Destroying Alexandria
She was a pearl on the shores of a sea that legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz lauded in song, only to now become a withered old lady burdened with the nostalgia of her youth. Her beauty lay in the gracious relationship that she held with her inhabitants and visitors, commensurate to what each of them deserved. Visitors were met with generosity and beautiful scenery, while residents enjoyed their ownership of parcels of land within, even if devoid of sea views or mired in the purulent muck of its cold winters, in the absence of a state that serves its people and provides facilities that cater to their needs.
Summary
The author describes the environmental mistreatment of Alexandria that has been ongoing for decades.
Author Ismail Alexandrani Posted September 4, 2015
TranslatorKamal Fayad
Original Article اقرا المقال الأصلي باللغة العربية
Matters have much changed since, with disputes erupting between residents and seasonal visitors, as social networking sites lately attested to through discriminatory rhetoric against all that is rural and the culture of countryside living. A rhetoric that verged on being xenophobic, not differentiating between rural and urban. Alexandria’s inhabitants thus disregarded the fact that holidaymakers were not responsible for their city’s demise — its destruction coming at the hands of a general, a contractor and a bumpkin (a different kind of “broker”).
How did the military initiate its destruction?
The English occupied the city after unleashing a maritime bombardment that destroyed large swaths of the city in the early 1890s. They entered the city cognizant, by way of historical knowledge, that their feet trod on fragile soil, and that the ground beneath their boots hid the remnants of two cities destroyed by earthquakes that obliterated, among other things, its ancient lighthouse that once was one of the world’s seven wonders. They proceeded carefully, endeavoring to build the city back up in a horizontal fashion to reduce pressure on its soil, and adopted a unified building code throughout its littoral promenade, imposing restrictions on height, in keeping with a coastal city that lay on unstable ground. Days and years subsequently passed leading to Egypt shedding the burden of colonial occupation, as people with expertise were replaced with people of trust. The city’s population increased through birth and internal migration, leading to its expansion eastward, beyond the old city’s confines.
On the far eastern side of Alexandria lies the suburb of Abu Qir, where fishermen held on to their countryside culture at the expense of modernity, and to whom Alexandria was a travel destination that required adequate pre-planning. Between Abu Qir and Alexandria lies a vast area of the most fertile of agricultural lands, out of which dozens of acres were carved to build the royal era Muntazah Palace and its adjoining gardens, surrounded by an extensive sandy arid area, where cottages, villas and resorts were later erected, most of which were owned by foreigners and affluent summertime Alexandria visitors hailing from Cairo or other governorates.
For a while, nothing worth mentioning took place along the city’s coastline, with the exception of some buildings springing up between the formerly aristocratic area and the Muntazah Palace, namely in the Sidi Bashr, Miami, al-Asafira and al-Mandara neighborhoods. Until the mid-'60s, the sea was visible from even the low-rise homes of inhabitants in traditional tribal areas, located south of the railroad connecting the city center with its eastern part. In the late '60s, military and security necessities required the building of an air defense base between the Tusun Pasha area that overlooked the sea west of Abu Qir, adjacent to which a naval academy was later erected. For mainly military reasons, the inland railway line was extended eastward beyond the Muntazah to Abu Qir, which became an integral part of the city, the main purpose of said railway being to transport soldiers to their service stations in Tusun. Moreover, until the war of October 1973 (Yom Kippur War), the headquarters of the northern military region stretched from its current location close to the famous Sidi Gaber railway station, all the way to the coastal promenade road in the Mustafa Kamil region (close to the city’s center). The war subsequently came to an end, and the peace treaty was signed as Sadat’s era of openness began, bringing with it a wave of “military real estate investment” that bulldozed the city, forever wiping out its past, present and future.
It all began with the exploitation of a large plot of unused land that belonged to the northern region command and that no longer had any post-war or post-treaty military value. It thus became a unique real estate opportunity to build high-rise officer housing overlooking the sea. Those high-rises in Mustafa Kamil were the first breach of the coastal promenade building code, rising for 20 stories and more, in an architectural precedent never before seen in the city. Yet, the story held a secret, with archaeologists of the city recounting that excavation and construction works were disrupted by enormous Greek and Roman ruins that lay underground. In short, the officers’ quarters were built on the ruins of a Roman Ptolemaic city of the dead (necropolis), that extended over a huge area filled with tombs that Ptolemaic Romans traditionally built outside city walls (beyond its limited ancient surface area). Thus, on a dark moonless night, boredom and frustration drove military leaders to forsake the pleas of archaeologists and issue orders to begin pouring concrete foundations at first light. A rush ensued to save as many ancient statues, pots and other utensils, with a small area cordoned off to placate building detractors. A concrete jungle thus rose right on the coastline, with the small excavation area left under the control of the Antiquities Authority.
The military’s investors were smitten by the results of this first real estate venture, so they set their sights next on the ancient military Al-Tabiyeh castle in Sidi Bashr, from whence a canon fired a shot into the sea to announce sunset during the month of Ramadan. Al-Tabiyeh was thus destroyed to give way to the El Mahrousa Naval Officer Hotel, around which an imposing concrete jungle was built to house permanent and summer lodging for armed forces officers. Later on, a multitude of hotels and buildings exclusively owned or exploited by army officers sprang up along the coastal promenade, all of which rising above the prescribed building code and the law, leading the way for civilians to also build higher and higher, blocking the view for those living further inland.
Luxury contractor and licentious bumpkin
Outside the walls of the old city and beyond the eastern necropolis, the sandy beaches that stretched from the El Raml to the Al-Tabiyeh areas have become mostly extinct, with the exception of Stanley Beach and its famous cabins. Between decrepit Al-Tabiyeh and the gardens of the Muntazah, lay Alexandria’s most famous beaches, Sidi Bashr, Miami, al-Asafira and al-Mandara. Growing up in the area, we knew that the rocky ridge connecting tiny Asafira island with the beachy shores of the Muntazah’s gardens teemed with sea urchins that we went free diving to collect whenever the weather permitted, and the orange flesh of which we relished under the sun on our way home from the coast, where, when the sky filled with clouds and the waves grew larger with the howling wind, we substituted our long range swims with daylong surfing. Suddenly, the beachy expanses began to shrink as enormous naval contraptions emptied their cargo of concrete blocks atop the sunken rocky ridge that connected Asafira island with the Muntazah, in an effort to protect the eroding beach with a manmade breaker.
Many years have since passed, and the prevailing thought was that the beach was eroding due to great environmental changes: perhaps global warming or some other form of climatic change. Then, we discovered that the beaches east of Alexandria were eroding as a result of the artificial landfills in the far west to build luxury tourist resorts along 90 kilometers [56 miles] of the Matrouh road. Also, a series of Marina tourist villages were built on the northern coastline, where artificial islands and breakers were built connecting them to the shore, in addition to a yacht seaport and other works that required the dumping of hundreds of thousands of rocks, boulders, sand and construction materials into the sea, which grew angry at this affront and unleashed its fury in the direction of the prevailing winds through waves that ate away at the beaches located east of the city.
On the mainland, the generals of neoliberalism ruled the city, both administratively and executively. There, the clique surrounding Mubarak’s son, along with the one surrounding Mubarak himself, had appropriated tens of thousands of acres along the coast between Alexandria and Matrouh, destroying in the process the land’s agricultural and developmental value with resorts that remained vacant for most of the year. Though their attack only directly targeted the seashore, the ruling generals also played a role in destroying Alexandria’s development from within.
In that context, former intelligence general, Abdul Salam Mahgoub, was appointed governor of Alexandria in the late nineties, when he launched an era of hollow city beautification works. He focused on the coastal promenade and the most famous of areas, where, under his reign, the high-rise crypts rose to unprecedented heights along narrow streets and atop unstable soil, sometimes composed of clay in the eastern part of the governorate. General Mahgoub himself undertook teaching young entrepreneurs how to manipulate and circumvent the law by sending notices for help and assistance, to provincial and municipal authorities, from fictitious residents of the upper floors of offending buildings, leading to a stay of orders to demolish said buildings and the subsequent payment of small fines by the contactors to resolve the issue, with public utilities finally stepping in to provide electricity and water under the official auspices of the governorate.
Profits increased as a new wave of up and coming contractors set their sights on all low-rise villas and houses, by entering into partnership with the owners thereof and negotiating with tenants to demolish those edifices, raze gardens to the ground, and compete for a better view of the sea by depriving their neighbors of any available view of the sky, the sun or a cool summer breeze. Many lawsuits ensued, leading to the corrupt participants in the real estate sector, namely the contactors, executives, police officers and prosecutors, to create what became known as the phenomena of the “bumpkin,” or the simpleton who affixed his fingerprint or badly written signature on documents that he knew nothing about, when in truth the bumpkin was not unknowing, but a fully conscious partner in crime, albeit one that was the victim of poverty, ignorance and marginalization. Those corrupt people brought forth poor folk from the countryside, whose real addresses were unknown and far removed from Alexandria. They lured them with money and signed their names on official ownership deeds, for a short while at least, having signed undertakings to restore ownership to the contractors at a later date. Lawsuits thus got filed against the bumpkins and penalties imposed against them, while the contractors escaped accountability if buildings suddenly collapsed on their occupants (as occurred on numerous occasions), thanks to their relationships with corrupt neighborhood inspectors and police officers whose identity is known to all local residents and neighbors (even if unable to prove so).
The city was thus ruined both inland and on the coast, its demise caused by the ruling general, rich contractor and poor bumpkin. The air grew stale, greenery disappeared, flowers withered under foot. Streets grew dark at midday, sewers overflowed, antiquities demolished, and unique cultural and architectural legacies destroyed. The city was abducted from its rightful owners, whose memories were simply stolen.
Hoards of holidaymakers now fill Alexandria’s streets on their quest for fleeting moments of joy before their buses ferry them back to the misery of their villages and cities, much less fortunate than the booming yet desolate holiday destination of their choice, from whence they depart indifferent to the plight of the city’s residents, whose battle against their city’s destroyers was substituted by a futile seasonal one against its visitors.
The generals are now done with the city and have begun selling huge tracts of land in the desert — the coastline, mines and sands of which they monopolize amidst Egypt’s vastness, as Solidere accomplished its task in Alexandria, leaving Fairuz nothing to sing about, anywhere. The bumpkins got paid and they returned to whence they came, fugitives from court decisions ordering their incarceration.
Here now stands Alexandria, a city that once taught other cities the secrets of architectural beauty teaches them today the ugly truth about its demise caused by the tyranny of a general, the corruption of a contractor, and the exploitation of a bumpkin who, from this day on, was no longer unknowing.
Read more:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2015/09/egypt-alexandria-destruction-military-history-geography.html#ixzz3lGFTLRSm
