Keep Egypt Beautiful

Is there a link between democracy and litter?

Trashing the Pyramids

We took some visiting American friends to the Giza plateau to see the Great Pyramids of Egypt last weekend. Even after 25 years of visiting or living in Cairo, this is a huge thrill every time. The pyramids of the ancient pharaohs are truly one of the wonders of our world.

Somewhat to my amazement, there was a field of trash at the foot of one of the prime viewing stations. It's somewhat more dismaying in person than it looks in my photo. This is the breathtaking vista where most tourists go to snap treasured photos of themselves with the majestic pyramids of Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus all in the background. The trash heap flows down a sand dune and is thus thankfully out of view in the tourist photos. But the unsightly mess is there, all the same.

Why?

I said that I was somewhat amazed. I am not really shocked because I well know that Egypt has a problem with public litter. Things have improved over the years, yet almost everywhere you go, and it is worse in some places compared to others, there are empty soda cans, discarded packaging, rotting food and other assorted items of garbage strewn along the way. Even the staircases of some of Cairo's most elegant apartment buildings are often filthy with cigarette butts and other trash. Foreign tourists have no doubt contributed to the litter at the pyramids, but Egyptians as a whole are clearly making an insufficient effort to keep their country beautiful.

I tend to agree with the theory of some local friends that a lack of national pride and spirit have something to do with the lazy attitude toward litter. This, they believe, is related to the lack of democracy in Egypt. "People get nothing out of the government, so they feel that everything outside of their personal space is not their problem," one of them explains.

Of course, this is no excuse. People should take pride in their country and pay attention to the environment whatever kind of government they have. Nor does the theory fully explain the eyesore at the Great Pyramids, since the government itself, rather than the Egyptian citizen, is the authority there. True, the government has cleaned up the pyramids area to a great extent over the years. Unlike in the past, the plateau is fenced off and you actually have to buy a ticket costing about $10 and go through a metal detector to go inside the perimeter. Only incompetence can explain why then the government would allow a trash field to remain at one of the greatest places of antiquity, one of our modern age's most famous tourist sites.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo