GURNA, Egypt — The Egyptian authorities have evicted hundreds of peasants from this village in southern Egypt because their mud brick houses, which have sat atop some of the world’s most treasured and ancient tombs for centuries, were leaking sewage onto priceless antiquities.
The families have been resettled nearby in an Egyptian version of Levittown with running water and telephones. But 80 families are holding out, saying they want more from a government so far reluctant to use brute force.
The Gurna standoff near the famed Valley of the Kings illustrates the challenges facing an authoritarian government that for decades imposed its will on the people, keeping them poor but fed, underemployed but employed, but now seeks to adjust the social contract without sparking widespread unrest. The government has again imposed a solution — one that will change the way hundreds of families live — but is negotiating with those left behind until it finds terms that are acceptable, or at least accepted.
Political analysts say the dynamics here are similar to those all over the country as the government tries to transform a centrally controlled economy. In recent months thousands of workers in bloated state-owned factories have staged wildcat strikes, out of fear that privatization will take their jobs, or demanding pay raises.
Since September there have been dozens of protests relating to economic demands. In each case, the government avoided the heavy-handed tactics it uses to silence political opposition.
“The state told its citizens to expect everything from it,” said Nawal Hassan, a sociologist who has worked closely with the people of Gurna for many years, referring to promises of free education, low-cost food and guaranteed jobs. “The economy was centralized and activities were controlled, and it was the government which was providing people with what they needed. You can’t tell them now, ‘Keep that mentality and manage on your own.’ ”
In Gurna — which sits on the tombs of the Nobles and between the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, with tombs that date back some 3,500 years — much of the familiar tableau of tourist kitsch and village life has been razed into piles of mud brick rubble.
Egyptian officials say that in Gurna they will finish the task because science and decency are on their side. They are preserving priceless antiquities and moving the villagers to a community with the running water that they lacked in Gurna. They complain that the holdouts are trying to extort the government. Under the plan, every married man receives a two-bedroom house in what is known as New Gurna. But the holdouts are pressing for one house for every son.
“Each family man is asking for a house for himself, and for one for his children,” said Sabry Abdel Aziz, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector. “We are not distributing millions here. It is a problem of greediness.”
The government considered having the villagers pay for the new houses with low-cost loans. But officials ultimately decided to give the houses away, part of a broad effort to keep the peace. “The president says you are not allowed to remove anyone without providing him with an alternative he agrees to,” said Muhammad Tayeb, head of the local council for the governate of Luxor. “It is impossible. It is against our humanity to force people out.”
But others see a more pragmatic explanation for the government’s approach. “The bureaucracy is heartless and usually heavy-handed unless it will cause bad publicity abroad or wide-scale popular outbreak of violence or rioting,” said Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a democracy advocate who was jailed in connection with his work monitoring elections.
Mr. Ibrahim said President Hosni Mubarak’s strategy of trying to co-opt rather than confront is rooted in two major riots that shook the country — one in 1977, when President Anwar el-Sadat moved to reduce subsidies on bread and other commodities, and a second in 1986 when policemen rioted because of rumors that their conscription would be extended from three to four years. Dozens died in the police riots.
The lesson learned was that people might not take to the streets in large numbers in support of democracy, but they would cause trouble over pocketbook issues. In Gurna, any hint of civil disturbance could undermine a hub of Egypt’s essential tourist industry in Luxor, so the government has stepped more gently.
Gurna sits at the gateway to famed tombs hand-chiseled deep into the desert floor, including that of Tutankhamen. Mud brick houses two and three stories tall roll out across hills dotted with passageways leading back to the New Kingdom. The people here were said to have looted the tombs and when the income from underground troves dried up they turned to tourists. They set up workshops selling handmade crafts from buildings decorated with cartoonish characters of Pharaonic times. Gurna was a bit of time travel and amusement park rolled into one.
The government first realized in 1948 that the village needed to be moved and after a few aborted attempts, essentially abandoned the initiative until 1994 when a new study concluded that 850 families needed to be moved. That process only recently began. “Our life is here, our business is here,” said Sayed el-Amir, 23, whose family has so far refused to leave. He said the government had offered them three houses, but that the family needed four.
New Gurna has straight roads and row after row of identical one-story villas. Each has a small, gravel covered backyard, space enough for one donkey, or maybe a sheep and a few pigeons. It is clean and middle class and quite alien to the ways of village life.
Critics say they are reminded of what the Soviet Union tried years ago when Moscow forcibly settled nomadic peoples of the Far East. The Soviets said they were helping people live a more civilized life, while stripping them of their traditional ways. In Egypt, the change is nearly as significant for the people of Gurna. Modernity brought them running water but cost them easy access to tourists and, more important, a place to keep the animals they once relied on for food.
“Am I happy? What does it matter?” asked Ahmed Hassan, 51, who made the move in December and managed to crowd his large wooden furniture into the small rooms of the villas. “What can I do? Where can I go? We are not happy. We used to live on tourism, but there are no foreigners here.”
Gurna, more than 300 miles south of Cairo, was perfectly situated for people who made their living on tourism and farming. The biggest complaint about the forced relocation was that it would cost people their livelihoods. To help address that problem, the government built what it called a tourist mall. It looks like a large self-storage facility, with metal sliding gates in front of one-room cubbyholes. It is abandoned, the front gate bent and held closed with large rocks.
Salah Muhammad Omar, 28, lived his entire life up in the hills, running after tourists as a child and later selling them ceramic statues he made with molds in his home. He and his wife, Howeida, live in two rooms with a view of men pulling down his neighbors’ houses. All of their possessions are packed in boxes and laid out on a small single bed. They will move, they said, when they get seven apartments — but the government is offering only one.
“If we stay here it is much better,” he said. “The tourists take pictures of us and give us money.”
Down the hill along a road frequented by air-conditioned tour buses, Tayeh Muhammad Hassan, 67, and his four adult sons, were fuming because, they said, their rights were being violated. They said they had been offered just one house, and were told they could build additional floors on top as the sons married. But Ahmed Hassan, 36, acknowledged that it was not just a matter of what the family saw as its rights. The Hassans wanted a better price.
“If you want to relocate me from my house,” Mr. Hassan said, “you have to give me something better.”
Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Gurna and Beirut.
Posts: 833 | From: Egypt | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
How do these attitudes speak to the modern Egyptian's valuation of the heritage bequeathed from T3 Mry?
Who's getting the best benefit of tourism and preservation of the heritage, Gurna's citizens or Egypt's government?
Considering the value of the ancient sites in Gurna's surrounds why can't the government splurge a little by resettling the citizens in much roomier permanent quarters than the one's they're being forced to abandon?
What about a surtax earmarked solely for Gurna relocation levied on related tourism? I mean let the tourist continue to influx capital to Gurna's citizens in this round about way -- yes, I know the government will slough off of the money and wouldn't give the Gurna folk every piaster.
posted
Of course, you know how it is with some governments in Africa. Egypt is no exception.
Posts: 26258 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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President Obsanjo is about to give Nigeria the proverbial buggering AGAIN .
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
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