Making Urban Spaces
Unlike Magdy's spacious apartment, Hisham's unit consists of only a small bedroom, a tiny living space, and a small kitchen and bathroom. Despite differences in the size, shape, organization of space, and the expected furniture, both apartments are part of a large set of strategies that are transforming the housing project and the neighborhood. Along with religious identity, discussed in the previous chapter, these housing additions are techniques that facilitate the inclusion of the relocated group in the neighborhood and inscribe their presence on Cairo's “face.” Unlike the state's discourse, which presented them as unproductive, pathological, isolated fragments of the nation, these changes present Hisham and his neighbors as active agents who creatively participate in the making of their neighborhood and Cairo at large. These additions join the many changes introduced to individual housing units and shared spaces, discussed in previous chapters, that are shaping el-masaakin and al-Zawiya. Although these additions aim to satisfy some direct needs for
BUILDING HOUSES, BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
Just as Magdy's unit brings his family, in-laws, and friends together, the changes he is introducing demand coordination and cooperation between neighbors. As previously said, neighbors cooperate to secure the money for the foundation and to collect money to pay offofficials. They also gather information about new policies and laws and prepare to defend the additions if threatened by the local police. While the government's interference in changes introduced to the interior of the housing unit has relaxed and almost disappeared over the years, external changes, especially large additions such as those introduced by Hisham and his neighbors, continue to be the targets of the state gaze and its disciplinary regulation. There is the strong possibility that additions will be demolished or that the owners will be fined and/or imprisoned. So people try to monitor government actions and regulations to determine which changes are tolerated. Other housing projects in various areas provide models for changes as well as indicators about how the state is going to react to these changes. People in al-Zawiya have a good sense of which changes are tolerated and know that the state can and did demolish some constructions, particularly roof additions and those introduced by individual families. Adding rooms to the top floor, which is seen as threatening to the structure of the building, is expected to be severely punished, and people refer to cases when such additions were removed. Neighbors are unwilling to support or allow such changes, which may threaten the safety of the whole building.
People know that the critical time is during the construction process itself, which should be completed as quickly as possible because at that time it is easy for government officials to demolish the additions. In some cases, the workers may simply disappear when they notice the presence of government officials and act as if no construction is being conducted. Sometimes the additions are quickly painted with a color that is similar to the rest of the units to give the impression that they are part of the original
Hisham and his neighbors are also careful not to antagonize any officials and police officers who tour the area. I heard of only one incident when additions were destroyed. The reason, as explained by one of my female informants, was that the young male “owner” reacted strongly when a police officer commented on the “illegal” status of his additions. They exchanged verbal insults, which made the officer very angry. He left the scene to come back shortly with a bulldozer, and the partially constructed addition was demolished on the spot. When pleading, bribery, and mediation do not work, women and children become the main agents in protecting the additions and changes introduced to the units. I was told about an incident when government officials tried to demolish a newly constructed balcony. The mother and her children stood in the balcony and challenged the workers to tear it down. The neighboring women also gathered and shouted at the workers, who had to leave without being able to touch the balcony.
Men and women also follow developments in legislation (such as the military decree issued by the prime minister in 1996 that aimed to prohibit any construction on public land) and changes in the governance of the city (such as the appointment of a new governor of Cairo) that may affect their constructions. A new governor, for example, “tries to act tough,” one seller says. For some months after his initial appointment, people are extra careful in building on and using public space. Sahar, for instance, stopped using video games in her small shop for a while after the assignment of Cairo's new governor. She said that all merchants were afraid of the visible increase in the number of policemen touring the area, who might penalize the traders and confiscate their belongings. These additions, therefore, demand and produce a continuous flow of information between neighbors and between al-Zawiya and other neighborhoods. They also foster cooperation and strengthen a sense of solidarity (at least temporarily) between residents of the housing project.[5]
REMAKING ‘EL-MASAAKIN’
One of the di Y cult visual problems of project salvage will be to make these places look lively and urban enough; they have so much grimness and visual repetition to overcome.
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
In addition to their role in bringing neighbors and family members together, the cumulative impact of these changes goes beyond the individual units and the shared spaces and extends to reshape al-Zawiya and Cairo at large. To take one example that shows the larger effect of such changes, we need only to look at how they have been rupturing the visual homogeneity of el-masaakin. As previously mentioned, the buildings were identical in shape, color, number of floors, external design, and internal arrangement of space. The uniformity of blocks and standardization of individual units, which have long been associated by planners and policy makers with order and beauty, clearly define el-masaakin and separate them physically from el-ahali. The monotony and repetition of the same blocks and murabba‘at not only was aesthetically dull but also caused many “to lose their way” when they first moved to the area. As in projects in other parts of the world, “what seems like rationality and legibility” to policy makers and planners “seems like mystifying disorder for the ordinary residents who must navigate the city” (Scott 1998: 127). One young woman described how shocked she was when she came out from the bedroom to find their living room filled with strange men who thought they were in the apartment of one of their relatives. While officials and planners often consider the new changes to be disorderly and chaotic, at the community level, they are important “visual interruptions” (Jacobs 1961: 380) that introduce vitality and diversity to the housing project. Hisham's new apartment, the metal and cement balconies of other neighbors, carts and glass-fronted cabinets, shacks on rooftops or in front of blocks, housing units turned into clinics, stores, and workshops, and gardens in public spaces are all transforming the homogenous project, crossing the boundaries between private and public and between residency and work, as discussed in chapters 2 and 4. The visual effects of these alterations go beyond the individual unit and the satisfaction of important daily needs.
Like many other modernist plans, the housing project was designed as a bounded entity separated physically from the rest of the neighborhood (for a similar case from Brazil, see Holston 1989). As we have seen in the
THE MAKING OF AL-ZAWIYA
Such changes also play a central role in expressing how Hisham and his neighbors belong to al-Zawiya and in legitimizing their presence in Cairo. This is clearly manifested in the way people construct the history of the neighborhood. The presence of multiple groups who came from different parts of Egypt and Cairo and at different times, and who live in different parts of the area, makes it hard to talk about a single history of al-Zawiya. Various histories are told: a man tells the history of his migration from his village to Cairo, a woman narrates her movement from Bab al-Sha‘riya to al-Zawiya when she was a teenager, and her neighbor tells how she moved from the center of Cairo to the old public housing project and then to el-ahali after she got married. Despite these differences, both the old and the new residents emphasize the way their presence altered the area and was central to the construction of the neighborhood.
Al-Zawiya al-Hamra literally means “the Red Corner.” In the old days, many explain, there was a small red mosque, usually referred to as Zawiya.[6] Even though the mosque does not exist any more, al-Zawiya al-Hamra still bears that name. Others link the red color with the red brick houses that dominated the neighborhood until recently. Generally, people use al-Zawiya only to refer to the area and rarely use al-Hamra. This usage of the word al-Zawiya (the corner or the small mosque) is not accidental. Rather it signifies a general feeling among people, especially the youth, that their neighborhood is marginal in the city or, as one young man said, “is not on the map.” They feel that the state neglects their neighborhood
Although neither the old nor the new inhabitants can claim to have given al-Zawiya its name, they compete to claim a more central role in its formation. They all refer to a “moment of colonization” that is common to the production of localities in various contexts (Appadurai 1996: 183). Residents of el-ahali who came in the 1940s, residents who moved to the old housing in the 1960s, and those who moved to the new housing project during the late 1970s and early 1980s all have similar narratives. “When we came to al-Zawiya, it was agricultural fields and the water of a nearby tir‘a [irrigation or discharge canal] covered most of what you currently see as streets, houses, and shops. People used to fear leaving their homes after dark because wild animals and criminals threatened their safety.” Such statements are very common among the relocated and the old residents in describing their contribution to the development of the neighborhood. In addition to wild and dangerous animals, usually signified by the wolf (diib), people emphasize the fear that was cultivated by robbers (qutta ‘a turuq) and fugitives (matarid) who used to hide in the thick plantation that covered the area and who used to steal the belongings of the residents. Not only did the residents inhabit a risky area, but they also cleaned and constructed it. Houses, shops, and mosques are all signs of their positive contribution to the making of al-Zawiya.
To underline the sacrifices and the role they played, the relocated people describe how house owners in Bulaq tried to discourage their tenants from moving by emphasizing the importance of the central location of Bulaq and describing the isolation and the horrible conditions in al-Zawiya. “They used to tell us that there were huge mosquitoes and dangerous animals in al-Zawiya,” one woman explains. “They told us that we would not be able to go outside to buy even our daily foods. When we moved, we brought lots of food with us. We brought rice, macaroni, sugar, tea, and many other foods because we believed that we would not be able to leave our apartments after dark.” These sacrifices are drawn upon to emphasize the role of the relocated population in constructing al-Zawiya. Commenting on the relationships between el-ahali and el masaakin residents, a fifty-five-year-old woman said: “It is like Ahli and Zamalek [the two teams who usually compete over the annual soccer championship in Egypt]. They are both Egyptians but do not want to be defeated by the other team. When we first arrived, the people in el-ahali