Remembering Childhood in the Middle East: Memoirs from a Century of Change

Charles Issawi (Egypt)

egypt Charles Issawi was born in Cairo, where his father served as an official in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Government Service. The family was transferred to the Sudan, but Charles was sent back to Egypt at the age of eleven and enrolled in Victoria College, an English boarding school in Alexandria. With a degree from the American University in Beirut, he went on to take a Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University and was for several years resident at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University . Among his many books are The Economic History of the Fertile Crescent and The Economic History of Turkey. He died in 2000. Charles Issawi charles issawi, right Most people grow up sharing a language, religion, and culture with their neighbors. Some societies, however, include foreign enclaves; in Cairo, when I was born in 1916, they were very conspicuous and included the British, French, Italians, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and others. The Syrians were a group that included the Lebanese, Jordanians, and Palestinians as well; such distinctions were unknown and all were Shawam, that is, from greater Syria and the Levant. This enclave differed from others in one important respect: we more or less shared a language with the Egyptians and indeed made notable contributions to Egyptian letters and journalism . Still, in our religion and, to some extent, our culture, we were different from the Egyptians. Moreover, a large proportion of the middle class knew French or, occasionally, English better than classical Arabic and hence were more at home in European culture. My parents moved to Egypt in the early years of the 20th century. My paternal grandfather was a customs official in Jaffa. His family had migrated to Palestine from Hauran, in the nineteenth century; his wife came from the Damascene family of Sarruf; her uncle, Fadlallah Sarruf, taught Arabic at St. Petersburg University and has a paragraph attributed to him in both Kratchkovsky’s and Krimsky’s books. My maternal grandfather, Nu
man Abouchar (Abu Sha
r) was educated at
Antura, a French boarding school in Lebanon. He served as a judge in Damascus and as an Ottoman consul in Liége, where he was in charge of purchases for the Hijaz railway ; but, alas, he was honest and we never made any money. growing up different Charles Issawi ^ He did not get on well with the Young Turks, was one of the founders of the Arab nationalist La-markaziya, and settled in Egypt because he could not return to Damascus. His wife came from the Arabized Ionian family of Avierinos, which claimed Genoese descent; I believe one of her brothers did some gunrunning, a welcome spot of color in my not-too-exciting family. All of my grandparents were Greek Orthodox; people normally married within their sect. My father was educated at Bishop Gobat’s school in Jerusalem and the American University in Beirut. He joined the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Government service and worked in its Cairo office as Director of Budget and Personnel until 1923, when he moved to Khartoum. In Cairo, he also moonlighted as a correspondent for the Egyptian Gazette, covering scholarly lectures and meetings. In recognition of his services, he was made an Officer of the British Empire and received the title of bey. My mother grew up in Constantinople , where she was sent to a French convent school. I was an only child, adored and protected by my parents, but I was not pampered. For one thing, I had constant intestinal trouble, so I seldom ate my fill, much less indulged. Secondly, I was taught that self-denial was good for a person; encouraged to practice it, I have never shaken off this belief. Thirdly, I was properly disciplined in certain things, though not in others. While I had to mind my manners and eat whatever was on my plate, I never had to put away my clothes or brush my shoes or make my bed—that was for servants to do. The results of my upbringing have stayed with me and have aroused much comment from my wife, who has often said that military service would have done me a lot of good. Lastly, my parents did their best to prevent my becoming a sissy. “Mummy, he hit me.” “Hit him back.” “But he is bigger than me”—most boys were. “Hit him back all the same.” I should add...