The return from Cairo. All the political disputes surrounding the 3 year anniversary of the revolution can be, I feel, seen anew in the context of this film, Four Women of Egypt. From 1997, the film looks at the lives and relationships of four women who were involved in the political movements surrounding Egypt's struggles - political and social, international and domestic - in the 1950s and 60s. These four feminists from different social and religious backgrounds, are above all, very funny. The film is also sad. I watched it on the way back from Cairo, cried and fell asleep on the coat of a man saying his 7 o'clock prayers. If all the women of Egypt are as strong as this - and the ones I met were - it speaks volumes for a country that seems to have always been a prized possession, from the Pharaohs, through its hellenisation and christianisation, through the mamluk rule and the ottoman conquest, through the French under Napoleon Bonaparte and the British occupation, to, finally, Nasser and we all know the rest.
