Finding My Place Read online

  According to official accounts, she stepped off the train, scanned the crowd then removed the veil slowly and silently, either as a statement or because the act itself was carried out with trepidation. That’s not how I like to imagine Huda. I prefer to think of it this way. Huda descends the steps onto the platform at Cairo station. She eyes the crowd, draws her hand to her mouth and lets out a shrill whistle. Suddenly, everyone stops and turns their attention to witness Huda reach across her face, dramatically whip off her veil and cast it to the wind. They let out a collective gasp. The old men divert their eyes at the sight of Huda’s bare face, muttering curses under their breath. The young women smile from behind their masks, wary that their eyes might betray their hidden excitement. They watch the wind carry the black veil up, up into the sky like a wayward balloon, before turning their gaze back to Huda as she proclaims, ‘I will no longer don this oppressive symbol of patriarchy. Be gone. Be gone, oh shackle of tyranny. Let the wind carry you far as I lift my face to the light, for I will no longer live in the shadows. I will no longer be hidden and I will no longer stay silent.’ For a minute the crowd is still and then one by one the women in the crowd remove their veils, and Huda’s spectacular gesture is met with cheers and applause. That’s how I would have done it.

  Although the real story is not as eventful or entertaining as my dramatic retelling, Huda Sha’arawi’s actions that day sparked a trend across Egypt as women all around the country cast off their veils in solidarity and defiance. So how ironic that nearly 100 years since the day when Egyptian women cast off the face veil as a symbol of an oppressive patriarchy, women in Australia should be having a conversation about the right of Muslim women to wear a full-face veil. More on that later, but suffice it to say that the face veil has long been considered a political tool of oppression and one that many women fought hard against.

  Sha’arawi spent her life championing the rights of Egyptian and Arab women. She died in 1947, having received Egypt’s highest civilian honour but still unable to vote. She didn’t live to see Egyptian women finally granted the right to vote in 1956.

  The feminist wave that had started to wash away the stain of inequality in the big cities of Cairo and Alexandria was yet to reach those on the urban outskirts. In the 1940s many women in Minya still wore the face veil. This, combined with the fact that he himself lacked education, was why my grandfather’s determination to ensure that his daughters were all educated was so curious.

  The single photograph I have seen of my grandfather shows him looking very much like the quintessential Sa’idi male: a dark tan leathered by hours of working manually in the hot sun, a peppered moustache (but no beard), round eyes and a small nose. He wore the traditional dress that is still favoured among the Sa’idis – a long flowing robe, or galibeya, and a white turban wrapped around his head. My mother inherited many of his facial features, but most noticeably his distinctive eyes – small but piercing. I don’t have my grandfather’s eyes, nor any of the facial similarities that I see in many of my maternal cousins, nephews and nieces that characterise them undoubtedly as descendants of Mahmoud Osman.

  Mahmoud Osman, had he been alive today, would be grandfather and great-grandfather to a clan of around 100. Egyptian families were big back then. I’m talking ‘Duggar family, reality TV, nineteen kids and counting’, big. My mother is the sixth and youngest child of Mahmoud Osman’s first wife. He went on to have another two wives – not unusual for the time – and fathered twelve other children (that we know of). My mother has not met all of her half-siblings but has remained close to her full-blood siblings (four older sisters and an older brother), and the half-siblings closest to her in age. It is also not unusual for the children of different wives to hold some animosity to the subsequent wives and their children. Though polygamy is permitted in Islam and men are allowed up to four wives (why anyone would want four wives or four husbands is beyond me), the practice has never enjoyed much social acceptance in Egypt, where women whose husbands took second and third wives were often treated as cast-offs.

  The men who frequented my grandfather’s shop would counsel him on how to raise his daughters according to the social norms of the time. His brothers would tell him that their nieces did not need an education. That it was wasted on women. That all a woman needed to know was how to cook, clean and bear children. But my grandfather would not heed their words. He insisted that his daughters would all complete their school education and become qualified.

  My mother’s face always lights up when she talks about her school days. She was cheeky and loved being spoiled by her father, who often overlooked her mischief because she was the youngest child of his first wife. She loved playing tricks on people, but would often end up hiding under the bed from her uncles, who were much less tolerant of her behaviour and often took it upon themselves to hand out the discipline my grandfather didn’t have the heart for. I find it difficult to picture my mother as anything but a boisterous and rascally child. Though she is old now, I can still see that mischievous smile that must have melted her father’s heart.

  Minya has one of the highest concentrations of Coptic populations in all of Egypt, and most of her friends at the Francophone school she attended were Coptic. Ever since I was a young girl, my mother would tell me stories of growing up in a unified Egypt, where Muslims and Copts lived together harmoniously, united by national identity. Sadly, religious extremism has fuelled sectarianism, while Egyptians of my mother’s generation cling to the memories of a better time when churches and mosques were equally respected as houses of worship, when Muslims and Christians would walk down the street and greet a priest and a sheikh with equal deference.

  My mother excelled at sport, especially basketball, or so she tells me. To her dismay, her International French Baccalaureate did not qualify her to attend Cairo University and her dreams of studying sport at a higher education level were crushed.

  Unbeknownst to my mother, my grandfather was already making inquiries into her education and plans for her future. He asked about nursing school and was told that times were changing. Nursing was no longer seen as a profession for ‘loose’ women with low morals or women who had no male protector. Women in Cairo, even well-educated women from good homes, were becoming nurses and teachers. Perhaps my grandfather fancied himself as a progressive. Perhaps he just wanted the best for all his children. Perhaps having five daughters had taught him that women were created for more than just the pleasure of men.

  By the time my mother had finished her schooling, my grandfather had already enrolled her into nursing school at Qasr El Eyni – the research and teaching hospital in Cairo. Established in 1827 as a military hospital, Qasr El Eyni became the first hospital to function as a medical school in 1837 when it became affiliated to the medical faculty of Cairo University. My mother recalls the day she was told she would be spending the next three years of her life at the nursing school – away from her family and friends. She was devastated. She cried, screamed and refused to go. But my grandfather would not have it. He had already purchased her bag, uniform and the special nurse’s watch she would need on her first day. So determined was he to see his daughter qualify as a nurse that he personally drove her the 265 or so kilometres to the school.

  Arriving in Cairo, they were greeted at the gates by the sister in charge, who promptly told my grandfather that no men were allowed into the nurses’ quarters. Mahmoud Osman stiffened his back and defiantly replied, ‘I am her father. I am a Sa’idi. You know that the Sa’idis are known for our stubbornness. If you do not let me in to see where my daughter will be sleeping for the next three years, I will camp out here at the gates until you do.’

  Legend has it that my grandfather was the first (and perhaps only) male to ever be allowed into the nurses’ quarters at Qasr El Eyni hospital.

  My mother soon got used to her new life as a nursing student and came to enjoy it. She completed her three years and returned to Minya for a short while before returning to Cairo to
complete her military service as a nurse.

  According to my mother, I’m like her – not because I have inherited her love for sport (which I have not), not because I have a keen interest in the medical profession (which I don’t), and not because I have a vast collection of useless kitchen appliances (which I haven’t), but because she believes that I inherited her bad luck in love.

  Her first engagement was to a young police officer with impeccable credentials from a reputable family, who ended up breaking her heart when she discovered he was fooling around with one of her friends (what a dog!). She moved to Cairo and lived with her older sister and her husband to recover from the heartbreak. There, she became engaged to a doctor at the hospital where she worked, but he too broke her heart when he left her to marry the woman his mother had chosen for him instead (what a pussy!). Giving up on love and resigning herself to life as a spinster, my mother moved to Alexandria, where she rented a small apartment on Mostafa Kamel Street for herself and my grandmother.

  Alexandria is Egypt’s second-largest city. It lies on the Mediterranean Sea and has the character of a bustling seaside metropolis. The city’s namesake is Alexander the Great and its history is steeped in Hellenistic tradition. At one time, Alexandria was home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Once a thriving multicultural city that was considered the jewel of the Mediterranean, Alexandria was a shadow of itself after the 1952 Free Officers Revolution that saw King Farouk deposed and sweeping nationalisation under Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt. The multicultural communities of Greeks, Maltese and Jews that had built the city were replaced by waves of migrants from the Nile Delta villages. Soon they would be all but gone.

  Mum lived a quiet life in her first-floor apartment tending to her ageing mother and spending her days working at the hospital. She hired a young girl as a carer for my grandmother and took the complimentary hospital car transport to and from her shifts each day. She had made a few friends but preferred to keep to herself, wary of wagging tongues and the Egyptians’ love for gossip. She made sure that she did not bring dishonour to her family because there were always watchful eyes ready to report any faux pas to her father in Minya. She had become close to the Greek couple who lived in the apartment upstairs and took up their invitation to help them celebrate their son’s fifteenth birthday at a small gathering to be held the following afternoon.

  Mansoura, literally ‘victorious’, is the city my father hails from. It was named after the Egyptians triumphed over Louis IX of France during the Seventh Crusade. The Egyptians love to make fun of people from different regions. Those from Upper Egypt are laughed at for being simpletons. The people of Munufeya are ridiculed for being stingy, and the Mansourians are mocked for bearing a striking resemblance to the French.

  The youngest of nine children, my father finished his Bachelor of Applied Arts in Textile Weaving and Printing in 1957. He worked as a teacher for a couple of years before moving to Alexandria to work at Misr Beida Dyers as an engineer in their finishing factory in 1961. He was an artist at heart. While he managed to pass his physics, maths and chemistry classes, he excelled at design and drawing. He also loved photography and our family albums are bursting with old black-and-white baby photos, mostly of my sister, taken and processed by my father in his own dark room. I may not have inherited my mother’s professed sporting talents, but I certainly inherited my father’s love of the arts.

  Dad’s life in Alexandria was a far cry from my mother’s quiet life with her mother. As a male, he was afforded many more freedoms and would not have had to concern himself too much with rumours or gossip or threats to his good reputation. He took a share house in Alexandria with two of his friends – both artists. He had at one time or another, aspirations of becoming an actor or a famous artist and even formed an acting troupe while at university.

  He met my mother’s Greek neighbour while working on the finishing floor of Misr Beida Dyers. The Greek neighbour also invited my father to his son’s birthday celebrations the following afternoon.

  My parents were married on 2 May 1964, soon after their meeting at the Greek teenager’s birthday party. Their courtship and marriage followed the custom of the time: boy sees girl at a function; boy inquires about girl and her family; boy expresses an interest in girl to his parents; boy’s parents inquire about girl’s family; boy’s parents contact girl’s parents; girl’s parents inquire about boy’s family; boy’s parents and girl’s parents meet at girl’s parents’ house; all parents agree on terms while boy and girl stare at each other across a crowded room (this is where it gets romantic); boy and girl get married. That’s it. No stolen kisses, no ‘wherefor art thou’ and no drama.

  In December 1965, Mahmoud Fawzi Hosseini Ali el Serougi and Hamida Mahmoud Osman had a baby girl. They named her Rhonda. She was not their first child. My mother had lost a baby in her third trimester. It was a boy.

  Nine months after my sister was born, my mother fell pregnant again and gave birth to a second daughter named Azza. It was the spring of 1967.

  3

  Journey to Australia

  When Mahmoud Fawzi Hosseini Ali el Serougi and Hamida Mahmoud Osman first thought about emigrating from Egypt, Australia was not part of their long-term plan. They did their homework, asked around and explored their options. Eventually, they settled on Canada, where my father would likely find work as a textiles engineer. Then they heard that Australia was taking in a quota of Egyptian migrants. They didn’t know much about Australia, only that it was so far away, but they decided to give it a shot and applied for immigration.

  It was early April when they heard back from the Australian Embassy and were summoned for an interview in the Cairo office. My mother dressed my sister and me up in our very best dresses. She brushed our hair and put ribbons in it, washed our little faces and our hands. Such care was taken to ensure that we were presentable enough to be deemed suitable for migration to a brand-new country so, so far away.

  Mahmoud and Hamida also took special care with their own appearances. Dad wore his best suit and tie and Mum her favourite skirt and heels. They took the train from Alexandria to Cairo, giving themselves at least four hours to make sure that they arrived at their appointment in plenty of time. They waited patiently in the reception area before being ushered into a room where the Australian Embassy official stood from behind his desk to greet them. They answered all the questions they were asked to the best of their knowledge. They smiled politely, shook hands, sat attentively and nodded appropriately.

  Every family has a golden child. The one who is quiet, sleeps through the night, toilet trains early, obeys every command and who attracts the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of strangers in shopping centres. I was not that child. That was my sister. I was restless, boisterous, disobedient and noisy (apparently). My sister was cherubic and I was devilish. The black-and-white photos of us at similar ages show two very different personalities. My sister sitting or standing with pretty bows in her neat hair and smiling sweetly at the camera. Me arguing with the space around me, spindly arms and legs flaying about, stained clothes and messy curls.

  So it should be no surprise that despite my parents’ best efforts to make me look presentable to the Australian Embassy official that day, my behaviour during the interview was so bad that it threatened the success of their application. Apparently, I was so misbehaved during the entire interview that the official had to pause several times to stop me from throwing things, claw me off his leg or wait for me to stop screaming as I tried to wriggle free from my mother’s grasp.

  As my parents walked out of the Australian Embassy that day, my mother could not hold back her tears. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that her second daughter’s lack of manners would be taken as a bad reflection of her own parenting.

  Seeing my mother crying, Dad asked what had upset her so much. ‘Didn’t you see,’ she said, ‘how misbehaved she was. Australia won’t accept us for migration after that.’ My father was much more optimistic. ‘Oh
no,’ he replied, ‘I looked it up. Australia is a country that was settled by convicts and criminals. She’ll fit right in.’

  On 28 April 1969, my father tendered his resignation at Misr Beida Dyers. The reason he gave was ‘immigration to Australia’.

  We arrived at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre, in Albury-Wodonga, on 9 June 1969. I have no memory of that time having only just turned two, but I have often thought about what it must have been like for my parents in those first few months. As new arrivals, my parents would have been processed, given basic instructions in English and allocated jobs for their new life. Back then we were known as ‘aliens’ (not to be confused with the aliens that built the pyramids).

  While Australia’s Immigration Restriction Act 1901, notoriously known as the White Australia policy was on its way out in 1969, when my parents arrived under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme, they would have landed in an Australia that was still governed by people who very much believed in many of the discriminatory aspects of its immigration policy. Menzies had tolerated the formal abolition of the White Australia policy in the early 1960s, and his successor, Harold Holt, oversaw more sweeping reforms in 1966 to allow more non-European migrants and remove some of the discriminatory restrictions around citizenship. These reforms, though important, did not go far enough in redressing the substantive inequalities that remained in our immigration policies.

  It was the Whitlam Government (the first Labor Government elected since 1948) that oversaw the removal of the final remnants of the White Australia policy in 1972, by passing the Citizenship Act, which allowed all immigrants, regardless of origin, to qualify for citizenship after three years in Australia.