During the Christmas holidays we traveled to Egypt, visiting Cairo, Luxor, and Sharm el Sheikh.  The fabulous, overcrowded Egyptian museum in Cairo is packed with magnificent statues and objects from the Phaironic period (2500 B.C. - 300 B.C).  We then visited the ancient capital of Memphis and the pyramids at Giza.   After Cairo we visited Luxor, and then Sharm el Sheik on the Red Sea.

Christmas is a high point of the Egyptian tourist season, but we saw virtually no other Americans.  Amidst many Europeans and Asians, this made me wonder whether the political mood and behaviour inside the U.S. will lead not only to political isolationism  but also greatly diminished civilian tourism.  The War on Terrorism cannot be domestically justified, it seems, without constant reiterations of the terror risks in the muslim countries, Europe, and Asia (as victims or initiators)- a pretty broad swatch of the world!  If Americans withdraw to the "Fatherland", how can we understand other cultures and whether, or how, our values can intersect with theirs?

As for us, we found the Egyptian people to be strongly polite and friendly.   Poverty is very visible and all infrastructure is poor, but there was more visible tolerance of the Coptic (Christian) minority than we expected, and no visible intolerance of westerners.  We had no understanding of the founding nature of the ancient and modern state - that is, it was based from 3000 years ago on the integration of two separate peoples (northern mediterranean and southern african), and thus the culture and state mechanisms all understand diversity (while grappling with the endless difficulties, of course).  As a simple example, there were, from 2500BC onward (mostly) two capital cities, one in Memphis (near Cairo, in the "north"), and one in Luxor ("south"), so the rulers could recognize the two ethnicities.