In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale

Reflecting on his time in Egypt, Ghosh wonders if Shaikh Musa understood how much Lataifa changed before Ghosh returned in 1988. As the two discussed everything that had happened, Ghosh got the sense that Shaikh Musa was looking at the village with new eyes. Among the greatest changes was the new technology in the village, demonstrated by the prevalence of refrigerators and other appliances. With these technological advancements had come a cultural change, which Ghosh saw when they went to the nearby town of Damanhour. Here, Shaikh Musa was unwilling to go into the shop where others had bought refrigerators because of his fellah clothes, but the younger people of the village happily went in.

Many of the younger generation had gone to Iraq and those who stayed were either trying to, or already, working the land. Movement to Iraq began in the early 1980s, when Iraq’s wars meant that there was a shortage of laborers. For a few years, it had been exceptionally easy for Egyptians to get relatively well-paying jobs in Iraq, something which led to a peak of two to three million Egyptians there (a sixth of the country’s population). Now that Iraqi soldiers were returning, jobs were becoming harder to get, and resentment was building against Egyptian immigrant labor.