Caution! Gulf Arabs Live Here!

I've relocated to a new neighborhood for my final five weeks in Cairo. Far away from the clamor and freneticism of downtown, Mohandiseen--whose name means 'the engineers'--is a modestly upscale residential district that sprung up in the 1960s and 70s to accommodate the swelling middle class of the Nasser era. My apartment is on the top floor of a five-story walk-up, on a small street canopied with drooping trees that right now are positively aflame with brilliant crimson flowers. Two blocks from me is one of Mohandiseen's major thoroughfares, a wide, showy boulevard lined with Western-style restaurants and swanky boutiques selling everything from shoes to furniture to lingerie.

The view from the balcony of my new apartment.

Mohandiseen, though a youngster compared to the venerable old neighborhoods that comprise much of Cairo, has already carved a niche for itself in the city's geosocial makeup. Each year from June to August, Mohandiseen plays host to scores of wealthy vacationers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and elsewhere in the Gulf, who come to Cairo to escape the punishing heat of summer in the Arabian Peninsula and to take advantage of the comparative freedom of Egyptian society to shop, eat out in mixed-gender groups, go to the movies, dance in nightclubs, and gamble at Cairo's several foreigners-only casinos. Indeed, Mohandiseen is famous for its ‘furnished flats,’ fully equipped apartments in some of the neighborhood’s ritzier quarters that are rented out on a short-term basis during the summer months and which cater especially to Arab tourists, offering them a level of privacy and comfort above that of a hotel--albeit for two or three times the going rate during the rest of the year.

Contrary to what you might expect, however, these visitors from the conservative heartland of Islam are not highly regarded by most Egyptians. Reputed to use their time in Cairo to frequent brothels, consume large amounts of alcohol, and generally engage in moral debauchery, Arab tourists (particularly the men, who--with their long white robes and heavy Gulf accents--stand out here like creatures from another planet) are a source of amusement for some Egyptians and a cause of concern for others. “While Mohandiseen was known as the favorite place for Arabs to rent apartments,” American anthropologist Lisa Wynn writes in Pyramids and Nightclubs (2008), “several Mohandiseen property owners told me that they refused to rent to Arab tourists because of the scandals it cause with neighbors…. [They] were popularly said to drink, hold wild parties, and bring women back to their apartments, which gave a bad name to the apartment and building.”

Whenever I pose the question Why do so many tourists from the Gulf come to Cairo during the summer? to my Egyptian friends, the answers I receive invariably support Wynn’s findings. Wynn goes on to argue in her study that for the most part the assumptions that Egyptians hold about Arab tourists are incorrect, and that in fact the majority of Arabs travel here with their families and have never seen, nor desire to see, the inside of a Cairene whorehouse. So why do Egyptians persist in stereotyping Arab tourists as sexual predators and reprobates, despite ample evidence to the contrary?

It is my belief that such perceptions are the product of wounded pride. Egyptian civilization has a long and illustrious history dating back thousands of years, whereas most cities in the Gulf are less than a century old; yet modern Egyptians are an impoverished and degraded lot, while Gulf Arabs, who only a generation ago were tent-dwellers whose principal mode of transport was the camel, are living large on the financial windfall of their booming oil wealth. Is it any surprise that Egyptians resent the Arab tourists who materialize on their streets each summer, clanking with gold beneath their traditional Bedouin garb? Economic realities leave them no choice but to welcome these visitors to their country, but behind their backs, Egyptians relish the chance to impugn their moral characters at every opportunity:

Can you believe, my friend was approached by a Saudi in Costa Coffee last night, he asked her to come home with him that very minute!

Yesterday I saw a Gulfie guy walking with a prostitute, I could tell they'd both had a lot to drink...they could hardly stand up straight. I wonder how much he was paying her?

Never go to the Hard Rock Cafe during the summer, that's where the Saudi men hang out.

Yes, I've really heard all these things. And next will be, Don't move to Mohandiseen in June! You'll be harassed by Arabs every time you set foot outside your apartment! You know they don't wear anything under those robes of theirs, don't you...?