Is Egypt safe?

This is not my question but that of many travelers sizing up the country for a potential visit. The question, of course, has no answer. It is neither yes nor no, the same as for Britain, France or anywhere else on the planet. You can ask whether a piece of diving equipment is safe or an old staircase, but a whole country is far too broad an ‘item’ and has too much complexity to answer in a simple yes or no fashion about the question of safety.

To get an accurate view of what a country is about takes a bit of light research from a variety of sources. Or, one can trust the judgment and views of others who have done that already. Ours is but a single story of two motorcyclists and divers traveling the majority of Egypt over 17 days and 4,500 km. We have tried to cover as broad and diverse a range of towns, cities and experiences as is possible in the time available. This has involved dealings and interactions with dozens of people every day involved in tourism, sport, police and military, industry, food and beverage, mechanical and ordinary civilians in the street. Whilst our own experiences are no indication that the next person will have exactly the same deal, it is apparent that patterns and behaviors have a certain consistency and that a reasonable evaluation can be given. Those experiences are well recorded and documented on our official trip website divingbikers.net but in short, traveling Egypt has been the experience of a lifetime and we happily and reassuringly recommend it to anyone.

Somewhere between the impressions we get from TV and the reality of what Egypt is genuinely about is a Grand Canyon of a gap that needs to be filled, sooner rather than later, if Egypt and the people who wish to visit it are to be united. Whilst we are two motorcyclists and divers with a website and some media following, we hope that our findings can be communicated on a wider scale. Egypt is not a charity case and doesn’t need to beg for tourists. Its own resources, people, national monuments, history, marine life and tourism industry already stand on its own two feet as timeless and worthy reasons to visit. It is not the ‘product’ that has a problem it is the totally unnecessary obstacles that stand in its way.

Here are some examples of the misrepresentation of the country and the negative image they can create. It is the media that brings people to Egypt and it is the media who send them away, in much the same manner that Steven Spielberg’s, ‘Jaws’ conflicted with the aims of the PADI scuba dive training agency who in 1975 saw their new certification figures drop like a stone. The combination of this famous film and the scuba training industry resulted in a misguided belief among the public that went like this: SEA = DEATH. Of course, Peter Benchley’s great novel was just that…a story. The film took advantage of the general public’s ignorance about the actual behavior of sharks and now 36 years later the biggest complaint from most divers is that they don’t see enough sharks. I think we all know better now and most people are happy to swim or dive in the sea exercising common sense and showing a healthy respect for the environment and the species that live in it.

The first example of modern day misrepresentation that affects tourism in Egypt now results in this equally inaccurate misconception among the overseas public: ARAB COUNTRY = DANGER.

Next to me is a television. I turned it off 20 minutes ago. The news channel, with drums rolling and a punchy little tune to accompany the drama, was running a 30 second round up of ‘each Arabic country’. It was part of a program about life after the revolution in Indonesia where democracy is now in place. The first clip, showed 50 or so people running down a street with a couple of nearby dustbins and a car on fire. Across the screen in big bold letters was the name, ‘TUNISIA’. Next on the channel’s tourism-busting news clip were a large group of demonstrators, standing still, beating their chests and chanting protests in front of a big monument, ‘YEMEN’ read the country. Egypt had a slightly longer clip to accommodate some stone throwing, the hurling of a Molotov cocktail and lots of people running away from the police in Tahrir Square back in January, ‘EGYPT’. Syria got a similar treatment but most of the video was amateur mobile phone footage given the ban on journalists in that country. Each of these featured countries had, or is having, varying levels of unrest usually on a completely different scale from each other. Nonetheless, I still got the message. ARAB COUNTRIES = DANGER.

The only problem is that I was viewing the news sitting in a chair in a hotel near Suez, in the ‘Arabic’ country of Egypt. Outside and around the grounds are hundreds of guests with their families all enjoying the weather and taking it easy. They come from Cairo and also several other European countries. Like many others all around Egypt we are simply going about our business like you are in your home country.

During the last six months, and for the first time in my life, I was able to watch news of a large civil unrest while actually living in the country concerned. This is a unique experience as one gets to see if the coverage and resulting public perception is accurate or not. Normally you’d watch a report about unrest from somewhere foreign and far away and make a mental note not to go there. Country A = DANGER, and the thought get’s filed in the subconscious mind’s, self-preservation folder. Here in Egypt, the events of the revolution were very visible, transparent and easy to assess and evaluate because I live here and have knowledge of Cairo, Sharm El Sheikh and several other Egyptian cities. The level of protests in Sharm El Sheikh was almost disappointing and you’d think that after waiting 30 years for freedom they could muster more than about 25 people dancing in the street! Relatives of mine, who were holidaying in Sharm, were most disappointed that they missed the conclusion of Tahrir Square when they had to fly back to the UK two days earlier. Elsewhere, the hotels became deserted as some tour operators flew their guests back to avoid ‘all the trouble’. A week or two could be argued but it is now five months since the largely peaceful and successful demonstration yet people are still avoiding Egypt like it is being painted with the same brush as less stable regions. ARAB COUNTRY = DANGER?

Perhaps the fault of perception is our own and not the news channels…which appear to outnumber travel channels by a ratio of 20 to 1. You won’t get travel information by watching the news. Turn it off. There are certainly some countries that are obvious to avoid right now but we have to make a greater effort in making sensible evaluations about the places we’d like to visit. If you let other people do this for you then you may not always get the right picture. Some foreign office advice centres are guilty of this and a number of tour operators would have you believe that WW3 had broken out if they saw a punch-up in an all-inclusive hotel.

There is an unfortunate cycle where a tour operator has shifted its flights to other countries and potential visitors seeing that action as a meaning that Egypt is not safe. The many who want to travel here face high prices and limited flights. That cycle must now be broken as Egypt is very much open for business and well able to deliver a first class service to anyone who wants it. It is also up to Egypt and its representatives of tourism to reach their target audiences who are currently being misinformed by others.

Hollywood and the movies have also not been kind to Arabs, which regularly features them as the villains in most terrorist films. We’ll there’s no smoke without fire and while it may be that most terrorists, as described on the news channels, originate from Arabic countries, it is also true that the vast majority of Arabs are not terrorists whatever views and opinions they may maintain. The violence being played out on the streets of the affected countries recently is not the result of traditional terrorism but of civilians standing up to what they see as terrorism from oppressive regimes that are well past their sell by dates. Some of those dates have run for decades. This is a reason to celebrate not flee. There is no point in hanging around for an election either as there will be many more and the will of the people has already cast its vote and voiced their preferences very loudly back in January. The next government will remember that quite clearly and hopefully represent the will of the people a little better than the last one did.

Tourists have commented on whether it’s safe to visit Sharm El Sheikh because ousted ex-president Hosny Mubarak is detained there in the local hospital. Around the hospital car park is a ring of riot police standing, bored out of their skulls. They stand there because that is their job and Mubarak represents a past that has caused dissent among the people. Therefore the police have to prevent the location from being used as a protest area for it is still a fully functioning hospital and day centre for the Sharm El Sheikh community.

Whilst Mubarak wasn’t a Saddam Hussein or Colonel Khadaffi (but he still has to answer for his alleged crimes) his presence has now become nothing more than an interesting sideshow and bears little threat to the town. Passing tour guides on their way from the airport give the location a brief mention as they watch it from the passing coach window. Locals just beep their horns occasionally as they drive by. Two hundred meters later they’ll have forgotten all about him.

The trip we are undertaking around Egypt has astounded us, even as people who have lived here for many years, by the welcoming nature and generosity of the Egyptian people. While there is still no clear new government, you can certainly say that the cloud has been lifted and people here no longer have to live in fear of oppression. This was highly evidenced by the police and military themselves of whom we met hundreds during our trip. While foreigners may get a better deal than locals the atmosphere and approach at each checkpoint was noticeably friendlier than in previous years. It was efficient too, where necessary, which was reassuring to visitors in the key areas of attraction. Our brief stint in a police station in Damietta over a traffic incident was memorable because the police appeared to represent the people now rather than be a tool in supporting the antics of a regime.

It is important to remember that after every event, however small, is a public perception and now that the Internet has allowed anyone to reach millions we must be accurate with our reporting of those events. The travel forums are a method of swapping stories and getting information out but let’s be careful what images we convey by just single or random experiences. There is a tendency in allowing these to represent the view of the country as a whole. People have fought and died for the right to freedom of speech. With that right comes responsibility and the need for accuracy.

In March this year, half a million protesters gathered in the biggest city. It was largely peaceful but a small group of breakaways began smashing up shops, setting fire to cars and engaging the police in running battles. Many banks and high street stores were seriously damaged and several people were injured. The city was London, but that’s OK because LONDON = THE QUEEN, HYDE PARK AND I LIVE HERE SO IT’S DOESN’T MATTER WHEN A FEW PROTESTORS CAUSE TROUBLE BECAUSE WE’LL ALL BE BACK AT WORK TOMORROW AND IT’LL BE FORGOTTEN ABOUT IN A WEEK!

Further down the road, on the same day, at the London Dive Show in Docklands, I was manning a stand and having discussions with visiting scuba divers. Somebody asked me where I worked.

“Sharm El Sheikh”, I replied.

“But isn’t it really dangerous over in Egypt with all those demonstrations?”

SELECTIVE TELEVISION = IGNORANCE

...EGYPT = HOLIDAY!