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Special Feature

Creating Spaces for Culture: Self-Efforts and the Production of Marginality in Cairo’s Culture Palaces

Créer des espaces pour la culture : efforts personnels et production de marginalité dans les Palais de la culture du Caire
خلق مساحات للثقافة: الجهود الذاتية وإنتاج الهامشية في قصور الثقافة بالقاهرة
Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė
p. 163-182

Résumés

À l'aide d’une ethnographie et des données statistiques disponibles, cet article explore les formes de vie sociale et littéraire dans les centres culturels du Caire financés par l'État. En se basant sur la fréquente représentation médiatique de l'infrastructure culturelle publique égyptienne comme en état de ruine, l’article se demande dans quelle mesure les Palais de la Culture du Caire peuvent être considérés comme des « ruines de l'État-providence » et, si tel est le cas, quels types de vie ils peuvent faciliter. Cet article suggère que la notion de ruine est relative aux efforts individuels et collectifs (guhûd zâtiyya) dans les communautés locales, produits pour maintenir en vie ces Palais de la Culture. L'article argumente que ces « ruines », une fois réparées par les efforts de la communauté, ont le potentiel de produire d'autres formes de vie et de générer des rêves de mobilité sociale. En utilisant l'exemple des habitants du quartier d'al-Warraq qui ont réaffecté le Palais de la Culture de Rawd al-Farag aux besoins culturels de leur communauté, l’article montre que des vies culturelles sont possibles et produites en marge des paysages urbains contemporains du Caire, en particulier au sein d’infrastructures culturelles étatiques au bord de la décrépitude. Grâce au guhûd zâtiyya, les centres culturels soutenus par l'État peuvent être transformés en espaces marginaux mais productifs où les gens réinventent leur vie autour de la littérature et entretiennent des rêves qui, paradoxalement, portent en eux la promesse d'une sortie de la marginalité sociale.

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  • 1 The names used in this paper are all pseudonyms.
  • 2 Fieldwork notes, December 2021.
  • 3 The island of al-Warraq, which is part of a larger neighborhood bearing the same name, gained media (...)

1One late evening in December 2021, I visited the Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace in Shubra, one of Cairo’s historical neighborhoods. Only the main room was lit in the two-story red brick neo-Gothic structure. After walking past a security guard, I entered a long corridor and proceeded into the main room. The massive doors opened into a large space with high ceilings and tall walls adorned with large reproductions of Eugene Delacroix’s (1798-1863) lithographs of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Scattered on the ground were parts of a drum kit, used paper teacups, and fragments of broken chairs. The room was nearly empty, save for a few children who had come for a poetry recitation rehearsal that evening. Seated in front of Ustâz Samir1 — a colloquial poet and active member of Cairo’s literary community — the children patiently repeated lines of poetry until their teacher dismissed them, satisfied. They continued their recitations, while Ustâz Samir corrected their pronunciation, the pacing of the poem, and adjusted their emotional expression to match the content of the verses. Seated further away, their mothers followed with encouraging nods, prompting the lines when the kids stumbled. Clearly, they had been practicing at home beforehand. “Do you see these talents?” Ustâz Samir asked proudly.2 Later, I learned that Ustâz Samir, the children, and their parents attending the rehearsal were from al-Warraq, a low-income neighborhood situated on the opposite riverbank from Shubra.3 Classified as informal, al-Warraq does not have its own state-sponsored cultural center. Hence, its residents convene at the culture palace of Shubra, which, on that evening, served as the venue for the final round of rehearsals before the children’s performance in a literary event.

  • 4 Opened in 1947, the market of Rawd al-Farag served as a central provider of vegetables and fruits f (...)

2The Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace, open since 1996, is housed in a building originally designed for Cairo’s vegetable market before the market’s relocation away from the city center.4 A plaque on the building says it was inaugurated by Faruq Hosny (1938-), the energetic Minister of Culture from 1987 to 2011, who has expanded the network of state-sponsored culture palaces, houses, and libraries inherited from the early reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970). However, in December 2021, the palace seemed neglected. People who remembered its golden days in the 1990s complained that the place hadn’t been renovated, nor properly cleaned since it was opened. Moreover, it suffered from a lack of basic maintenance, with constantly failing plumbing infrastructure, an absence of a cleaning service, and broken chairs and doors.

  • 5 Al-Sisi’s new urban agenda has been the defining feature of his presidency (Naceur 2022).
  • 6 The website Egy-map.com lists 75 cultural establishments that either opened or still under renovati (...)

3In the winter of 2021, the palace was to be refurbished as part of the new urban agenda that came to define the presidency of Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi.5 Discussions about upgrading Egypt’s culture palaces had been ongoing since at least 2016, framed in the press and government speeches as a means to counter post-revolutionary “radicalism.” With the appointment of Inas Abdel Dayem (1962-) as the new Minister of Culture in 2018, the Culture Palaces Development Plan — as it came to be known — took concrete steps. Aligned with other national initiatives such as “Decent Life,” “The New Republic,” and “Egypt Vision 2030,” the plan included enhancing the competence of the administrative staff of the General Organization of Culture Palaces (GOCP) (Al-Hay’a al-‘âmma li-Qusûr al-Thaqâfa), launching nationwide training campaigns for the youth, equipping cultural centers with new cinema technologies, renovating existing cultural centers, and constructing new ones, especially in border areas (Muhammad 2021). More than 45 cultural centers were built or renovated between 2017 and 2020 (Jamîl 2020).6 While it’s too early to determine whether this renewed attention to cultural centers is based on a new cultural strategy from the state, it is clear that the entire landscape of state-sponsored cultural institutions is shifting. New establishments are being constructed, while old ones are either closed for renovation, or left to deteriorate gradually.

4This article explores the forms of social and literary life that took and, in some cases, continue to take place in Cairo’s state-sponsored cultural centers before they were affected by the current wave of reconstructions. In line with the theme of this special issue, the article examines culture palaces as an example of the ruins of the welfare state, exploring how these ruins are produced and what forms of life they enable. It argues that the ruination of culture palaces occurs in the absence of individual and communal efforts by their users to make the places attractive to visitors, draw in crowds, activate state bureaucracy, and channel state resources into the maintenance of the buildings. Instead, members of local communities, such as culture activists and literature lovers, invest their proper resources, including time, finances, social connections, and more, referred as guhûd zâtiyya (self-efforts), to refurbish places to a standard suitable for visitors. As sites of marginality — both symbolically and materially —, state-sponsored cultural centers are converted by the aforementioned groups into productive community spaces that enable individuals to reimagine their lives and to aspire to break free from their own social marginality. Communal self-efforts emerge as the means to prevent ruination, and instead transform these spaces into sites of self-reinvention and alternative forms of life.

  • 7 I refer to participants in literary clubs as “enthusiasts of literature” (hâwî, pl. huwât al-adab), (...)
  • 8 In total, in 2020 there were 25 cultural houses and palaces in Cairo. The statistics do not concern (...)
  • 9 Within the administrative structure of GOCP, Egypt is divided into provinces (aqâlim, sg. iqlîm), e (...)

5While state-sponsored cultural centers are primarily renowned for their youth-targeted activities, this article explores their connection to ruination from the perspective of literary clubs. Most culture palaces, houses or libraries have a literary club (nâdî al-adab), which hosts such regular weekly events (nadawât) as book launches, poetry evenings, and honoring ceremonies. Frequented primarily by middle-aged or older literature enthusiasts,7 these clubs provide insight into ruination from a particular social and generational location, which still fuels their dreams of social mobility within the ruined welfare state. This article draws from six-months of ethnographic research conducted between 2019 and 2022 in culture palaces located in the Greater Cairo Region.8 Four state-sponsored culture palaces are its focus: the Giza Culture Palace, the Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace, Heliopolis Culture Palace and the Public Library of al-Mounira al-Gharbiyya. Situated in various areas and serving diverse social groups, these centers occupy various positions along the spectrum of ruination. While the club of al-Mounira al-Gharbiyya, previously situated in Imbaba, finds itself “homeless” after the demolition of its headquarters, and the Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace suffered from maintenance issues, the palaces of Giza and Heliopolis flourish. The reason for that is their respective locations: the former serves as the headquarters of the Central Administration for the Cairo and North Upper Egypt administrative unit,9 while the latter resides in the affluent neighborhood of Heliopolis.

6The article starts with a discussion on concepts of “ruination,” guhûd zâtiyya, and marginality, which serves as the article’s theoretical framework, and is followed by a brief history of culture palaces in Egypt, based on the notion of culture as a service to the population. It examines the failure of such an initiative and the attempts to remedy it through the communal efforts of literature enthusiasts. The article then turns to an exploration of these “ruined” spaces as avenues for escaping marginality, illustrated by the case of Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace, which was temporarily repurposed to address the cultural needs of the al-Warraq community. It highlights the survival and currency of the ideal of culture as service, which is now championed and upheld by local communities undertaking what has been considered as the “state’s work”.

Egypt’s culture palaces as ruins? Ruination, guhûd zâtiyya and the production of marginality

7The theme of “ruination” and “ruins” over the past few years has drawn the interest of scholars to productively think about time (Dawdy 2010). Scholars such as Ann Laura Stoler (2013), Yael Navaro-Yashin (2009), Anna Tsing (2015), Gastón Gordillo (2013), among many others, used the metaphor of ruination to understand how material remnants of former projects, events, natural resources or histories perpetuated the past into the present, shaped people’s subjectivities, or engendered new life forms. Texts about ruination have been mostly interested in objects whose status as “ruins” was difficult to contest —abandoned factories, unfinished modernist projects, vacant lots, wastelands, damaged forests, etc., or immaterial, but largely negative effects of former histories of oppression.

  • 10 In 2020, the GOCP employed 12836 people and supervised 346 culture palaces and houses (CAPMAS 2020, (...)

8Egypt’s state-sponsored cultural centers are not such an obvious “ruin”. Firstly, these institutions are not a remnant of something that is officially gone. Launched during the early Nasserite era as part of the state’s project of culture, state-sponsored cultural centers are fully functioning institutions to this day, employing thousands of people.10 The ideal of cultural welfare also persists to this day. As demonstrated by the unprecedented expansion of the state-sponsored culture institutions under Hosni Mubarak’s neoliberal reforms in the 1990s, the Egyptian state combines welfare with the market economy (Winegar 2006, 143-58). Moreover, the qualification of culture palaces as ruins is further complicated by the fact that they matter differently to different publics. As has been emphasized, what qualifies as a ruin is always a matter of perspective; what constitutes a ruin for some may not be perceived as such by others (Tsing 2015, 211).

9This holds particularly true when considering culture palaces in relation to the diversity of Cairo’s cultural communities. Deeply divided along social, geographical, generational, and aesthetic lines, different literary audiences rarely cross paths, and may remain unaware of each other’s existence (Schielke and Shehata 2021). For cosmopolitan, globally connected and translated writers, who favor experimental literary forms, culture palaces clearly represent a relic of a bygone era, surpassed long ago by more fashionable venues of cultural exchange. The focus of this article are literary communities situated at the opposite end of elite literary publics: middle-aged writers shaped by the Nasserist cultural and political project, for whom “the institution” — al-mu’assasa — still commands respect and holds undeniable prestige. Often employed as public servants, they mostly self-publish their books, with little access to translation or to trade publishers. As a result, their literary reputation tends to remain local, closely tied to their neighborhoods. For this population of literature enthusiasts, nearby culture palaces often serve as an only access point to culture. However, even within this community, opinions regarding whether culture palaces should be considered as “ruins” vary. Erected in different periods and catering to the needs of different neighborhoods, culture palaces receive unequal attention and maintenance from the state. While some establishments flourish, others are shut down and left to deteriorate.

  • 11 See Marie Vannetzel’s article in this special issue.

10The notion of ruination is inherently subjective and relative to the individual and collective efforts of those invested in keeping the culture palaces alive. Ruins are not solely caused by larger, uncontrollable forces such as shifting political projects (Yarrow 2017; Khatchadourian 2022), natural or human-caused disasters (Tsing 2015), or histories of oppression (Stoler 2013; Navaro-Yashin 2009). Rather, when considered in relation to culture palaces, and perhaps to other institutions of the welfare state supported from below by people,11 ruination is the result of neglect and abandonment by not only the state, but also the people. Such a perspective can be gleaned when considering ruination through the emic terms encountered during my fieldwork: al-makân mish mu’ahhal (the place is inadequate), describing an ill-equipped and unsuitable place for hosting literary events, and guhûd zâtiyya, denoting the individual and collective efforts to make places “welcoming,” attract visitors, and prevent them from ruination.

  • 12 In other cultural contexts, such as ex-URSS, a similar kind of politics is expressed through the id (...)

11An adequate place — al-makân al-mu’ahhal — should be able to host events and feature such basic infrastructure as functioning toilets and lighting; it could also, depending on the individual, provide a more luxurious environment, with leather chairs and podiums; it should sometimes be close to a metro station to facilitate access. When a place is not “mu’ahhal,” efforts are made to render it as suitable as possible through guhûd zâtiyya. In academic literature on development in Egypt, the notion of guhûd zâtiyya, often translated as self-efforts, is used to describe communities coming together to care for the repair and maintenance of public infrastructure. In the absence of the state, communities put their social, economic, political, and material resources and connections to make infrastructures work (Wahby 2021; Sims 2010).12 In the case of Cairo’s culture palaces, they are not the type of infrastructure that provide for people’s basic needs. However, people there would also invest their own personal resources, such as time, labor, and finances to improve the condition of culture palaces and attract visitors. In this context, guhûd zâtiyya can be understood as the opposite of ruination.

12Once fixed and rendered suitable for visitors, ruins have the potential to produce alternative forms of life, and generate dreams of social mobility. This argument draws from a large body of scholarship that has stressed the potential of urban ruins — abandoned parking lots, factories, buildings, etc., — to produce forms of life that are not incorporated into dominant economic systems and political orders. They provide plunder for scavengers, shelter for the homeless, “playgrounds for children, vandals, skateboarders and bored urban explorers” (Dawdy 2010, 776). Activities that take place in ruins are usually linked to networks of informal economy, which are made of sharing and cooperation, but also of illegal activities (Khatchadourian 2022). The image of ruins as an enabler of informality echoes Samuli Schielke’s argument that literary lives — which revolve around reading, writing, and attending literary clubs — are situated at the margins of people’s everyday existence (Schielke and Shehata 2021). This article further argues that such marginality is enabled and produced in spaces located at the margins of Cairo’s contemporary urban landscapes; culture palaces, houses, and libraries teetering on the brink of decay. Through the means of guhûd zâtiyya, state-supported cultural centers are transformed into productive spaces of marginality, allowing people to reinvent their lives around literature. They also produce dreams of cultural success which, paradoxically, carry the promise of them leaving social marginality imposed by their social location.

Ruined Palaces

  • 13 Salma, interview with author, Cairo, September 2019. The venue is currently closed, as the owners h (...)

13In September 2019, I walked in the imposing Ministry of Justice in central Cairo to meet Salma, a public servant and a poet. From her office on the thirteenth floor, which overlooked the popular neighborhood of Sayyida Zaynab, we chatted about Cairo’s literary scene. In addition to her role at the Ministry, Salma hosts a literary salon bearing her name, an inheritance from her late father, a prominent literary figure of the 1990s. As her father grew older, she often accompanied him to literary events, and their bond led others to expect her to maintain his literary legacy after his passing. She told me that she frequented mostly “private” literary events (al-nadawât al-khâssa), i.e. not financially supported by the state. Financed through subscription fees, donations, or such side businesses as publishing initiatives, “private” events took place in rented venues: reception halls, syndicates, social clubs, apartments, or co-working spaces. I asked Salma what the problem was with state-sponsored cultural centers, using the Association of Men of Letters (Gam‘iyyat al-Udabâ’) as an example, whose headquarters, The House of Men of Letters (Dâr al-Udabâ’), a once sumptuous villa on Qasr al-Ayni Street, served as the venue for events. “The place is inadequate,” she shrugged: it lacked functioning toilets and was infamously dirty, often prompting writers to grab a broom and clean the premises. In addition to these maintenance issues, the venue had recently started to experience power outages, leaving writers to resort to candles or mobile phones during events.13

14While Gam‘iyyat al-Udabâ’ was not a proper culture palace, but an association subsidized by the state, it stood as a monument to the ruination of the entire Nasserist project of culture. The association had been established in 1955, alongside numerous other cultural institutions that emerged during this decade as part of the new cultural strategy of Nasser’s regime. The establishment of the Ministry of Culture, the Supreme Council of Culture, along with state-sponsored associations like Nâdî al-Qissa (The Story Club) and Association of Men of Letters, aimed to coordinate and provide guidance to Cairo-based literary communities (Jacquemond 2003, 34-37). In parallel, the development of infrastructure nurtured a professional class of cultural producers, including musicians, dancers, art critics, and cultural administrators. This initiative culminated in the creation of the expansive Academy of Arts complex in Giza, which not only housed facilities for training cultural professionals, but also provided venues for their performances (Okasha 2000, 441-76). The culture palace project, initiated during this same era, primarily targeted rural populations. Inspired by the culture palace project launched by the French Ministry of Culture under André Malraux (1901-1976), Egypt’s cultural palaces were formulated as part of the ambitious five-year plan under Nasser’s Minister of Culture, Tharwat Okasha (1921-2012). The creation of an extensive network of state-supervised cultural institutions resulted in cultural life falling entirely under state support, coordination, and supervision.

  • 14 The Palace of Arts, initially envisioned as a vast cultural complex, was planned to be constructed (...)

15The creation of cultural infrastructure in the 1950s and 1960s, both in terms of buildings and of cultural staff, was the extension of Nasser’s vision for building a new Egypt. Following the 1952 revolution, a wave of construction projects ensued to materialize the promises of the new era. The building of housing, post offices, hospitals, schools, youth centers, and other edifices under Nasser was more than mere service provision; it also embodied the legitimacy of the revolutionary state (Al-Shahid 2020). Just as the reconstruction of Egypt symbolized the creation of “a new man,” the cultural infrastructure aimed to cultivate “a human mind” and to “create an example of a civilized Egyptian” (Okasha 2000, 480). Aligned with Nasser’s welfare state objectives, the state saw culture as a “service” (khidma) comparable to education, healthcare, and transportation (Okasha 2000, 700). The notion of culture as a service exemplified the relationship between the state and Egypt’s cultural life. Another principle guiding of Nasser’s cultural project was the notion of “cultural justice” (al-‘adâla al-thaqâfiyya), which advocated for the accessibility of culture to all, rather than the privileged elite only. The architecture of newly built culture palaces had to reflect this notion, as illustrated by Okasha’s admiration for the project of Palace of the Arts,14 designed by the Italian architect Franco Minissi (1919-1996):

“Minissi conceived a design for the Palace where the two wings resembled open arms, symbolizing a welcoming gesture to those who entered. This design intentionally diverged from traditional architectural forms that aimed to evoke awe and maintain distance, ensuring that the space was accessible to a broader audience rather than exclusively to a privileged minority of intellectuals bold enough to venture into its closed rooms and halls.” (Okasha 2000, 478)

16Nevertheless, the finding of a perfect architectural design to embody “cultural justice” remained unfulfilled. Due to the demand for cultural centers outpacing the rhythm of planning and construction, numerous establishments had to be created within the existing buildings after making some adjustments. These included apartments, municipal theater, mosques, youth organizations, and palaces, among others (Kamil 2010, 245; Okasha 2000, 828).

17After Nasser’s death in 1970, the state temporarily shifted its focus away from culture due to the different political objectives of his successors, namely Anwar al-Sadat (1970-1981) and Hosni Mubarak in his early tenure (1981-1990). However, with the nomination of Farouk Hosny (1938-) as Minister of Culture in 1987, the state returned to cultural policies, in particular to counter the rising influence of Islamism (Jacquemond 2003, 44-46). Equipped with a larger budget and thousands of employees, Hosny significantly expanded the state’s cultural sector, around which he built an expansive bureaucratic apparatus. The management of culture palaces was placed under the authority of GOCP, accompanied by its own publishing house, and tasked with organizing nationwide literary festivals, annual conferences, and competitions. Many new culture palaces, public libraries, schools, and museums emerged, along with the monumental Opera complex in Zamalek. Okasha left the Ministry of Culture in 1970 after creating twenty-eight cultural palaces, eleven of which were newly designed and built (Okasha 2000, 834). During his twenty-four years in government, Hosny added one hundred and forty five new cultural palaces and houses across Egypt (al-Dardîrî 2019, 17).

  • 15 An example of this is the Desouk Cultural Palace, opened in 2006 and closed three years later due t (...)

18However, the government’s enthusiasm to expand cultural institutions often surpassed its ability to maintain them. In a sense, it was not a good time to open new cultural establishments because state resources were cut and could not ensure their maintenance. Parts of the cultural infrastructure inherited from Okasha and Hosny are still functioning, but they are increasingly populated with disgruntled, underpaid, and overstaffed culture workers. Many buildings did not receive proper care, and others had to close shortly after their opening.15 The Beni Suef Culture Palace fire in September 2005, which resulted in the tragic loss of forty-six lives, epitomized state neglect and was a turning point in the relationship between the state and Egypt’s artistic communities (Mehrez 2008, 1-3). Before the new culture palaces were launched in 2016, the culture palaces had become the center of attention in sensationalist media reports that left little doubt about their status as ruins. Graphically depicted as having been turned into parking lots, stables, and dens for criminals and drug-users, culture palaces became emblematic of the state’s neglect of culture (Mahgûb 2020; ‘Abd al-Tawâb 2016). The state’s cultural infrastructure was in ruins, and the responsibility for its preservation, as well as the enthusiasm for it, fell into the collective hands of culture workers dedicated to keeping these places up and running.

Bringing People Back to Palaces: Guhûd zâtiyya vs. Ruination

  • 16 As it has been shown, the majority of the programs were conceived in Cairo, reflecting the view of (...)
  • 17 According to the regulations of the GOCP’s central agency for cultural affairs, at least one public (...)

19Culture palaces nurturing an “exemplary civilized Egyptian”: this vision was rooted in the idea that the state was the patron of culture (Winegar 2009). In practice, however, the vitality of culture palaces often depended on the efforts of their users — the literature-loving public — to bring them to life. The idea of local communities taking charge of organizing events at culture palaces is not new. Since the project’s beginnings, an active involvement of local communities was expected — culture palaces were created at a time of mass mobilization for national progress.16 This expectation shows in the way literary clubs are organized within the culture palaces. Although part of the GOCP, clubs are formed “from below” and draw their members and staff from local communities. It falls upon members and staff to create activities (faâliyyât) and establish good relationships with the directors of culture palaces (ra’îs, pl. ru’asâ’ al-qasr).17

20Today, most of those palaces lie in ruins. Their members flocked to other cultural venues that offer better conditions, fewer bureaucratic hurdles, and less state supervision. This was enabled by the expansion of such critical infrastructure as metro lines and social media platforms, which significantly reduced people’s dependence on local cultural venues. Literature enthusiasts who once considered culture palaces a prime destination to socialize and connect now can find out about events through Facebook and easily travel to other venues across the city. Some culture palaces have also benefited from the increased mobility and freedom afforded by the expansion of infrastructure, such as the Heliopolis Culture Palace’s literary club. Originally a forgotten club with a few local members, the palace became popular after the Heliopolis metro line opened in 2019. According to the club’s director, the metro made the venue “mu’ahhal” (adequate) for visitors who previously faced difficulties reaching the Palace, fourteen kilometers from downtown.

21The multiplication of cultural venues for rent and the dilapidated state of many culture palaces made it hard for these palaces to attract visitors. And it is precisely the ability of culture palaces to draw in audiences and to demonstrate that activities are taking place that serves as the impetus for culture bureaucrats to keep them open. Put differently, the influx of visitors to a palace, or hashd, shows its importance and is an argument to draw limited state resources for its maintenance. When asked about the varying degrees of accessibility of culture palaces — with some open, others closed, and some with rooms locked or repurposed to serve other needs than culture — the director of the Heliopolis Literary Club said:

  • 18 Director of the Heliopolis Literary Club, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

“What were cultural palaces created for? To serve a neighborhood, to organize activities (faâliyyât) for the neighborhood. You need civil servants, you need water, electricity, maintenance. So, when civil servants find out that nothing happens in the palace, they ask themselves: ‘why should I open it? Why should I keep the room open? With the costs of electricity, water, and so on?’ And no one shows up! Usually, this is the reason why some palaces are closed or some of their rooms are locked.”18

  • 19 Noha, interview with the author, Cairo, September 2019.

22To attract people to palaces and save them from ruination, local communities rely on self-efforts, or guhûd zâtiyya. The most common form of self-effort is literature enthusiasts investing their financial resources to organize events. Noha’s debut collection of short stories won a competition organized by the GOCP for the best book in her governorate. Yet Noha had to finance the book launch event that she organized at the Giza Culture Palace. During my interview with her, she lamented that nothing worked in the palace — lights were out, chairs were broken, and there was no sound system. She even had to purchase her own microphone.19 These investments range from one-time celebrations, such as book launches or honoring ceremonies, to smaller, more regular purchases (refreshments for instance) for recurring events — a gesture of generosity towards others.

  • 20 Karim, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.
  • 21 Mona, interview with the author, Cairo, October 2019.

23Palace maintenance is another form of self-effort. Karim, a member of the Rawd al-Farag Literary Club, gave me a tour of the culture palace where it was housed. The place was awaiting renovation, and Karim pointed to plumbing issues, broken chairs, doors falling off hinges, and a absence of cleaning service. “We clean it ourselves,” he said. “Last time, we removed spiderwebs from the ceiling. It was all black.”20 The testimony of Mona, a novelist and an active member of the al-Mounira al-Gharbiyya Literary Club, echoed Karim’s experience. She used to host literary symposiums at the al-Mounira al-Gharbiyya Library before it was demolished; the library was in a poor state of repair, and she cleaned the place herself. She would go to the library hours before the event, put on her cleaning clothes, clean, and then go home to change before returning to host the event. She was both the cleaner and the hostess, she said, laughing, hinting at how cleaning responsibilities violated the status to which writers, at least symbolically, should be entitled to.21 The forms of guhûd zâtiyya that I observed in Cairo’s culture palaces are mostly cosmetic. Due to administrative supervision, individuals usually lack the authority to carry out significant repairs. Their self-efforts are thus confined to gathering spaces and aim at turning them into welcoming venues.

24Hosting literary events is a quirky business, too. As I argue elsewhere, literary networks of sociability in Cairo are embedded within a moral economy of hospitality, or karam (Šabasevičiūtė , forthcoming), which is an unwritten code of exchange that keeps together participants in Cairo’s literary life. A good host provides the best conditions for the guests, ensuring their comfort, offering refreshments, and showering them with attention and compliments (Šabasevičiūtė , forthcoming). A ruined place is, in emic terms, called “inadequate” (al-makân mish mu’ahhal), and this lack of equipment is the polar opposite of hospitality, karam. Typically, several culture palaces offer only naked spaces. To be turned into “homes” where hosts can perform hospitality, they must be filled with flowers, plastic banners, refreshments, photographers or cameramen, and crowds of guests. For this, literature enthusiasts invest their own resources — finances, labor, and social connections — to ensure that the palaces are “adequate” and capable of drawing in crowds. They have to prevent them from falling into ruin.

Dreams of Escaping Marginality: The Story of the Sâqiyat al-Warrâq Cultural Center

25Writing about the literary scenes in Alexandria, Samuli Schielke suggests understanding them as sites of marginality vis-à-vis everyday life. Engaging in reading, writing, and attending literary clubs creates a time apart from everyday routines, where “different rules apply and people come together as a different kind of community” (Schielke and Shehata 2021, 84). Viewing Alexandria’s literary life as marginal resonates with the experiences of my interlocutors in Cairo. They describe literary clubs as “another world” that offers respite from “ordinary life.” But literary clubs are not merely spaces for escaping the ordinary, from which writers would return unchanged after spending an enjoyable literary evening. Rather, these spaces are productive in that they allow people to discover and cultivate their literary selves and aspire to gain another direction in life (Šabasevičiūtė 2023). The study conducted in Cairo’s culture palaces further suggests that literary lives flourish not only on the fringes of people’s everyday existence, but also within the material ruins of the welfare state. Neglected by the government, these spaces are restored through communal efforts to serve as productive sites for self-making projects.

  • 22 Ustâz Samir, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

26This is illustrated by the experience of al-Warraq neighborhood’s residents, who, after a lengthy and arduous search for space, began gathering in the Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace before it closed for renovation. As a neighborhood classified as informal, al-Warraq has limited opportunities for leisure spaces. Besides a school and a youth center, the residents of al-Warraq have little options to gather and socialize after work or school. Ustâz Samir recounted his attempt to establish a state-sponsored cultural center “from below.” He addressed a demand to the district chief to dedicate an empty building to cultural purposes. Despite significant advancement, the project was eventually dropped after the district chief was replaced. A more promising opportunity presented itself when an international development agency, financed by the German Agency for International Cooperation, launched a training program in 2011 to develop civic and cultural community leaders in the neighborhood. Ustâz Samir took part in these trainings, which lasted until 2015. However, there was still a lack of spaces where participants could apply the knowledge they had gained or initiate cultural initiatives for which they had been prepared. A local notable offered to donate a 130-square-meter hall, and this generous offer allowed for the creation of the Sâqiyat al-Warrâq (Warraq’s Waterwheel) Cultural Center. The center primarily focused on activities for children, such as poetry recitations, theater, and live music performances. However, this initiative did not last long; the replacement of local authorities forced the center to close in 2019. Once again, families in al-Warraq were looking for new spaces to sustain the community established in Sâqiyat al-Warrâq.22

27They eventually settled on the Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace, across the Nile River from al-Warraq, and away from the attention of authorities. The Palace was still open but awaiting closure for renovation; it is where the activities started in Sâqiyat al-Warrâq could continue. After clearing spiderwebs and fixing doors, families came with their children. Ustâz Samir, also a member of the Rawd al-Farag Literary Club, took these under his wing to instill in them his love for poetry. This repurposing of the Palace shows how the ruins of the welfare state can provide solutions and make culture accessible. After a poetry recitation session for children, a conversation revealed that having such a space was crucial for the ability to dream of a better future for al-Warraq. Parents did not have enough words to express their gratitude to Ustâz Samir for dedicating his time for their children. A father said that he would gladly pay a fee for his children to access the arts. Other than football fields, al-Warraq did not provide much else in terms of extra-curricular activities. Ustâz Samir nodded in agreement and started to enumerate the benefits of cultivating skills in performative arts, such as acting and poetry recitation: they instill confidence in children, free them from shyness, make them more assertive, and improve memory, the qualities that would serve them later across various aspects of their lives. The expression “raising a healthy generation” (tarbiyyit gîl salîm) came up several times, showing how the children participating in poetry lessons symbolized a vision for a brighter future in the neighborhood.

28When I met Ustâz Samir another time, he referred to a tangible example of how cultural activities conducted under his guidance could facilitate the emergence of a “healthy generation.” Malak Hany, nicknamed Sendrella (Cinderella), is a charismatic teenager from al-Warraq with a knack for performance. She was introduced to the performative arts at Sâqiyat al-Warrâq before following Ustâz Samir to some of Cairo’s literary clubs, where she performed poetry between book events. Today, Sendrella is a rising star on social media and attracts the attention of the national television and of private media companies, which are eager to showcase her talent. The success of Sendrella shows that the availability of spaces for extra-curricular programs not only cultivates dreams of escaping marginality, but also, in some cases, enables children and participants to successfully transcend the limitations imposed by their social environment.

29There are specific reasons why certain literary communities keep investing their dreams of social mobility in the ruins of the welfare state, even when it falls upon them to keep them alive. The appeal of state institutions may be rooted in practical considerations, such as their ability to offer facilities to gather, as demonstrated by the example of al-Warraq. Such state institutions as culture palaces possess the advantage of relative longevity. Unlike short-term projects, whether funded through guhûd zâtiyya or international donors, which are subject to political fluctuations and financial uncertainties, these institutions endure. Certainly, the ongoing construction boom in Egypt, which may prioritize newer state infrastructure aligned with the vision of al-Sisi’s New Republic over older, Nasserist institutions, threatens the survival of state cultural centers. The demolition of the al-Mounira al-Gharbiyya Library, which served as a space for Imbaba’s literature enthusiasts, illustrates this new reality. State-sponsored cultural infrastructure also disappear, albeit at a much slower pace than private culture initiatives.

  • 23 In the language of Cairo’s literary communities, al-Hay’a refers to a shortened version of al-Hay’a (...)
  • 24 Head of Heliopolis Literary Club, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

30Beyond practical considerations, the enduring appeal of the Egyptian state to some who frequent culture palaces can be attributed to specific generational and sociological characteristics of literature lovers. Predominantly middle-aged individuals employed in public service and deeply marked by the Nasserist cultural project, they firmly uphold the concept of culture as a public service and regard the state as the guardian of literary excellence, cultural equity, and the arts against commercial pressures. Many aspiring writers I spoke with believe that culture should be accessible to everyone, free of charge, and aim at the progress of society. They argued that it was up to the state to ensure favorable working conditions for writers and to provide financial support to enable them to pursue their craft. They firmly rejected the notion of treating literature as a commodity, which risked subjecting it to the “corrupting taste of audiences”. Such an understanding of culture echoes Okasha’s vision of culture as a service, on which the project of culture palaces was initially based. This is particularly visible in the words of the director of the Heliopolis Literary Club, who, when asked whether he thought that one day culture palaces would adopt a for-profit model of financing, responded: “No. What is the aim of the culture palaces? What is the aim of al-Hay’a?23 What is the aim of the Ministry of Culture? To serve the public (‘alashân yikhdim al-gumhûr). To serve the sha‘b (people). How could I serve you if you need to pay?”24

  • 25 Interview with the author, Cairo, May 2021.
  • 26 Member of the Heliopolis Literary Club, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

31As a result, members and heads of literary clubs often said that culture palaces were essential to prevent the arts from being commercialized in al-Sisi’s Egypt. According to them, literary clubs possessed a number of advantages when compared to “private” literary clubs. “In private clubs, everyone is applauded for nothing,” the director of the Badrashin Literary Club explained. “In our club, we maintain strict requirements of literary excellence, which we strive to instill in the new generation of poets.” 25The ability, for any author, to submit their work to an Egyptian state publisher free of charge and participate in literary club activities at culture palaces, are seen as benefits that only the state can guarantee, due to its impartiality as compared to other interests that sometimes dominate literary production, such as profit motives, or clique loyalties. “Certainly, there are limitations on what can be said and done within culture palaces,” a member of the Heliopolis Literary Club said, in reference to the security measures and controls imposed by authorities to monitor the identities of participants and the content of their discussions. “There are certain red lines that cannot be crossed. As a state institution (al-maqarr al-hukûmî), it cannot tolerate discord (fitna) to arise within its premises.”26

32Without a doubt, these qualities attributed to state patronage of culture are more an ideal than a reality, and so is thinking of the state as a singular, cohesive entity with a unified purpose and direction (Ismail 2006). What matters here is the firm belief in this ideal, and the fact that people are ready to defend it even if the state itself fails to do so. In a sense, the concept of culture as a service persists, albeit without full backing from the state due to its financial constraints. However, this vision still lives in the beliefs, practices, and cultural tastes of those who frequent culture palaces and attempt to sustain it by investing their own efforts and resources.

Conclusion

33The Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace was reopened with great pomp in January 2023, with extensive media presence, the participation of the Minister of Culture, and crowds of swarming children with painted faces. The palace now boasts new red panels on its exterior, a luxurious chandelier in the entrance, an outdoor seating area leading to the garden, and fully renovated and operational rooms for cultural events. Additionally, it features a new playground for children, a revamped theater stage, and a cinema hall. The Minister of Culture told the media that the cinema would show feature films at reduced prices, preceded by a short documentary showcasing state megaprojects across the republic (‘Alâ Mas’ûliyyatî 2023; 1:31-1:47). After this sumptuous opening, the Palace came alive with a series of Ramadan events. Lecture series featuring religious personalities, theater performances, and music concerts were held, inviting residents of Shubra to culture-infused Ramadan nights. From a neglected state building on the margins of the neighborhood’s life, the Palace suddenly became its center.

34The idea of showing a film featuring various achievements of al-Sisi’s regime, as well as a full Ramadan cultural program, illustrates how the Palace, once refurbished, has returned to its initial mission: spreading official culture. It has also become a site promoting new political narratives and al-Sisi’s megaprojects. This is a far cry from the poetry recitations al-Warraq’s residents organized in the Palace in ruins. Paradoxically, the fact that some culture palaces are in ruins and neglected by the state or other stakeholders allow people to reappropriate them for their cultural needs, such as cultivating cultural skills among members of marginalized communities. The Rawd al-Farag Culture Palace, caught between the al-Warraq community and the state, epitomizes two definitions of culture. One is championed by the state, with the aim of promoting “enlightened Islam” (Winegar 2009), bring culture to the masses, and cultivate popular allegiance to a military nationalist agenda (El Khachab 2021). And the other links culture to practice and consists of the acquisition of necessary skills, enabling overlooked communities to break free from their social and geographical marginality. When palaces cease to be in ruins, opportunities for cultivating marginal lives and escaping marginality become scarce, as they are confined within the “red lines” of “allowable culture” (Aly 2021, 401-10).

Acknowledgements
The research for this article as well as the work on the special issue was supported by a research grant (no. 23-07353S) provided by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). I would like to thank numerous friends, colleagues and the two anonymous peer reviewers who read and commented on earlier drafts of this article. I extend my deepest gratitude to the members of Cairo’s literary communities, particularly the al-Warraq community, who generously shared with me the details of their literary lives and their ongoing struggles to find and create cultural spaces.

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Notes

1 The names used in this paper are all pseudonyms.

2 Fieldwork notes, December 2021.

3 The island of al-Warraq, which is part of a larger neighborhood bearing the same name, gained media attention in 2017 when the Egyptian government began forcefully removing inhabitants to pursue development projects. The object of this article is the larger neighborhood of al-Warraq, not the island.

4 Opened in 1947, the market of Rawd al-Farag served as a central provider of vegetables and fruits for the city of Cairo until 1996, when it was moved to the Ubur City. The former administrative premises of the market were repurposed to accommodate a Rawd al-Farag Cultural Palace, a youth center, a post office, a school, a one-day hospital and a fire brigade (Tadamun, n.d.; Muhammad 2023).

5 Al-Sisi’s new urban agenda has been the defining feature of his presidency (Naceur 2022).

6 The website Egy-map.com lists 75 cultural establishments that either opened or still under renovation between 2014 and 2022.

7 I refer to participants in literary clubs as “enthusiasts of literature” (hâwî, pl. huwât al-adab), a term used in both colloquial language and bureaucratic documents. This designation encompasses their varied statuses, from established writers to aspiring ones, as well as those who attend to listen.

8 In total, in 2020 there were 25 cultural houses and palaces in Cairo. The statistics do not concern libraries, but many of them have a literary club as well (CAPMAS 2022, 182).

9 Within the administrative structure of GOCP, Egypt is divided into provinces (aqâlim, sg. iqlîm), each of which is responsible for several branches (furu‘, sg. far‘), which in turn, supervise cultural palaces. For example, the province of Greater Cairo and Northern Upper Egypt is divided into five branches (Cairo, Giza, Qaylubiyya, Fayum, Beni Suwef). The branch of Giza supervises 8 culture palaces.

10 In 2020, the GOCP employed 12836 people and supervised 346 culture palaces and houses (CAPMAS 2020, 180).

11 See Marie Vannetzel’s article in this special issue.

12 In other cultural contexts, such as ex-URSS, a similar kind of politics is expressed through the idiom of “care” (Reid 2019).

13 Salma, interview with author, Cairo, September 2019. The venue is currently closed, as the owners have reclaimed the building, a move made possible by the recently launched legal revisions of rent laws.

14 The Palace of Arts, initially envisioned as a vast cultural complex, was planned to be constructed within the garden of Muhammad Mahmud Khalil museum, situated on the western bank of the Nile. However, the project stalled following Abd al-Nasser’s death, and the intended site was repurposed by his successor, Anwar al-Sadat, for the construction of the presidential palace.

15 An example of this is the Desouk Cultural Palace, opened in 2006 and closed three years later due to “neglect and corruption” (Aly 2021, 402).

16 As it has been shown, the majority of the programs were conceived in Cairo, reflecting the view of the urban elite of what constitutes culture (Winegar 2009, 191). Initially informal groupings of local literary communities, literary clubs only became incorporated into the bureaucratic structure of GOCP in the 1980s, continuing to be run “from below” by local culture enthusiasts.

17 According to the regulations of the GOCP’s central agency for cultural affairs, at least one publication is required by the applicant to be a member. The directors of literary clubs are elected, as well as the administrative board. According to the regulations governing the clubs, the involvement of higher authorities of GOCP (the branch) is limited to forming elections oversight, budget allocation, and program approval.

18 Director of the Heliopolis Literary Club, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

19 Noha, interview with the author, Cairo, September 2019.

20 Karim, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

21 Mona, interview with the author, Cairo, October 2019.

22 Ustâz Samir, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

23 In the language of Cairo’s literary communities, al-Hay’a refers to a shortened version of al-Hay’a al-Misriyya al-‘Âmma li-l-Kitâb (the General Egyptian Book Organization); the largest state publisher in Egypt.

24 Head of Heliopolis Literary Club, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

25 Interview with the author, Cairo, May 2021.

26 Member of the Heliopolis Literary Club, interview with the author, Cairo, December 2021.

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Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė, « Creating Spaces for Culture: Self-Efforts and the Production of Marginality in Cairo’s Culture Palaces »Égypte Soudan mondes arabes, 25 | 2024, 163-182.

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Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė, « Creating Spaces for Culture: Self-Efforts and the Production of Marginality in Cairo’s Culture Palaces »Égypte Soudan mondes arabes [En ligne], 25 | 2024, mis en ligne le 13 janvier 2025, consulté le 17 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/esma/3507

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Auteur

Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė



Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė is a research fellow at the Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, and an external lecturer at Charles University in Prague. Currently, her ethnographic research focuses on Cairo’s literary clubs and their audiences, exploring the future of Egypt’s public cultural institutions, the role of literary communities, and the place of fiction writing in people’s lives. Previously, she published a monograph on the Egyptian intellectual Sayyid Qutb, Sayyid Qutb: An Intellectual Biography, with Syracuse University Press in 2021. Šabasevičiūtė’s work has also appeared in International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Middle East – Topics & Arguments, L’Année du Maghreb, Critique Internationale, and égypte/Monde arabe, as well as in chapters of edited volumes.

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