos of the car ride into the trash-collectors' slum. I think if you could see the place, your entire heart would rebel against the idea that this kind of poverty could ever be considered acceptable. The inhumanity of the conditions in Moqattam is mitigated only by the extraordinary resilience and indefatigable human spirit exhibited by people such as the ones Sarah met that day. I urge you not to be overly critical of her response to the experience. And I might add that the implication behind your comment – that you might somehow be strong enough or sufficiently detached to see a rational justification for the way in which these trash-collectors live – is nothing short of monstrous. Sarah's essay misses one important aspect. Perhaps she left this out on purpose, but I think I'll mention it anyway. The people who live in this slum are mostly Coptic Christians. Their story is one of separation and conflict along many lines: economic; cultural (many are Sa'idi as Sarah notes); religious; and even geographic (this community has well-defined borders). One of the reasons the girl in this family is planning on dropping out of school is that she faces constant issues with her predominantly Muslim classmates and teachers. She mentioned that her mother needs to bribe the teachers or else they will fail her. And there is no other school close enough for her to attend. I would argue that one of the most shameful aspects of the trash-collectors' slum is that it is a small, powerless Christian community that is horribly neglected, by a government that feels no particular need to waste resources on a religious minority. This is a controversial claim that some (perhaps including Sarah) might find offensive, but I think it needs to be brought up. All in all a nice piece.
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Talk about "barely veiled arrogance." Dajani meets a family who, though poor, seem content (maybe even happy) with their lot in life and all she takes away is a sense of "how do we fix these people who are obviously in need of uplifting." While I agree that global poverty and raising standards of living are topics that need serious consideration, perhaps it would be worthwhile to stop and think that the people who currently live below the poverty line don't exist purely for the purpose of providing heart-wrenching examples to those trying to make a point. Their limited aspirations, though incomprehensible to the author, are as legitimate as her claim that "everyone wants to travel."
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