Cairo's Urbanity and Rooftop Adventures

Cairo; the biggest city in the Middle East and Africa, and one of the most densely populated in the world. It is certainly a world in itself. Egyptian author Alaa Al-Aswany's famous novel, The Yacoubian Building, offers an interesting insight on some of the denizens living on the rooftop of a faded apartment building in downtown Cairo.

Taha, the son of the Yacoubian building’s doorkeeper and one of several living on its roof, is a devout Muslim who exemplifies the frustrated youth who are drawn into more reactionary values as a rejection of Egyptian society’s treatment of its own citizens . At the beginning of the novel he is aspiring to become a police officer, a title that seems to garner respect and power, especially given Taha’s disadvantaged background. He truly believes that God will make his dreams come true. However, despite a promising interview for the police academy, Taha’s application is rejected because his father is a property guard as opposed to a civil servant. He no doubt feels humiliated, more so because his official compliant to the president of the republic is rejected on the grounds that his claims of discrimination (due to his father’s profession) are unfounded. This scenario provides the basis of the abuse of power and corruption that permeates every aspect of Egyptian society. It is this long-standing corruption that Al Aswany argues is the cause of individuals turning to Islamism. He doesn’t say this explicitly, but it is very much clear by the path that his character Taha takes in the book.

Anyway, poverty and overcrowding has forced thousands amongst the poorer classes to live on the countless rooftops of Cairo. An entirely different world of satellite dishes, makeshift shacks, and colorful lines of laundry exists here. Some of these places develop into their own tight-nit communities. For some people at least, living on the rooftops beats sleeping on the street. More importantly, these rooftop communities highlight the problems of informal housing as a consequence of huge rural to urban migrations characteristic of many developing countries. The millions of Cairo citizens come from every corner of Egypt and beyond, and the infrastructure in the large cities is currently incapable of handling such huge population increases. Many people have no other options but to live in these rooftop communities or the countless slums that surround wealthier areas of the city such as Zamalek.

Lastly, even though so sounds of traffic and people are muffled from up high, the sheer vastness and chaos of the city itself is never absent. Cairo never underwhelms. On the bright side, the breeze up here is quite lovely.