Glocks on a Plane
“Please stow all lethal weapons in the overhead compartments before take-off…”
Recently, I went to the Cairo International Airport to pick up my roommate upon her return from the States. The affair was run-of-the-mill in most ways. I caught a cab, asked him to wait for us, and so on. While waiting for her in the corrals meant to keep predatory cabbies and others away from the actual exit doors of passport control in the arrivals hall, I noticed a young man pick his little brother up and perch him on one of the rungs of the corral railing. When he did this, the kid lost his balance a little and, in an attempt to correct, put his arms out wide. In his right hand was a convincing toy pistol.
My jaw must have dropped off my head, because the older brother snatched the gun and jammed it into his jacket, giving me a sheepish smile and shrugging laugh. I laughed out loud. I actually had to walk away so as not to raw attention to the situation any further.
This is just a symptom of something that I have noticed with increasing frequency here. People seem to have no fear of guns—even when they are inappropriately located, or being used inappropriately.
When living in Alexandria, I noticed this phenomenon not a few times. There was one afternoon where I hit the dirt on the sidewalk of the busiest street in the city because I saw a youngish kid in the back seat of a car taking aim out of the window with his toy Glock. Where I come from, you duck when something like that happens. Not in Alexandria though! Everyone else on the street looked at me as though I was having a seizure—unconcerned, but mystified by my sudden change in vertical/horizontal orientation—and continued on their path, unfazed. One woman actually stepped on my jacket and called me humar.
This was very disturbing, to say the least.
Another afternoon in Alexandria, I saw a group of three teenagers near my apartment holding up passing cabs with their toy—I assume—rifle. The cabbies would look momentarily startled, and then laugh riotously along with the kids. In the States, you would be arrested and held as an enemy combatant for five years without charges in an unnamed, secret detention facility: or at least you would be snatched up and roughed up a bit by the local cops. No such response here.
As I continued to wait, now on the other side of the corral, for my roommate’s tardy plane, the kid waved at me with his free hand, revolver dangling in the other. No airport authorities swarmed around, no police. Not even a second glance from anyone. Nada.
Meanwhile, poor bastards all over American airports are being cavity searched for tubes of toothpaste and fingernail clippers, as they not only pose a threat to individual airplanes, but to national security as well. I suppose that this is yet another indicator that though globalization is changing everything everywhere, differences are still glaring.
Welcome to the new world. Please check your nail-clippers at the door and be sure to keep your guns concealed from view.
1
One of the very few laws that are strictly observed in Egypt is that you cannot carry, own, or think of owning a weapon. Having a penknife in public could mean six months in jail. A bishla (a piece of a razor blade hidden in the hair or mouth) is also considered a weapon. The only people with weapons arethe police, and in most cases their weapons are not loaded. Losing a weapon is the most serious offense in the military and the police; it has to be restored at any price (torture inlcuded). The result is a low violent crime rate and a people that always assumes that a weapon is a toy.
Where is the Egyptian NRA? Go figure
2
Oh, I forgot. next time you go to an Egyptian airport, look for the sign that says “joking about weapons and terrorist acitivities is a felony”.