More About Egypt

As recently returned visitors from Egypt, we were distressed to read about the weekend attacks on tourists in Cairo. From reports I have read, they may well be the work of a quite small band of people (perhaps even a single family, it seems) in revenge for the Mubarak regime's harsh response to last year's attack on Israeli tourists in a Red Sea resort. It does not sound like it's the result of a widespread terrorist threat.

As I mentioned on several occasions in my "Egypt Diary" (an edited version of my weblog entries during our two-week trip, and now available to anyone on request, with an email address), we felt entirely safe and perhaps even excessively protected along the way; our guide, Fadel Gad, made it clear that--with tourism such a vital part of the Egytian economy--the government is at great pains to protect the visitors who come to learn from the remarkable history of the country's ancient civilization. Since the 1997 massacre that left more than 60 French tourists dead at the temple of Abydos, security has been extraordinarily tight: armed guards maintain a high visibility everywhere.

Still, as is so often repeated by our "homeland security" folks here in the USA, the protectors have to get it right 100 percent of the time: the terrorists only once. Ellie and I are particularly sad that they should have pulled it off in Egypt, despite all precautions, and hope that this small band will not succeed in deterring other visitors. Of course, we ask ourselves if we would have been deterred, had this incident occurred in the weeks or days before we started on our journey. We like to think not. But then…

At any rate, we have no great stake in the Mubarak regime: anyone who quashes all opposition as determinedly as he has done these past two decades has earned the hard questioning he now seems to be getting. The promised "opening" of the forthcoming elections to opposition candidates has prompted the kind of anti-government demonstrations that greeted us on our first day in Cairo--and the kind of riot police turn-out that we witnessed on that occasion. But having ourselves encountered nothing but friendliness and warmth from our host country and its people, we wish them a speedy recovery from any damage to the tourist industry resulting from these incidents. And, of course, a fair and peaceful election process. They deserve nothing less.