CAIRO: I met two members of the Muslim Brotherhood during a visit to the Pyramids. After establishing that they don’t want to kill me because and I don’t want to kill them, they took me to a mosque to try and convert me.
Hey, it’s more respectable than trying to take my money.
Although I’m a Jew, I convinced them that I was a Jesus-loving Christian. But in any case, I was interested in Islam and the brotherhood and didn’t mind being preached to.
After having all the standard conversations – no the US should not be in Iraq; yes the land belongs to the Palestinians – we decided we could trust each other and they invited me to their small village, about a three-hour-drive outside Cairo. The next week, I spent one night in their company. Along the bumpy ride to their village, they kept on asking me if I was afraid. I said no, I wasn’t.
Most upper-class Egyptians told me I should be, or at least they would be if they were in my shoes. But I wasn’t, they were god-fearing strict Muslim men. This meant they viewed my listening to music and occasionally dancing with my friends as a life of sin. It also meant that I could trust them with my life.
Their village was like any you see going to Sakkara or riding through the Delta. Dirty and poor, but also beautiful. Young boys were sitting around when we first arrived.
“This is great, I thought to myself, “in America we don’t take the time to sit around and just ‘hang-out’ anymore.
I heard later that unemployment is over 75 percent.
I rode a donkey for the first time, which because I don’t really know how to ride a donkey, amounted to me hitting it with a stick everyway until it moved. Not my proudest moment.
I held their kids on my lap, drove their car, and betted them to see who cold eat the biggest piece of hot pepper. I won. They proudly showed me their family’s land, and seeing their connection to it, I understood the power of this attachment more.
Being a rich suburban kid, being attached to “my land meant being attached to the dirty side walks or the oil-stained asphalt outside my house. But seeing them talk about their land, I understood more why the Palestinians might fight so hard to get theirs back. Or why 2,000 years later my people might think that it still belongs to them.
I also talked with them about what life is like there. Most people in the village have one or two meals a day. Kids just sit around and drink and smoke weed all day, because they don’t have a future to look forward to. In America, kids sit around and smoke and drink because they don’t care about their future; I felt a little spoilt.
Garbage was everywhere in the village, and the flies seemed happy. There were so many kids, and from the one conversation I had it seemed like people didn’t believe in any form of birth control.
Out of the 30 people I met, only one appeared literate. He showed me his bookshelf, with a handful of books. But he was proud, and I was impressed.
One of the first things they did when I arrived inside one of the Brothers’ clean and pleasantly painted homes was to put me in their clothes. I objected at first, but as soon as I put on their ragged jumpsuit, I understood why. It was like putting on a costume for a play, I became someone else but at the same time I stayed myself.
Walking around a wealthier town later in the evening, I felt people’s hostile attitudes. The poverty of our clothes was visible. As we strolled around the town, one of the ikhwan (Brothers) asked me several times, “Why are people afraid of us?
On our way back from the evening meal, we stopped by to visit to village leader of the ikhwan. They told me everyone in the village was part of the Brotherhood. There was no Muslim Brotherhood candidate in any village miles around, no one believed in the legitimacy of the elections, and yet they were all going to vote. I was confused.
The Shoura elections were taking place the next morning, and I could see how the government worked to get everyone to vote. A big truck was full of young boys shouting out slogans and singing, while a man, looking embarrassed, drove them through the village. They would make rounds every hour or so, beginning early in the morning. It was like watching professional dancers trying to get a party started at a nightclub.
It was hard to not be Jewish, and even harder to defend Christianity to them. They would scold me for believing that Jesus was the son of God, and I wanted to bond and say, “Yes, I don’t believe he is either, but was forced to just smile and look away. I wish I could have told them.
I never saw the wife even though I stayed in their house. She was always covered behind a curtain. I ate her excellent food, and heard her ask to go to the bathroom, and saw her figure slip out of the room when we entered.
The two men never even mentioned their wives; I did not bring it up. When I asked them if they beat their wives they told me they never beat their wives. One said we only use words. As we took the minibus to the main town, they gave me a copy of the Quran and asked never to forget them. I remember driving back from the tiny little village feeling it was not so remarkable what I had seen, but that it felt normal.
It is strange to talk with people and have them tell you about how they only eat one or two meals a day. It is no longer a statistic, but a real person in front of you.
These men weren t covered in flies, dirty, moaning because of their pained stomachs. Nor were they practicing how to strap bombs onto their bodies or plotting to overthrow the government. Rather they were like any one of my family friends from America.
Maybe it’s Egyptian hospitality, or a connection between us, but let it be known that an American-Jew felt at home in the small village of a Muslim Brother.
