Coming from Egypt, all this Lebanese success actually annoyed me. If Lebanon—a few years after a 15-year civil war, and with no natural resources to speak of—can do so well, why is Egypt so screwed up? OK, there are only something like 4 million people in all of Lebanon, or about the population of Shobra and Bulaq. But is population all there is to it? Egypt borders two seas, it has the Suez Canal, natural gas reserves, unparalleled tourist destinations, and it hasn’t just emerged from a long civil war. You’d think that’d be enough to outweigh the population differences. So why is Lebanon so nice?
Indeed, it’s sometimes mind-boggling.
Lebanon is so bizarrely screwed up yet such a great place. I think the setting itself alone explains a lot — especially Beirut, which is as beautiful as Cairo is ugly. On the one hand you have a city built on hills along the sea. On the other you have a city build on marshlands between a muddy river and a dreary desert. Egypt has beautiful places elsewhere, but Cairo isn’t one of them. And then of course you have the differences in the people. I tend to prefer Egyptians, but you have to hand it to the Lebanese for the way they carry themselves. Of course only being four million and almost entirely literate helps. Probably also the fact that it was a divided country for centuries, with rivalry between (and among) different groups also helps — especially compared to the centralized economic and political elites that dominated Egypt over the centuries.
Perhaps a fairer comparison is between Morocco and Egypt. After all, both have large populations (a little over 70 million in Egypt, 30 million in Morocco), high illiteracy and poverty rates, and similar socio-economic problems. But Morocco remains (for the middle classes at least), in terms of quality of life and environment, way ahead of Egypt even though it’s considerably poorer — no oil or gas, strategic assets like the Suez Canal, or anything of the sort. Just a bunch of phosphates and sardines. Not to diss Egypt, which I love and whose people are my favorite anywhere on earth, but you have to wonder…
I’ve often thought about the violent politics-great places-good food correlation. Think about it – Lebanon, Iran, Kashmir….even Italy and France, if you go back a bit. of course, Morocco would be the exception, good food but y’all haven’t had much violence that I know of, right?
Oh but wait – the Lebanese funance their lifestyles with some serious debt, no? Rather like Americans?
I am just befuddled by the assertion that Cairo is ugly. Several times I’ve flown into Cairo in the afternoon, and from the air it’s so, so, beautiful. And the Nile is beautiful; the downtown architecture and Heliopolis architecture is beautiful; Muqattam is beautiful. Khan al Khalili is beautiful.
OK, the ‘ashwiyaat are ugly, and in general it’s overcrowded and polluted, and it’s certainly not lush and green, but I still think it’s a beautiful city.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Cairo, but it’s not beautiful in a “pretty” way. Even Downtown, Heliopolis, Islamic Cairo etc. are so covered with grime that the original beauty is hidden. On Midan Talaat Harb they’ve repainted one old Paris-on-the-Nile building, if they did that everywhere it would look stunning. But then you still have all those buildings disfigured by air conditioning units and so on. Then there’s the fact that Cairo is a city with virtually no planning — local administration is completely absent in enforcing building codes, zoning laws, or planning how the city will develop. All these things combined don’t make it very appealing…
That being said, of course I like a ride on a felluca around Dahab island as much as any man! There are some spots in Cairo that are extremely beautiful.
I don’t think Cairo is so bad compared with other third world capitals – in fact it’s positively neat and orderly and clean compared with some cities of the same size/wealth. And you can’t exactly keep the grime away with the bloody desert being right there. As for planning and zoning laws, I wouldn’t want the job of enforcing those in a city of several million with migrants streaming in all the time.
How much of Cairo is made up of government housing, anyone know? Concentrations of not-so-well-paid bureaucrats in govt housing don’t usually make for pretty urban areas, because neither the govt nor the current functionary occupants are likely to have the money or to care about keeping their buildings in good repair.
i am going this year to lebanon ,,because all my frends and family have already benn there ,,and i heard from them that lebanon is the best in arabic country ..
and i thinck it is…
so i will see lebanon soon and i hope i will like it
so see u lebanon soon
The thing about Cairo’s ugliness is that it doesn’t just have to do with poverty. Nasr City is a middle class to upper middle class neighborhood and it is truly truly hideous, block after block of ugly concrete buildings — or take glitzy Mohandiseen, home of all the latest fashion stores and plenty of fast food joints and misshapen sky scrapers. I believe the original zoning of both these neighborhoods called for all buildings to be under four stories
Sure the slums along the outskirts are in bad shape, but the city’s true ugliness comes in the wealthy quarters where the nouveau riche without taste bribe building inspectors and throw extra floors on their already shoddily constructed buildings. The worst is when the truly pretty neighborhoods like Garden City, Heliopolis and Downtown are further ruined by ugly new buildings.
It’s not just the lack of planning, but the total lack of management and the ability to bribe your way out of any regulation.
Everyone says it once was quite beautiful, boggles the mind that traffic choked roads like 26th of July were once lined with stately trees.
Egypt gets the worst of both worlds — a suffocating centralized government and no one obeys the rules.
i dont like the way that u degrade egypt….especially cairo. fine its not all that but all countrys have their down sides! i have bin to cairo and fair enough it wasnt the most wealthiest part of the country i had been but i enjoyed it very much… the people are so nice and i found it interesting veiwing the lifestyle of the lower class people in another country but my own
I have been to all teh arab states expect for Djeboty and Somalia, and what talking about Egypt and Lebanon, Excuse me; there is a huge difference, from my observation I found out that Egypt is the largest arab state, i know its not the most pretty and the most attaractive, but it is one of the most rich countries you may ever seen. I work for int, political organization , and we understand what does it mean when Egypt ( Gov ) wants to do something espcially from smaller countries like lebanon, jordan, pal, etc.I am sorry but lebanon has nothing to do with Egypt's decesions, they just follow.
Lebanon is so beatiful country but it is so so small in comparios to egypt, i mean in terms of politics, industries, people and everything.
we should be more fair in presenting our ideas
Thanks
the reason is that Egypt has atyrant presedent Called hosny mobark 85 years old.