Green Shirts and Red Fezzes
75
followed us from Cairo to Damanhur and back. I saw an
elderly woman walking with a heavy steel rod balanced on her
head: riding ahead of her on a donkey was her husband. I saw
a fellah lying in the shade, a monkey neatly picking lice from
his master's head. As we drove past a train station, we saw
children who had tied a scrawny dog to the tracks and were
gleefully awaiting the approaching train. In a land where
children are beaten and abused, affection for an animal is unheard of, and savagery is the rule of life.
As I watched this changing yet always horrifying scene,
Hussein turned to me for a moment. "Well," he said. "Now
you see a part of Egypt the tourist doesn't see. What do you
think of all this?"
I answered honestly. "Frankly, Ahmed, I'm shocked."
"Only a revolution can change it. The Young Egypt Party
will do it some day," Hussein said.
"Insh'allah, my friend, Insh'allah! With God's help!"
We arrived in Damanhur early in the afternoon, and proceeded to a midan, clearing, on one side of which was a
mosque topped by an extraordinarily lovely minaret. It was
the hour of prayer, and the muezzin was at his place on the
tiny balcony. With both hands cupped behind his ears, palms
to the front and forefingers up, he intoned the call to prayer
in a deep drawn-out, wailing chant; "Allah akbar, Allah akbar,
Allah akbar; ashadu an la ilaha illa-llah, ashadu anna Muhammedarrasulullah. . . . Hayya'alas-sala. Allah is great, Allah is
great, Allah is great; testify there is no God but Allah and
Mohammed is his prophet. . . . Come to prayer."
The Green Shirts were already on hand, with a small army
of police. Some Green Shirts carried daggers at their belts.
Others carried long heavy wooden bats. There was a horde of
bootblacks, and dispensers of purple and yellow fruit drinks,
serving all comers from two glasses given a token rinse now
and then in a pail of water. Scores of men were milling about
a huge tent, made colorful with oriental rugs draped from
the poles. This was a cool, snug inclosure, festooned with