The last ten years Taha Al Shazli wanted two things: a job and a sense of dignity. He received neither when he was unceremoniously dismissed from possible entry to the Cairo police academy because of his father’s “lowly” station as a security guard. When he lamented his fate to his friend Busayna, a weary-beyond-her-years teenager who was a victim of numerous assaults, she gave him some advice: use your good grades to go to university, then “go off to an Arab country and earn some money, then come back here and live like a king”. She went on: “This country doesn’t belong to us, Taha. It belongs to the people who have money. If you’d had 20,000 pounds and used them to bribe someone, do you think anyone would have asked about your father’s job? Make money and you’ll get everything, but if you stay poor, they’ll walk all over you.” That exchange, from Ala’a Al Aswany’s emotionally searing and celebrated 2004 novel, The Yacoubian Building, was all too recognisable for many young Arabs from poorer backgrounds in North Africa. It did not matter that Al Shazli was a talented and hardworking student. It did not matter that he aced the academy entrance exams. He had neither baksheesh nor wasta and so he was out of luck. His best hope was to leave. For many young Arabs in the Levant and North Africa, Busayna’s resignation and Al Shazli’s anger rings all too familiar. Most emigrate or eke out a living,… [Read full story]
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