From Egypt to Switzerland…an intercultural journey
I have had to navigate a complex identity growing up. Born and raised Coptic Christian in Egypt (a Muslim country), my family is also part of a small upper-middle class in a society which is predominantly poor. It is also contradictory in the fact that in relative terms to Egyptian society it is liberal, even though it abides by various patriarchal norms. I went to a private nuns’ school and studied physics at the American University in Cairo. I belonged to a class of Egyptians who could afford a good life – as opposed to a majority whose everyday survival is a challenge in and of itself. About Egypt*
Later in my life, I married the son of Spanish immigrants to Germany and I moved to Switzerland. I became a foreigner –an Arab. I have settled here ever since.
For more about my life and why I started this blog click here
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*About Egypt
The way I see it, Egypt is a place where society has found an intricate way of forming an inter-dependent relationship between the privileged few and the less privileged masses. The very stability of the social system is determined by how well this relationship functions. The lives and ways of life of the two groups respectively depend on each other. For the many poor, it is literally their life that hangs on the others’ and for the few, it is very much their way of life.
Having said that, Egypt has changed since the time I grew up, is still changing and, as with all places, cannot be reduced to a fixed and by-definition subjective description. The description here is simply of the way I see Egypt insofar as it has impacted the construction of my identity.