#Perspectiveisafinething

It is often steeped and stewed in colonialism (which of course is inextricable from patriarchy). Up until last year I didn’t really understand the term post-colonialism. Why are we a ‘post’-colonial society when it’s obvious that despite the denial that too often comes with privilege that colonialism is still here and flourishing? Why, when everything is still infused with the Otherisation (look I’m even giving it a capital ‘O’ – not sure what I mean by that) that underlies colonialisation?

When I ‘lived’ (under the limits of covid social restrictions) in Kenya for almost a year I realised that despite not being fluent in Kiswahili, or any other local language, there was so much I understood about the society because growing up in Anglophone post-colonial Trinidad meant I learned enough of the semiotics of colonialism. It’s taken me hours of working with my amazing semiotics consultant friend Juanita who works with me on my films and basically tells me what the film I have made is communicating (which too often is not what I actually intend for it to communicate- I’m getting better at it) to start getting to grips with what semiotics actually is. It’s texture. It’s manifestation. It’s the meaning that is infused into, our actions, our way of thinking, our understanding of the world we live in. It is at once invisible and very, very visible. While in the desert filming, young Cairo girls were preparing a scene. They had their hands on their hips akimbo and a non-Egyptian was playfully teasing them about their stance with a view to changing it for the scene, “You don’t put your hands on your hips when you’re having breakfast, do you? People don’t do that.” I smiled, as we Caribbean people do it all the time – stirring the pot, out liming, when we vex and yes at breakfast too. Here I was, on the edge of the Sahara desert and these Egyptian girls’ body language was the same as girls, almost a whole Continent and an Ocean away, in Trinidad.

Some days, I call myself a social ecologist (quite what that is I’m not sure but, I stole it from a friend who really is one. I do have a piece of paper that says I’m trained as an Ecologist but that’s a different thing – I think - although it shouldn’t be). I’ve travelled and lived in countries around the world and I have delusions that I am an anthropologist/geographer. It often makes me smile when I remember that people all over the world are the same although their culture might be quite different.

I also, have an ego which comes with it’s pros and cons and I’m generally not into forgiveness. I come to understand and accept people for who they are (it may take a while). People rarely ‘do something to you’ they are just being themselves so there’s nothing to forgive. So, when, one day in Siwa, I heard someone with the privilege (I am making some assumptions here which may change after living here over a longer period) of maleness, urbanness, education, being a native speaker of Arabic, light skin (I have been told by many-all light skinned- Egyptians that racial discrimination is not a thing here so I’m curious to find out from the brown and black ones whether that is the case - of course the Sudanese are exceptions) and with access to resources say, “Nicola, you don’t understand these people…”. I had to hold it back. I really bit my tongue. Maybe I had got it all wrong. Maybe it was possible that the social fabric of Egypt and in particular this isolated dot that is Siwa whose residents’ native language is Amazigh somehow managed to escape the violence of Otherisation that is colonialism and were in reality Other and not just perceived as such.

Another man, who I’m really quite fond of, and who also shares the type of privileges held by the profile I described above said that ultimately all Siwans want from you is money. That had not been my experience. In fact, my experience had been quite the opposite. So much so, that I had become embarrassed about just, ‘take, take, taking’ (reference to a joke, funny at the time, by the film’s Director of Photography about ‘give, give, giving’). I don’t know if this unfettered Siwan hospitality is because there’s a strong sense of community here as a result of centuries of isolation. I wonder whether culturally, men can’t say no to women and they have to strive to meet our every ‘demand’ – obvs gonna end in disaster. Or whether, it’s simply grooming for the day when you need something, which one could argue is what being part of a community is about – supporting each other and weathering the storms. Watch this space!

I am learning that time reveals all and that acting with integrity is easier than I thought as well as harder.

Ah! 12:30. The muezens are calling people to prayer over the sound of the donkey heehawing next door.