Sûk-en-Nahassīn

Recently, I have been travelling through time with a "book-friend" called Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt by R. Talbot Kelly.

The author showed a great deal of astonishment, which made me a very happy reader. With his words, I drew a beautiful picture of a city that I am familiar with (i.e. Cairo) but Oh my foes and Oh my friends, how different the Cairo I know is from the one he is describing!

"And now I must tell you something about the bazaars, which, after the mosques, are the most interesting relics in Cairo, and in many cases quite as old. First, I may say that the word "bazaar" means "bargain," and as in the East a fixed price is unusual, and anything is worth just what can be got for it, making a purchase is generally a matter of patience, and one may often spend days in acquiring some simple article of no particular value. An exception is the trade in copper ware, which is sold by weight, and it is a common practice among the poorer classes to invest their small savings in copper vessels of which they have the benefit, and which can readily be sold again should money be wanted. This trade is carried on in a very picturesque street, called the "Sûk-en-Nahassīn," or street of the coppersmiths, where in tiny little shops 4 or 5 feet square, most of the copper and brass industry of Cairo is carried on. Opening out of this street are other bazaars, many very ancient, and each built for some special trade. So we have the shoemaker's bazaar, the oil, spice, Persian and goldsmith's bazaars, and many others, each different in character, and generally interesting as architecture. The Persian bazaar is now nearly demolished, and the "Khan Khalili," once the centre of the carpet trade, and the most beautiful of all, is now split up into a number of small curio shops, for the people are becoming Europeanized, and the Government, alas! appear to have no interest in the preservation of buildings of great historic interest and beauty."

This is a paragraph in the book, one that disturbed me a lot actually. Look at the underlined phrase. Now I ask: did we ever have a government that knew what it was doing? Did we ever have a government that appreciated this country's treasures? This book was written in the early 20th century and I cannot imagine that the curse of clumsy authorities date back to then. Of course, in the recent times, describing our governments as "clumsy" would be the understatement of the century. You must add corrupt, dictatorial and ignorant... at least!

Will this ever change?