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I Remember the Old American University of Cairo
FrontLines - March 2009
By John Waggoner
John Waggoner
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It was bittersweet to learn that the American University in Cairo (AUC), where I taught for five years, is moving from bustling
downtown Tahrir Square to a spectacular suburban campus in “New Cairo” formerly referred to as Khatemeya—a move USAID has supported.
When I taught there in the late 1990s, AUC shared Tahrir Square with the Arab League, a swank hotel, and the fabulous Egyptian Museums.
Surrounding the campus were street vendors, small stores, booksellers, and stalls where tea and shishas, or smoking water pipes, were readily available. Makeshift mosques and various offices occupied some very dilapidated
buildings nearby. AUC at Tahrir drew strength and vitality from these surroundings and the life that pulsated around it.
But when you entered the campus
gates, you found an oasis of sorts—peaceful and calm—free of the kaleidoscopic crowds, traffic, dust, and clamor just outside.
I would make my way to a cafeteria and—with coffee and newspaper in hand—find the shade of a gorgeous tree and settle
in a chair by a fountain whose basin was an attractive mosaic and whose soothing sounds soon made you forget the horns and shouts that accompanied
your commute to campus.
Here I would meet other faculty
and students for hellos and conversation. Egyptian students are very respectful. Once beyond formalities, they can also be disarmingly natural and always friendly.
Approximately half the seats in my classroom were occupied by females. This was a rarity elsewhere in the Arab world. When USAID supports this school and such policies, it is spreading opportunity and unleashing transformative change in these societies.
I also had scholarship students
in my class, thanks to USAID. These bright and hardworking
students were a counterpoint to the many cosseted students from around the Arab world who sat next to them and came from the most privileged levels of society.
I taught American politics to students who generally had a love/hate relationship with my country. When the United States lobbed missiles into Saddam’s Iraq, it sparked a campus-wide protest at AUC. I observed from the periphery, much as I did as a student during the university protests of my youth, when the Vietnam War was raging.
The AUC protest brought home to me the sensitivity of these Arab students to anything they perceived as violating Arab sovereign rights or honor. And it brought home the power of a sense of outrage to unite otherwise
passive students, who were typically more concerned with the upcoming weekend and the prospect of parties to come.
The outrage was uniformly shared, or so I thought, until a student approached me and whispered: “Don’t think we are like this, professor. I’m from Kuwait, and me and my family will always be grateful to the United States.”
I marveled that it was the “American University” here in Cairo that was host to this protest against American foreign policy. And I thought of AUC’s complex position in the complexities of this part of the world.
Later in my classroom, one of my students trembled as he lifted his shirt to expose contusions and welts on his arms and waist. He had boldly taken his protest to the streets of Cairo where he met the police and batons.
My instinct was, if this were my kid, to hold him in my arms. This was all part of my AUC experience and it could sometimes
touch you very profoundly
on a personal level.
It demonstrates that good universities are places where teachers
learn too.
Too often we in development are driven by short-term, results-driven programming. But sometimes
the work my colleagues do is incalculable. And this may have the profoundest effects on the recipients of our aid. This is the case with our association with AUC.
Your Voice, a continuing FrontLines feature, offers personal observations from USAID employees. John Waggoner is a speech writer in the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs.
★
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