Things have changed a lot in Egypt in a year. Last February I came to Egypt on the Abercrombie & Kent President's Tour and I couldn't believe how dead the country's tourism industry was.
I saw Nile cruise ships, probably dozens of them, anchored in port with their tables and chairs tied up on top, dormant after three years of practically no business. A man who offered camel rides at the Great Pyramids told me, "I can't afford food for my camel. If I can't feed him, he will die. Three years it has been since the tourists stopped coming. Why?"
As the Abercombie & Kent motorcoaches traveled through the crowded streets of Cairo, people came out waving, even throwing kisses to show their gratitude for our coming to Egypt.
Something like one in five people feeds his family through the tourist industry in Egypt. Since the beginning of tourism, Egypt has always been one of the top tourist destinations in the world. The Pyramids and the Sphinx are larger than life, practically impermeable to time. But that's only the drawing card. It's the one reason why everyone has Egypt on his bucket list. But it's only the beginning of what you discover when you actually experience Egypt.
What people find when they go to Egypt is the living culture that exists today in the land that created the pyramids and many other monuments that are arguably even greater. Besides its rich Arab culture, its architecture, music, cuisine, styles and folklore, there is a living culture that is brand new.
In what became known as the Arab Spring, millions of Egyptians demonstrated nonviolently in Tahrir Square in Cairo to overthrow a dictator who had ruled the country for decades and to establish a more democratic government. It was a rare moment of triumph of the universal human aspiration for freedom and self determination.
Though the population succeeded in overthrowing a dictator, it did not all go so smoothly. In a country with no democratic traditions and no democratic organizations, a rough electoral process produced a victory for a minority party. The victorious Muslim Brotherhood then tried to usurp power and dismantle the democratic process that had put it in power and to establish a fundamentalist religious state.
The brave people of Egypt again took to the streets to protest. After 32 million of them assembled in Cairo and brought the country to a standstill, the military stepped in and forced the Muslim Brotherhood to relinquish power.
The military oversaw the transition of power as Egyptians wrote a new constitution with rules to prevent the formation of another religious state. Since then the country held presidential elections, and former General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was elected president with a large popular base.
Though the second revolution did not come off without violence, things have settled down and the country is finding its groove again. Its tourism industry has come back to a large degree, but far less than what was normal before the revolution. And importantly, though there was an isolated terrorist incident on the Sinai Peninsula in 2014 with no relationship to the revolutionary struggles, no tourists were targeted by any side during the political turmoil surrounding the revolution.
One year ago when I traveled with the A&K President's Tour, Egypt's tourism sites were practically deserted. We went to some major sites where our vehicles were the only ones in a parking lot the size of a football field. We saw a few German tourists here and there and some Russians, but few from any other countries. This time as I traveled around Egypt with the Egyptian Tourist Authority I saw people from many countries in Europe, Asia and even some brave Americans.
The tourism industry is still nowhere near what it used to be or what Egypt needs it to be for a healthy economy, but for visitors who go now that has advantages. It's still very uncrowded and the Egyptians are still overjoyed to see visitors.
As happens so often when you travel, I saw that the reality of the ground bore little resemblance to the preconceptions people develop from watching the bad news on TV.
It's very strange to me how an event that stood up in history with the falling of the Berlin Wall should not have been greeted with more jubilance in the west. It may take a long time to sort out any political reasons that may lie behind that, or maybe it was just a random sequence of historical events. But somehow Egypt was punished for what I think the world should have celebrated, for being a great example of a courageous people seeking self determination.
Instead of shunning Egypt and running away in fear, I think people should be flocking to Egypt to experience a country in renewal, to experience that heady feeling of a society in revolution.
The new country of Egypt is only four years old. It's had a painful birth process. But I believe that like South Africa 20 years ago, the new Egypt will rise again and become a more vibrant country than ever before. In fact I think that has already happened. It's a great time to experience it.
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