La Hacienda, south of Ras Sudr on Sinai’s east coast is a different feel from the little bamboo huts and luxury hotels that line the Gulf of Aqaba. The Suez side is wider, surrounded by low desert plains that assure cool strong winds along its shores. As much as the lines of resorts on the other side of the peninsula are developed with foreign tourists in mind, this side is meant for Egyptians. On Friday, the beach was full of Cairo’s nouveau riches, talking above loud disco music, testing their new camera phones and enjoying the easy getaway from Cairo’s heat and smog. Of course only a certain class of society can enjoy this luxury… a class seemingly detaching itself further and further from its heritage and fellow countrymen.
La Hacienda is not much different from the gated communities I used to deliver patio furniture to in Southern California and one would be hard pressed to actually recognize anything Egyptian about the place. In Orange County, wealthy pockets of society fleeing their community’s problems in L.A. for larger villas and “security” live totally detached from the realities of their society at large, their view of the world clouded by the inevitably agenda driven reports and commercials beamed into their life by cable television. Sadly there is little sense of community in these enclosures as rows of houses, one 6 bedroom dwelling no different from the one across the street, make up an illusionary town, free from markets, restaurants, services and the less privileged employees that would staff them. Landscapers are usually the only permanent manual laborers around; all others are transient… as I was during my two hour deliveries. That this negative social phenomenon is being exported to Egypt and beyond saddens me.
La Hacienda is beautiful. Palm trees swaying in the wind, manicured lawns, a pool near the shoreline and tiki umbrellas on the beach make for a picture perfect resort, but with what consequence? As long as one stays within the delimited confines of the resort, the world is a beautiful place. But just a short walk up the beach is sadly revealing of the real impact such development has on its surroundings. Plastic bags, cans, bottles and wet cardboard are awash on the sand. A desalinization pump scars the shoreline to provide water for taps and toilets… in a desert. A dead fish eerily adds to the scene. Blocks of grey cement buildings foreshadow more destruction. Why are we creating artificial paradises, only to destroy the natural one around us? Does no one see this as strange? I know I’m critical but I also fully realize that I am a part of the problem. I was there for two days, and enjoyed my time thoroughly, but my presence was a small part of the demand for such resorts in the first place. So what needs to change? I do. You do. We do.
Our own collective self-interest is pulling the strings today and leading to many of the problems we blame on politicians and forces “beyond our control”. Our interests and desires are created by corporations and the marketing machines behind them telling us what we want and need. The high praise we give to the efficiencies of our system could our thinking and we barely realize what is actually happening. For example, I am preconditioned to see pools, manicured lawns and tiki umbrellas as desirable because magazines, movies, television shows and other people’s acceptance of this artificial beauty have shaped my views of it. But do we ever stop to look at the costs of these contrived desires? Resorts and the construction companies that have an interest in building them are but one example. We could apply this problem to shoes, shampoo, flat screens, phones, SUVs… Living in Egypt for over a year now and witnessing the changes taking place here as people begin to conform to the economic model championed by corporations, I’ve come to resent the export of our system. The cold war was “won” and carte blanche given to the capitalist model to shape the world as it saw fit. The result is constant conflict and destruction in order to secure an ever cushier standard of living we have come to see as an alienable right, the pursuit of happiness. The wars now waged are meant to assure that all 7 billion of us seek this pursuit… happiness as defined by those that can convince you of its meaning while looking over at their balance sheets. We are being exploited, being programmed and conditioned to want things we don’t really need, but that we’ve been told we do. In the process we are destroying our beautiful world and creating a bland, uniform society. Let’s realize this and then change!
