The Egyptian Inferiority Complex

Its a miracle that I didnt grow up to be a completely despicable human being. What I mean is that my parents exercised a very minimal amount of effort in my upbringing. I once told my mother, “you’re lucky I’m not out robbing old people or doing drugs because you guys barely raised me”. No question I grew up fast and I learned everything I know indirectly from the world around me.

Despite my lack of nurturing I can say there is at least one lesson that was ingrained in me from a young age and thats an overpowering sense of modesty and humility. (In real life at least, on here I’m a self promoting jerk, I know.) Now that I remember I think I learned that through my parents complaining. Complaining about snobby people, people who brag and people who think they’re better than everyone else. As I grew up and landed out there in the real world I found myself equally annoyed by snooty people who insist, “I only drink the best water.” or “I would never eat there, do I look like a taxi driver?” and “This is a 1200 dollar Versace shirt!”. Those little comments that no one asked to hear are superfluous and only serve to make you look like an asshole.

Growing up I observed this most often when around people from Masr Gedida, one of Egypt’s wealthier boroughs of Cairo, a city where the rich, powerful and French speaking live, in fact my fathers family is mostly in Masr Gedida and they fit the stereotype from top to bottom. I still have a bunch of friends from Masr Gedida and I often catch them bragging about going to French schools, speaking French and doing things that the average Egyptian doesn’t do or cant afford to do. What is the appeal of the French language, culture and food anyways?

Its not just French culture its everything European or Western. I have one Egyptian friend who seems to favor Greek culture more than his own, insisting that we hang out at Greek places, eat Greek food, enjoy Greek customs and hang out with as many Greek people as possible. All while desperately pandering to his Greek friends by trying to remind them of Egypt and Greece’s historical homogeneity. I’ve even caught him on several occasions using Greek words and claiming to be part Greek. What a shame. What causes people with a beautiful culture and history to adopt foreign cultures, specifically Western cultures?

My answer is that many Egyptians have an inferiority complex in regards to their Egyptian identity. Somewhere in our history during colonialism Egyptians began to believe that European culture was superior to their own, more elegant and prestigious. There is a notion in Egypt that to be educated one must speak French and always refer to non-French speaking people as if they were peasants. Its very common among Egyptians and most Middle Eastern people, whenever someone has a differing opinion or when someone isn’t of the same social class they are always referred to as the “uneducated people”. It gets painfully annoying very quickly and these are the same people who come here to the U.S. and refuse to go to local Arabic hangouts because they are “low class”. The same people who wont eat at a shawarma place unless its $15 and the waiters are American. These are the same people who wear the most hideous clothes imaginable and insist on telling you the brand name and how much they paid for it. It makes me want to throw up.

Egyptians have no one to blame but themselves. I don’t want to hear anyone say “this is the fault of the Imperialists who forced their culture on us.” The Frenchism of Egypt is an occupation of the upper class not of all Egypt, its an attempt by the privileged to seperate themselves from the Egyptian culture they have deemed inferior. I know alot of people are reading this and thinking, “they are just cultured, nothing wrong with that”. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying other cultures but when you celebrate one culture and one alone and you do it to increase your social status, thats a problem. When you enjoy one culture and look down on others who dont thats a problem and anytime you are a snobby jerk with a stick up your booty, thats always a problem no matter what culture you ascribe to.

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