Political showdown sucking out Egypt's lifeblood; The Australian, February 8, 2011
Empathy for the regular touts in Cairo.
by MARTIN FLETCHER
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/political-showdown-sucking-out-egypts-lifeblood/story-e6frg6so-1226002006973
ISMAIL Umberbi has rows of stitches across his forehead, in his ear and beneath a swollen black eye. His woollen hat conceals yet more cuts and bruises. He looks a frightful mess, but that is hardly surprising. He is the man who rode a camel into a sea of protesters and a barrage of stones in Tahrir Square, Cairo, last week.
"Allah was with me. He saved me," Mr Umberbi, 27, told The Times after we tracked him down to his home in a run-down district of Giza yesterday.
Pictures of Mr Umberbi's surreal camel charge, accompanied by half a dozen men on horseback, were endlessly replayed on television, made the front pages of newspapers around the world and provided the iconic image of this Egyptian Revolution.
It was widely assumed that President Mubarak's henchmen organized the charge to terrify the protesters. The demonstrators had mounted the biggest demonstration in Egypt's history the day before and the shocking scene helped to persuade the West to abandon support for the embattled dictator.
Mr Umberbi, however, tells a very different story. Standing in a narrow side passage by his home, the soft-spoken young man told The Times in pidgin English that he was not paid by the regime or following its orders. On the contrary, he insisted the charge was completely unintended.
Mr Umberbi supports his wife and four children, aged 2 to 6, by charging visitors to Giza's pyramids who want to have their photographs taken on his two camels - or at least he did until Egypt's popular uprising and the ensuing violence killed the tourist trade and his business stone dead. Suddenly he had no customers and no money to feed either his family or the hungry camels which live in a tiny stable at the end of the passage.
He said he and several hundred other Egyptians who depend on Giza's tourists for their livelihoods walked the 20 kilometres to Tahrir Square on Wednesday to draw attention to their plight, and to beg for an end to the protests. He took one of his camels, a seven-year-old male, and friends took several of the horses that tourists rent for rides around the pyramids. "We wanted to go, not to make trouble, but to show we needed to work," he said.
Unfortunately, they picked the day that thousands of Mubarak supporters poured into the square to confront the protesters. Mr Umberbi said that he had no idea who was for or against the President. As he tells it, the animals were caught in the middle as the two sides hurled stones at each other. With projectiles hitting them, the beasts took fright and bolted. Mr Umberbi said he was hit by many stones and thought he was going to die, but escaped because he was a good rider on a good camel. He was taken to a hospital to be patched up, then rode home.
He is aware that the charge made news around the world, but insists: "We want to eat. We don't want to be famous. If I'd known what was going to happen I'd never have gone." Mr Umberbi's account was echoed by another young man, Khalid Amin, who was one of the horseriders. "We just went because we wanted the protests to stop," said Mr Amin, 20, who was pulled from his horse. He was kicked and punched and claims his horse was killed. "I was struggling to pay for food, but now I'm having to pay for food and medicine," he complained.
Whatever the truth, it is indisputable that the turmoil of the last fortnight has been calamitous for tens of thousands of Egyptians who depend on Giza's tourist trade. Yesterday, at what should be the height of the tourist season, the Great Sphinx and the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure stood serene and magnificent in the hazy winter sun, with not a human in sight to disturb the desert sand.
The Pyramids Park Hotel, one of a dozen five-star hotels in Giza, was open, with 500 staff on hand, but had not one guest in its 470 rooms. The Christo restaurant, with a capacity of 700, had 120 kilograms of fresh fish and shrimps delivered on Sunday, but not a single lunchtime customer. Samir Mahmoud, 63, owner of the Khan el-Khalili emporia, said he had sold not a brass pyramid or onyx sphinx for ten days.
The complex was ringed by empty tea and gift shops, shuttered papyrus and carpet factories and souvenir outlets selling T-shirts emblazoned: "A camel can go without a drink for 14 days - I can't".
What is true of Giza is also true of Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, Saqqara and a fleet of cruise ships on the Nile. A tourist industry that is Egypt's lifeblood, attracting roughly 12 million visitors a year, employing 12 per cent of its workforce and generating around 6 per cent of its GDP, has collapsed almost overnight. On a single day last week 18,000 Westerners tried to flee through Cairo airport. Western governments have warned against travel to Egypt, and the country's battered image could take years to recover. However, many locals still support the protests.
"Those young people are heroes," said Mimo Basha, 45, owner of a snacks and trinket shop that has not earned a penny in ten days.
He has seven children to support, but says he would happily forego all trade for another month if that is what it takes to remove Egypt's modern-day Pharaoh.