When my friend posted the above comment on Facebook and Twitter, it sparked a very big discussion and some controversy. Although I don't completely agree with his assertion, I’ve wanted to write a post on this topic ever since I first arrived in Cairo for Arabic studies. I was going to wait until I’d visited Aswan in upper Egypt, where the Nubian people reside, but I've received several requests to touch on the subj ect.Thus, this will be part #1 and I will write a follow up on this post after I chat with the Nubians , insha'allah.
Before arriving in Cairo, I’d just finished Egyptian-Sudanese authors Kola Boof’s book entitled Flesh and the Devil and it had left a very big impression on me. The book is a love story that is rooted in blackness and Afro-centricity in a way that I’ve never read before. The characters werent fair and white as snow but charcoal black and sensual. Instead of championing Egypt, Nubia, Kemet, Ethiopia and other East African civilizations or painting the lighter sons and daughters in the African diaspora alone as beautiful, Boof’s book was firmly grounded in the strength and beauty of pure blackness as found in Sub-Saharan and West Africa.
Having come to Cairo with a knowledge of the poor treatment of the black Sudanese in Egypt and the recent comments of Egyptian newspaper editor Abdel-Bari Atwan who, on Obama's election, said, "Obama would be referred to as an 'abd' [slave] in some parts of the Arab world", I was not expecting to be “welcomed back” to the “Mother Land”. Although, Egypt is in Africa, the country has gone through several invasions and extensive measures to carve an Egyptian national identity that paints the people as not African or even Arabs, but solely “Egyptian”. Thus, the question remains, does it make sense to ground Afro-centrism in a culture that openly rejects all things black?
Read entire blog post @ Black in Cairo
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