Aswan, Synagogue, Heaven the dog and other things!

by Mohammed Adel El Safty (Egypt)

A leap into the unknown Egypt

Aswan, Synagogue, Heaven the dog & other things! is a character-driven true story of a girl who works as a journalist. Originally from Aswan in Upper Egypt, she does not like this city which is praised by many others. She is telling us the reasons why she doesn’t like the city and experienced she passes through because of her work as a journalist. The main character is a journalist born in Nubia which is a village near Aswan, on the edge of the West Bank of the Nile in southern Egypt. She left with her mother to Cairo while she was a kid as her mother was left divorced for giving birth for a girl instead of a boy and other reasons. Not only she was obliged and her mother to leave the city but also, our protagonist was subdued to tribal customs in Aswan before moving to Cairo including genital mutilation. It is not only a journey from Aswan to Cairo, but also a personal journey to become a journalist - along which she encounters many issues such as conservatism and cultural intolerance. In this respect, she also dialogues with Magda Shehata Haroun, the president of Egypt's Jewish community. In a rare if not unique moment, we film inside the Jewish temple and its library in Cairo. High security measures surround the temple, shooting is usually forbidden, as Egypt and Israel keep on fighting over the temple. Magda Shehata Haroun, the daughter of - Shehata Haroun – the famous Egyptian Jewish lawyer, who refused to emigrate outside Egypt, claiming Cairo was his precious rock that he would not give up for pearls. Heaven the Dog, the English mastiff dog who appears in the movie from now and then in a silent story. Heaven were found by Dr. Tarek Abdel Azim the veterinarian who suddenly found the abandoned dog entering his big house. Dr. Tarek is interested in animal and wild life in general, he was surprised how such an expensive dog left abandoned, they named him Heaven as he came as gift from God. An expensive, unique type and pure mastiff dog left abandoned, ignored and neglected the same as the unique buildings he used to see in Port Said, the city which is ignored for no reason but only for being one of the Canal cities. Like many things in Egypt, you don’t need a reason to be ignored, you only need to be unique or different. Magda Haroun Starts her talking telling how small the Jewish community in Egypt is (no official numbers are declared) and how the Jewish community and heritage can be a source of great income to the Egyptian state. She also mentioned how hard she tried to communicate with the ministry of culture and ministry of antiques in Egypt to make use of the Jewish heritage in Egypt by restoring the Jewish heritage sites in Egypt. She also said that she was told many times that the Egyptian state is giving attention to the Jewish heritage in Egypt and they promised here many times that they will allocate some funds to restore Jewish sites, but this never happened. Magda Haroun talked about her personal experience and what happened to her sister cemetery. The dialogue was running under security surveillance which makes the journalist end it and to be continued in another day. While our protagonist was on a train trip to Port Said to finalize a report, she was requested to write about the city as Port Said is facing a gross negligence from the state side and they want to put some light on the city and attract more attention toward it, she started to think about Aswan and Nubia and how she feels towards Aswan. She hates Aswan; however, many people are fascinated with the city and how peaceful it is, but she knows the truth and how brutal is this city. She saw herself and her mother’s life in every part of this country like the synagogue, ignored and needs caring, like Heaven abandoned and wounded and like Port Said neglected for no reason.