People Like Us Read Online Free PDF

and pick it up later. People invited me to stay with them, and the pleasant, easy-going atmosphere on the streets was like nothing I’d ever experienced in the Netherlands or elsewhere in the West.
    And then there were areas where the Syrians weren’t the slightest bit different from Westerners. I was amazed to hear them cracking jokes. Of course, I pulled myself together immediately, but where would I ever have seen Arabs telling jokes? My image of the Arab world came from Hollywood films, history books, and the news; the Arabs featured in those were almost always terrorists, oversexed oil sheiks, chanting masses, or anonymous victims—not the kind of people who’d laugh. But everywhere I went in Syria, people discreetly tried to make me, and each other, laugh.

    For instance: A Russian, an American, and a Syrian secret agent are having a rabbit-catching contest. First, the Russian runs into the woods, and eighteen minutes later he comes out with a rabbit. Then it’s the American’s turn; he does it in sixteen minutes. Finally, the Syrian goes off. Fifteen minutes go by, half an hour, an hour ... Finally, the Russian and the American find the Syrian under a tree, where he’s torturing a hare: “Admit it, you’re a rabbit!”
    A year after traveling through Syria, I did a research project at Cairo University among Egyptian students, many of whom had never spoken to a Westerner before. I had the opportunity to study them at length and, even more than in Syria, I was struck how much, despite their differences, they seemed like Westerners—and Westerners seemed like them. The most common topics of conversation amongst Egyptian students were sports, careers, and sex, not politics or the news. Egypt, too, had gossip magazines, talk shows, and a widespread obsession with celebrities and show business. And people made jokes.
    As in, one evening, Osama Al-Baz, the president’s advisor, walks past the most famous bridge over the Nile. On the other side of the bridge, two giant bronze lionesses are parading. Just imagine Al-Baz’s surprise when one of the lionesses suddenly says to him, “Bring me a lion and I’ll tell you the secret of Egypt.” Al-Baz rushes to Mubarak and says, “Mr. President, hurry! I’ve witnessed a miracle, a talking bronze lioness!” So Mubarak accompanies Al-Baz to the bridge. “No, you moron,” the lioness shouts to Al-Baz when she catches sight of the two of them. “I said a lion, not an ass.”
    My fellow Egyptian students were rather less exotic than I’d imagined, and at the same time certain things really
were different from the Netherlands—just not in the way I’d expected. I knew that 9 million of the 22 million inhabitants of Cairo had to get by on just one euro a day, but I’d never have expected poverty to cause an increase in self-respect. But the poorest of my friends were also the proudest.
     
     
    A s a student in Syria and Egypt, I saw the gulf between representation and reality in the Middle East for the first time, and at the time often asked myself how it was possible that I’d been following both countries in the news for years and yet still encountered totally different places than I’d expected. Back in the Netherlands, this amazement subsided, and my first months as a correspondent were so hectic that I still didn’t really think about it then either.
    But then I managed to hook up with one of my old university friends, Imad. We hadn’t managed it before for various reasons: One time, he hadn’t shown up; another time, I’d had to leave suddenly; after that, we couldn’t get hold of each other for a while because he didn’t have a mobile, and that’s how it went. Issabr gamil , the Egyptians say, patience is a virtue, and finally we got to shake each other’s hands again. I felt guilty and rather recklessly said, “Come! Let’s not go to a coffee house—let’s go to a real restaurant on a Nile barge. I’m earning now, so it’ll be my treat.” We