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2. Making Kids Modern Agency and Identity in Arabic Children's Magazines
- Indiana University Press
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I think Majid is important because it helps children think about the world outside their home and school . . . and also I think it teaches children to enjoy a good read. I think this is important for children, and I worry that the new generation, the computer generation, is missing this. —Marwa, twenty-five-year-old Egyptian journalist, unmarried, no children These magazines . . . they make children want things, and then you are embarrassed if you cannot give them. But how can we give our children all of these things? —Amin, thirty-year-old Egyptian chemist and pharmacist, married, father of four 2 29 On a warm day in October 2001, I watched two preadolescent boys walking down the street. I was sitting outside an apartment building in the affluent suburb of Ma‘adi, sipping tea and waiting for my host, the apartment complex’s security guard, to return from a telephone call. The boys caught my eye as a study in contrasts. One was dressed in the cheap blue pants, pale grey shirt, and black shoes that were the uniform at Unity College, a nearby private school originally founded to educate the children of British colonials and those “natives” who could afford it, now best known in the community for renting out its vast athletic fields to expatriate amateur sports teams. The other boy, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt emblazoned “Metallica ,” and Nike tennis shoes, had just walked down from the gates of the American School in Cairo (ASC), an expensive private school educating the children of American and other expatriates, as well as Egyptians who can afford its hefty fees. The two boys were less than three feet apart yet they took no notice of one another, each apparently in his own world, looking around for his own friends. Their paths diverged at the end of the street when they came to a midan, a circular intersection where several streets meet. The Unity boy crossed the street and continued on, pausing in front of Bakra Stationery to page through some magazines displayed along the sidewalk. The ASC boy turned right as he crossed the midan. At this point, my observations were interrupted by my host, so I cannot be sure, but I believe he entered the doors of the First Page stationery store. I am, at any rate, going to suppose he did, because the reason this snippet of observation entered my fieldnotes at all is that it offers a useful illustration of the intersections of dress, education, consumption, and media in the making of class difference. At this time, Unity College was a decaying relic whose primary assets were its name, with its rich historical associations, and several large athMaking kids Modern: agenCy and identity in araBiC Children’s Magazines [54.82.20.97] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:40 GMT) 30 Co n n ec te d i n C a i r o letic fields, whose rental to expatriate community groups supplied a large portion of the school’s funds for maintenance. In 2000, fees were a modest EGP 2,000 per year (US$435), only boys were admitted, instruction was in Arabic, and prayer was compulsory. The ASC, by contrast, was a thriving and highly prestigious school with facilities other institutions could only envy. Fees were in U.S. dollars—$10,450 per year—which paid for a coeducational American curriculum taught in English by a U.S.-accredited faculty under an American principal. Salaries were among the highest paid by any Egyptian school.1 The vast economic gulf between the two students was displayed not only in their clothing but in the style of their consumption. First Page is an elegant marble and glass shop occupying the basement and ground floor of a three-story residential building.2 A wooden rack outside offers the major local newspapers (Al-Ahram, Akbar al Yom, Egyptian Gazette, and Al-Ahram Weekly) as well as the International Herald Tribune, Der Zeitung, and the occasional French or Spanish newspaper. Inside, except for a small section offering a few shelves each of Arabic, French, German, Korean, and Spanish books, the entire store is given over to English texts. To the right as he entered the store, the boy I was observing would have seen an entire room of children’s books. To his left would have been a rack twice the size of the one outside, offering a plethora of English magazines. The bottom two shelves are entirely for...