Kate Fox (an anthropologist with a great sense of humour) wrote a nice chapter on ‘Queuing’ in her book ‘Watching the English.’ Below is an excerpt…
“The English expect each other to observe the rules of queuing, feel highly offended when these rules are violated, but lack the confidence or social skills to express their annoyance in a straightforward manner. In other countries, this is not a problem: in America, where a queue-jumper has committed a misdemeanour rather than a cardinal sin, the response is loud and prescriptive: the offender is simply told ‘Hey, you, get back in line!’ or words to that effect. On the Continent, the reaction tends to be loud and argumentative; in some other parts of the world, queue-jumpers may simply be unceremoniously pushed and shoved back into line – but the end result is much the same. Paradoxically, it is only in England, where queue-jumping is regarded as deeply immoral, that the queue-jumper is likely to get away with the offence. We huff and puff and scowl and mutter and seethe with righteous indignation, but only rarely do we actually speak up and tell the jumper to go to the back of the queue.”
If you’re English or grew up in England, let’s just say that you might have a few problems in Egypt when it comes to queues. Ok, wait, let me backtrack on that… most of the time, there are no queues! The first time I realised there was a problem was when way back in my early days, I stood in a ‘queue’ (or what I thought was a queue), only for it to never move! Well, I never seemed to be getting any closer to the cashier…
Don’t do what I did… don’t be so English in the middle of Egypt. The sun will probably set before you get anywhere. If you see that there are a lot of people aiming to get to a cashier for example or a ticket booth at the train station, you will at times have no choice but to help yourself get in there too. If you decide to be a bit miskeen and give way to everyone, then you’ll be waiting for an awfully long time. In a lot of places here, it is commonly understood that queuing doesn’t always mean ‘forming a straight line’ and in Egypt, well erm, queues can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes (so it’s probably wise not to stand there trying to figure out where the queue is or where it ends!)
“… in some other parts of the world, queue-jumpers may simply be unceremoniously pushed and shoved back into line…”
In Cairo you’ll find that sometimes you’ll be unceremoniously pushed and shoved, not back into line, but just pushed and shoved back (and out of sight). The funny thing is, you can do the same to others and not be stared at like you’re from outer space. For the record, I’ve never pushed anyone out of line (although I’ve been tempted), but a piece of advice if you’re new here: if you wish to get served in busy places, you’ll need to stick strong to your place, square up and move with the crowd, otherwise you’re going absolutely nowhere. Most of the time, the que-jumpers don’t realise that they’re doing something wrong (it’s actually quite normal to do it here), so arguing with them won’t really solve anything, but it does sometimes work telling them that you’ve been waiting a long time before them.
For sisters, it can be at times frustrating when there are many men crowding places where a queue will most likely never form; around a stall for example, or at a juice bar. Personally, I prefer not to get inside the crowds (don’t recommend it for sisters either) but this is a cool trick: Stand at a short distance and wait for 5 mins not doing anything except looking to the front of the ‘queue’, and soon enough the guy at the cashier/stall/wherever you wish to get served will definitely notice and he’ll tell the guys to make way for you. Sometimes you get served before others who’ve been waiting longer than you!
So all in all, the message I’m trying to get out is: Get used to que-jumpers (in a land where this isn’t a crime, I guess they’re not guilty), don’t feel insulted when you’re the victim on a daily basis, don’t bear any grudges when it happens, and hey if you see that there is some empty space in front of you, it doesn’t hurt filling it up lol.
Once, I actually saw (and joined) a nice queue at the exchangers. It was quiet, straight, not crowded at all, very much like the simple queues at my local Natwest bank . I thought ‘Wow, what a change’ when out of the bright blue a lady calmly walks past me (you could say I was invisible) and erm, just squeezed in – right in front of me too. I don’t know what was funnier, the calm sophisticated manner in which she did it, or the fact that I finally realised this is something I could never get used to despite all my years of living here. I guess Kate Fox pretty much summed up my predicament of why I could never confront a queue-jumper. What’s worse is that I’m not even English; I’m just a Londoner.
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I tend to find that the biggest Queue jumpers here in the UK are the pensioners! They manage to get the front of the queue and have the 'I don't know how I got here, innocent faced look'! Posts: 4476 | From: Scotland | Registered: Mar 2006
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Queues all around By Samar Ali Ezzat Wednesday, March 3, 2010
SCHOOLCHILDREN who salute the flag every morning in the playground grow up realising that standing in disciplined queues is the best way to maintain order. [Very Egyptian queues: It seems that the Egyptian citizens are destined, due to poor administration, to spend their lives queueing for few loaves of subsidised baladi bread.] Very Egyptian queues: It seems that the Egyptian citizens are destined, due to poor administration, to spend their lives queueing for few loaves of subsidised baladi bread.
In most countries, queues in supermarkets, ticket outlets, banks, etc mean that citizens get attended to in an organised manner, on a first come, first served basis. However, this isn't necessarily the case in Egypt, where children also grow up realising that queueing is indicative of things such as a scarcity of a certain commodity and laxity shown by a civil servant in a governmental office. Humble Egyptians have to queue for subsidised baladi bread, which, due to malpractices on the part of bakery workers and middlemen, is not always available in abundance. In many governorates nationwide, citizens now have to wait for hours for the butane gas cylinders sold at the distribution depots. Low production and the high consumption of brick kilns and poultry farms have had their effect on householders' share of butane gas. Those who can afford it buy cylinders from the black market dealers, but those who earn very little have to queue for hours. But the queues are not always respected and nasty quarrels and fistfights often erupt. Queuing in this part of the world, according to sociologists, usually leads to humiliation, anger and disappointment. The fact that access to basic commodities is not as easy as it should be has given rise to protests, creating a gap between citizens and their governments. Meanwhile, the metaphorical queues of the unemployed are getting longer every day. According to the State-run Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), unemployment in Egypt reached 9.4 per cent in the last quarter of 2009, up from 8.8 per cent in the same period in 2008. CAPMAS also revealed that university graduates account for 90 per cent of the unemployed. Economists say that the phenomenal spread of queues in this country is related to poor administration and a poor economy. As professor of economics at the American University in Cairo Samir Morqos told Al-Gamaheer independent Arabic-language daily, queues imply either low production or poor distribution. They also indicate that profiteers are manipulating supply. Queues as found in Egypt pave the way for monopolies, profiteering and corruption, which all harm the country's economy. The anarchy in Egyptian queues, as sociologists say, underlines the individual's lack of confidence in the system and the regime as a whole. “Why should we show discipline in a society governed by chaos in all walks of life?” everyone seems to be asking. From a psychological viewpoint, the time wasted in such queues and the fact that the people queueing don't know whether they'll even get the service or commodity they want put a lot of pressure on citizens. Samira Ibrahim, a consultant psychiatrist at Abbasia Hospital, warns that daily stress coupled with frustration may lead to psychological breakdown. She believes that people need to be taught how to cope with the sufferings and pressures of daily life in Egypt.
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