Institut d’études politiques
Franz Paul HELMS
Sciences Po Paris
Rapport de séjour
- Département d’enseignement de
l’arabe contemporain Caire, Egypte
13/05/2016
Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
1.TheDEAC................................................................................................................................4
1.1TheDEAC–dialectandModernStandardArabicunderthesameroof..................4
1.2Fromfruit-talks,old-fangledliteratureanddiplomacy–thecourses....................5
1.3Apreliminaryconclusion-advantagesandshortcomingsoftheDEAC.................6
1.4Notimeforboredom–extracurricularactivitiesandprojects.................................6
2.Egypt........................................................................................................................................7
2.1ItwasCairothatchoseme......................................................................................................7
2.2Egypt–anattemptofsummarising.....................................................................................8
3.Conclusion–theendofabeginning...........................................................................11
Annexes....................................................................................................................................12
Visaandformalrequirements...................................................................................................12
Housing..............................................................................................................................................12
Academicscheduleoftheyear2015/2016...........................................................................13
BudgetProposalandtimeline....................................................................................................14
Travels................................................................................................................................................15
2
Introduction
Cairo. The asphalt is melting in the blazing heat of the deep yellow sun high above the
city. Car horns become a tinnitus. Dust fills the air with a grey haze.
Finding someone from the Franco-German Campus in Nancy in the middle of such a
scene might, at first sight, appear to be a major aberration. What seems to be only weakly
connected is, in fact, closer bound together than most would think. Indeed, the Middle
East has been an integral part of European History - Muslims shaped and shape the life of
its societies, thereby contributing to the cultural wealth that we proudly define as our
paramount advancement.
Yet, the perception of the Middle East is troubled by ignorance, stereotypes and a lack of
cultural understanding. In both countries, France and Germany, Middle Eastern culture
has been constant subject to marginalisation, creating misconceptions and tensions. The
monologue dominates the dialog.
However, current affairs show an increasing need to engage more critically with the
Middle East and Islam. I believe that Arabic must be understood as a part of this
engagement. Hence, it was out of the ambitions of overcoming my own ignorance by
studying Arabic, increasing my knowledge about Islam and engaging in a dialog with an
Arab country that I decided to spend my 3A in a country of the Middle East.
The Département d’enseignement de l’arabe contemporain (DEAC) within the Institut
Français d’Egypte in Cairo is one of the very few Arabic teaching institutions that
reflects the complete linguistic diversity of Arabic by combining the study of Modern
Standard Arabic with courses in colloquial Arabic. Because I wanted to study both,
Colloquial and Standard Arabic, I decided to pursue a one-year intensive Arabic language
session at the institute from the beginning October 2015 until the end of June 2016.
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1. The DEAC
1.1 The DEAC – dialect and Modern Standard Arabic under the same roof
The language courses that I attended at Sciences Po were rather theoretical,
grammatically orientated and crucially lacked practical orientation. Indeed, as most other
universities, Sciences Po does not offer courses in Colloquial Arabic but only in Modern
Standard Arabic or “Fusha”. Fusha is a standardised variety of Arabic that is used by
most Arab countries in the Middle East as literary reference language. It is a transnational
standard language in academia, education in general, journalism and literature.
Colloquial Arabic, in contrast, describes the regional, typically non-written, varieties of
Arabic that are used as colloquial languages and often referred to as “dialects”. The
contemporaneous use of those two different registers of one and the same language is
what linguists describe as “diglossia”. Because of this and the grammatical complexity of
Fusha, a genuine “holistic” study of Arabic is extremely convoluted, troublesome and
lengthy and requires a strong motivation. To make things easier, most universities focus
on the teaching of Fusha. However, based on the normative rules of ancient-religious
“Classical Arabic”, it goes without saying that MSA has little immediate “practical” focus
for beginners.
By dedicating my third year at Sciences Po to the study of Arabic, I wanted to apply my
linguistic experiences to a more practical level. My choice of the Département
d’enseignement de l’arabe contemporain in Cairo was chiefly motivated by three factors:
first of all, the DEAC is one of the very few institutions that teaches Colloquial Arabic
and focuses on practical daily life communication. Secondly, because of the cultural and
political influence of Egypt in the 20th century, Egyptian Arabic is the most popular of
the Arabic dialects, which makes it particularly useful. Finally, the DEAC combines the
teaching of Egyptian Arabic with the instruction of MSA, covering the full linguistic
diversity of Arabic.
Indeed, since its foundation in 1982, the DEAC offers intensive Arabic language
programs in Modern Standard- (MSA) and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic for beginner and
advanced levels of all nationalities and backgrounds. From the beginning of October
2015 until the end of June 2016, I pursued the intensive Arabic language session that the
institute offers to a limited number of students each year.
After an assessment examination in MSA and Colloquial Arabic on the first day, students
are divided in groups of 14 students at the most, according to their level of preliminary
knowledge of Arabic. Depending on the student body, levels range from seven (complete
beginner) to one (advanced) in both, MSA and Egyptian Arabic. I was placed in the
intermediate level four. Courses are thought in two-hour intervals throughout four
quadrimesters or “tranches” of respectively two months. Exams are conducted in every
material, at the end of each “tranche”. The workload accounts to approximately 22 to 26
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hours of courses a week. At the beginning of the program, the majority of courses are
thought in dialect to facilitate the daily communication and integration into the Egyptian
society. Throughout the different “tranches”, the number of hours of courses in Egyptian
Arabic decreases in favour of lessons in MSA. Starting from “tranche” two, several
optional courses are available in different topical domains including literature and poetry,
translation, history, theatre or international relations.
1.2 From fruit-talks, old-fangled literature and diplomacy – the courses
The first “tranche” provided the most important essentials of every day communication,
with a strong emphasis on Egyptian Arabic. Indeed, through the writing of short dialogs,
listening exercises and situation-adapted role plays, the course “Daily Life” aimed at the
quick acquisition of essential vocabulary and the facilitation of daily interaction. In fact, I
was particularly happy when after one semester I was able to practise by asking my fruit
vendor for the season of Mangos, complain about high prices or negotiate for an
additional Banana. Besides of this, the course “Egyptian Culture” revealed the cultural
particularities and secrets of the Egyptian tongue by addressing the very (very) important
issue of greetings, salutations and expressions. Also, this “tranche” introduced the
register of written Modern Standard Arabic through the work on simple journalistic
content. In fact, in “Written press and applied grammar”, we read short press articles,
cleared out questions of vocabulary and answered simple questions on the content and the
grammar of the text in question.
In addition to the lessons in dialect, the second “tranche” diversified the teaching of
Fusha to the field of audiovisual press and literature. Also, from this quadrimester
onwards, students were able to choose among several optional courses, of which two per
“tranche” needed to be completed. I chose an optional course in classical literature and
translation. Whilst being, indeed, a great discovery, studying the old-fangled tournures of
several classical authors such as Ibn Battuta, was not always a particularly motivating
undertaking. In fact, at my level of proficiency, this course seemed to have rather little
relevance for my endeavour of gaining practical language skills. The module in
translation, in contrast, was a particularly interesting one as it provided me with
important knowledge about style, expression and cultural particularities of Arabic and
translation in general.
The third quadrimester emphasised the study of MSA. Also, courses in Egyptian Arabic
are divided in “Cinema and society” and “Poetry and songs” and focus on discussions
about omnipresent topics of Egyptian society. This format is especially useful for every
day communication as it allows you to make a good impression to your Egyptian
counterpart by showing some knowledge about the icons of Egyptian culture and society.
In addition to this, I was given the opportunity to take optional courses in history and
international relations. Both of them were rather stimulating by addressing a new register
of vocabulary and embracing interesting political discussions.
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In the final tranche, courses in dialect are reduced to two hours of debates a week. Also,
the courses in Fusha embrace the more troublesome grammatical issue of inflection and
the topics and in the courses of written press are diversified to the writing of short reports
and reportages. An optional course in theatre allowed me to put my knowledge in dialect
on the test by participating in the elaboration and performance of a theatre piece.
1.3 A preliminary conclusion - advantages and shortcomings of the DEAC
The approach of the DEAC consists in laying an initial focus on Egyptian Arabic to
accelerate and facilitate the acquaintance of proficiency, privileging practise over
grammar. In the course of the programme, courses concentrate more and more on
Modern Standard Arabic and specific registers of language. One the one hand, this
allowed me to quickly gain command and confidence in the Egyptian dialect and to
realise one of the main objectives of my 3A of applying my Arabic to a practical context.
On the other hand, I felt that the DEAC clearly lacked a coherent grammatical method.
Indeed, the concept of “applied grammar” that is used by the institution reflects its
practical approach but eventually fails to accurately address problems of heterogeneity
that are likely to occur in a group. Therefore, I found that grammar lessons were often
extremely weak and out of context.
However, the most important disadvantage of the program of the DEAC is rather
independent from the institution itself. In fact, while the institute employs only qualified
and experienced Egyptians or Arabic native teachers, the student body showed a crucial
lack of motivation and sense of responsibility. I found this particularly problematic to the
extent that it deterred the general work climate and impeded collective progression.
Traditionally, even though the number is increasing, only few students choose to study
Arabic at Sciences Po and many of them abandon a while. This is mostly, yet not
exclusively, due to the grammatical otherness of the language. Indeed, Arabic is very
hard to learn, requires a lot of effort, time and practise. However, I believe that the
number of Arabic students could be bigger if instruction methods were focusing less on
highly technical notions of grammar but more on practise and colloquial language. In this
perspective, I totally agree with the approach of the DEAC to combine the study of MSA
with the study of the Egyptian dialect. My studies in Egypt confirmed my believe that
this is a precondition to reflect the linguistic reality Arabic. Therefore, I am of the
opinion that Sciences Po should consider to offer language courses in dialectical Arabic.
1.4 No time for boredom – extracurricular activities and projects
Obviously, Cairo, a city of (probably) more than twenty million people, is a vibrant
playground for all kinds of activities:
The tandem
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“Tandems” or language exchanges were an essential part of my year. In fact, I needed
some time to find a suitable partner but eventually found the partner of my dreams who,
over the time, became a very close friend of mine. In fact, my experience is that a tandem
works the best when the exchange is not only based on the mutual interest of
I perceived tandems as a perfect means to apply my Arabic to a realistic interaction,
boost socialising and gain proficiency.
Yoga
When the asphalt melts away, pollution creates a horror-movie like dust and kerbs, if
existent, are hardly wider than a few centimetres, jogging might not be the best option to
do sport. Even though, the connection between Yoga and Cairo may not be the most
obvious one, I somehow came across the Yoga courses offered by the Indian Embassy.
Subsidized by the Indian government and thought by a genuine Indian Yogi, for me, those
courses represented an essential counterbalance to the usual hectic of Cairo’s everyday
life. Registration needs to be done through the Indian Embassy.
Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CILAS)
From an intellectual perspective, spending a year following language courses can be an
extremely dreary, long-winded and monotonous experience. I had the great pleasure to
complement my modules at the DEAC by following courses at the Cairo Institute of
Liberal Arts and Sciences. CILAS is a non-governmental, educational institution that
invites students to engage with the liberal arts through discussion-based learning, creative
inquiry and self-reflection. My courses applied the analytical thoughts of Walter
Benjamin to the cultural, spacial and political environment of Egypt. Indeed, this weekly
“Tea with Walter Benjamin” was a crucial intellectual stimulation and welcomed change
that provided me with new friends and acquaintances.
Centre d'études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales (CEDEJ)
From a professional perspective, I was able to contribute to the work of the French
research centre CEDEJ by elaborating monthly press reviews, covering the current affairs
of Egyptian politics and economy. In fact, the work allowed me to gain a better
understanding of the post-revolutionary Egyptian politics and economy.
2. Egypt
2.1 It was Cairo that chose me
In fact, I never really wanted to spend my 3A in Egypt. In my imagination, living in
Beirut, with its urban culture, sunny beaches and trendy cafés seemed to be a much more
tempting and certainly less disturbing idea than studying Arabic in …Cairo. However, the
Institut Francais du Proche Orient being the only language institute in cooperation with
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Sciences Po in Lebanon offers courses exclusively for advanced levels. As the DEAC was
my second choice, Egypt became, rather involuntarily, the destination of my 3A.
Arriving in Cairo, my expectations were limited to what I saw in television, heard from
friends and read in newspapers. The preconceptions I had about Egypt prior to my arrival
mostly dealt with 1) religious homogeneity, 2) desert temperatures, 3) the omnipresent
danger of terrorism, 4) Humus and 5) political authoritarianism. Obviously, only few of
them proved to keep up with the diversity of Egypt.
2.2 Egypt – an attempt of summarising
Because of its density, extreme weather and living conditions, the Egyptian capital is
definitely an extraordinary place to life. Cairo turned my ideas of Egypt on its head,
confirming some of my preconceptions but breaking with most of them. In fact, the city
offers everything one could imagine to every possible time one could imagine. Only
when the call of the Fridays prayer rings through the street, Cairo seems to rest.
In fact, Egypt’s society is as diverse as its inhabitants and it is a most difficult
undertaking to summarise this diversity. Nonetheless, in the following part, I tried to
resume the most important experiences, realisations and impressions of my time in Egypt.
1) Egypt and religion
Indeed, religion plays an important role in the Egyptian society. In general, people
identify themselves much more through their religion than in the European societies I
have been living in. In fact, people in the street were regularly asking me about my
religion. I needed a while to figure out an appropriate response, which let me to reflect
and develop my own religious identity.
As approximately 90% of Egyptians are Sunni Muslims and the country is clearly marked
by Islamic habits and traditions. What really surprised me, however, was the cultural
influence of the 10% of Coptic Christians that inhabit Egypt and their relations to their
fellow citizens. In contrast to my preconceptions, both communities live extremely close
together. Official feasts and holidays are observed for both Christians and Muslims. is
completely normal for Muslims to have a Christian as neighbour, colleague or friend and
vice versa.
In France and Germany, where the Muslim communities have a comparable size of the
population, relations seem to be much more troublesome. Even though relations were not
dépourvu of conflicts, my impression was that people in Egypt have a much better basic
understanding of the religion of their fellow citizens, compared to most European
societies.
2) Egypt and the weather
In fact, Egypt and desert are often used as synonyms and indeed, most of the year
temperatures don’t drop under the comfortable “T-shirt level”. Usually, they even reach
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well beyond it. In such an environment, who would possibly assume that one could make
use of woollen socks, heating or alpine sleeping bags? Well, I didn’t. However, this naive
preparation was my undoing as I came to realise that temperatures reach from five to
fifteen degrees from the beginning of December until late February. Without central
heating, properly isolated flats or appropriate clothing, this can be a pretty cold and long
period…
3) Egypt and safety
One month before my arrival, a car bomb exploded in downtown Cairo, killing one
civilian and completely destroying the Italian Embassy. Even though I tried hard not to
swayed by this and to arrive overanxious and nervous in Egypt. However, I remember
one of my first taxi rides when I told the driver to bring me back to “Downtown”, the city
centre of Cairo. After fifteen minutes we were still not where I though we should have
been ten minutes ago, streets became less crowded and the street signs were indicating a
desert road. Completely overtaxed by the new cultural environment and impressions, my
first reaction was to think that I might be on my way to being kidnaped. I started to panic
and told the driver that I will call the “Shurta”, police if he doesn’t bring me back to the
city centre. He hardly understood what I was mumbling in my strange English-Fusha mix
but showed a strong indignation for my behaviour. I decided to call a friend who would
be able to talk to him. After him and the driver talked for a while, he returned me my
phone without saying a word, took the next exit into the opposite direction and took a
miffed look in the rear mirror. When we arrived, my friend was waiting for me in front of
our house. After a short discussion, he gave the driver the money for the ride and
welcomed me with a big cheeky smile. Before I could start to tell him that I just escaped
a kidnapping by a hair’s breadth, he explained me that the driver simply misunderstood
the direction as most Egyptians are using “wust al balad”, literally the middle of the
country, as synonym for the city centre.
Egypt is, indeed, a country that suffers from terrorism and religious violence. However, it
is certainly not a place where one just gets kidnaped by any random cab driver. Hence,
the moral of this story could be, that one should accept and understand situations of being
lost, misunderstood or just overtaxed as part of the experience and not as imminent
security threat. I needed a while to exchange my initial uneasy feeling against a
reasonable sense of awareness.
In terms of criminality, Cairo is relatively safe compared to other cities of its size. Theft
and pickpocketing meet a strong social disapproval and robberies are rare.
4) Egypt and Humus
Humus is not Egyptian.
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5) Egypt and politics
In June 2014, following a military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government of
Mohammad Morsi, former Minister of Defence Abd al-Fatah as-Sisi was elected
President. Since then, the public narrative of the regime does not cease to make use of the
expression “masr om el donia” –Egypt, the mother of the world, to emphasise the glory
of its country. However, this statement inevitably collides with the current social, cultural
and political realities in the country.
Indeed, in 2011, the whole world was expectantly looking on the people of the Tahrir
Square, calling for bread, liberty and justice and demanding the departure of their
authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarack. Front pages and television screens were full of of
young people painting their claims on the walls of their cities. In 2016, nothing else than
memories is left of these 18 days of Tahrir, where justice and democracy seemed to be
within striking distance. The new regime does not tolerate any kind of public political
activity and turned from authoritarian to autocratic - repression is omnipresent.
Anyone not covered by the clientelistic network is potentially suspicious. Foreigners are
generally not exposed to the same dangers as Egyptians. However, at the latest the death
of the young Italian student Giulio Regeni, presumably murdered by Egyptian security
forces, gave an ugly glimpse into the everyday life of state violence in post-revolutionary
Egypt. For me, this was definitely an extreme experience.
Even more disturbing was, however, to see the nonchalance of European leaders in their
encounter with the regime, acting as if the “Arab Spring” has never happened. Today,
several ten millions of Egyptians are reliant on food subsidies, infrastructural problems
continue to weaken the stability of major cities and the Egyptian economy suffers from a
severe foreign currency crisis. Yet, the government seems to be unable to provide viable
solutions for the existing situation. To my eyes, the unreserved support of the regime is
not what Egyptians expect from Europe and is likely to sustain the problem.
Egypt and gender
The entire experience of this report would have needed to be rewritten if I was a woman.
In fact, Egypt’s society is extremely patriarchal and women are constantly exposed to
taharush or harassment. As paternalism is dominating all social relations between the
genders, a woman risks not to be able to experience her stay with the same ease as a man.
Indeed, all my female friends were considerably less enthusiastic when they were talking
about their stay than me. Therefore, I believe that coming in its 3A to Cairo as a woman
should be carefully considered by thinking of the potential problems one could encounter.
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3. Conclusion – the end of a beginning
Arriving in Cairo, my ideas of what I would encounter were limited to what I saw in
television, heard from friends and read in books. Retrospectively, I consider this
uninhibitedness and absence of expectation a major advantage of my stay. It led me
embrace the culture of a country that is as diverse and as its inhabitants. In addition to
this, I was able to gain important knowledge about Islam. In addition to this, the close
community of foreigners in Cairo provided me with insights into the professional reality
of several sectors and the life of an “expat”.
Arabic is definitely a tough nut to crack. From my experience, even a year of intensive
courses is not enough to become “completely fluent”. However, regarding the otherness
and complexity of the language, I came to the conclusion that I needed to relativize the
initial expectations of my progress. In fact, learning Arabic is probably a life-long
challenge. Yet, for me, the very reason that it is so difficult to access makes it so
incredibly worthwhile to try. Current affairs show an increasing need to engage with the
Middle East and Islam. I believe that Arabic must be understood as a part of this
engagement.
Through the program at the DEAC enabled I have acquired sufficient proficiency in
Arabic to access primary written and spoken sources, to conduct interviews, and most
importantly, to actively participate in the life of an Arab society.
Indeed, my year in Egypt bolstered my desire to further academically engage with the
Arab World, which is why I have chosen to concentrate my graduate studies on the
Middle East and to pursue a research-oriented career.
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Annexes
Visa and formal requirements
Because the Département d’enseignement de l’arabe contemporain is not recognised as a
higher educational institution by Egyptian authorities, students can not apply for a student
visa. In fact, you just enter the country without any formal preparation and receive a
tourist visa at the airport for a validity of three months. After the expiration, the visa
needs to renewed at the Central Egyptian Visa Authority or Mugamma’ or the
bureaucratic hell of Egypt. The 20 stores building at Tahrir square is host and heart of the
entire Egyptian bureaucracy. Common expression says that every Egyptian has set his/her
feet on the dusty ground of this building. However, whenever I went, I felt that every
Egyptian is there at the same time. Indeed, besides of bringing your passport, a copy of
your passport and entrance visa, 17 Egyptian Pound and a passport photo, you should
bring a solid portion of patience, a lot of time and nerves of steel to renew your visa.
Housing
The easiest way to find an apartment in Cairo is by using the website craigslist.com, as
well as several Facebook groups (Cairo Scholars, New Cairo Scholars, Cairo Housing
etc.). For the sake of acclimatisation and to visit apartments, I scheduled my arrival two
weeks before the beginning of the courses at the DEAC and stayed at a very nice AirBnb
flat in Downtown, which also provided me with good contacts for my start in Cairo.
However, the cheaper option would be to stay in one of the hostels in the city centre.
Dahab Hostel is a very good option.
If you are a fan of nice apartments, the historic neighbourhoods of Cairo offer great
chances to find an extraordinary accommodation. I had the pleasure to live in an
extremely spacious and beautiful flat in an old villa in the rather popular neighbourhood
of Hadayel al Kubba for 200€s a month.
Finding an apartment with Egyptians is definitely worth trying but rather difficult as it is
very uncommon for young people to life alone.
Popular neighbourhoods among the students of the DEAC are Garden City, Mounira and
Downtown.
The Institut Francais
The DEAC is located in the Institut Francais d’Egypte (IFE), in Mounira, Downtown
Cairo. The Institute is located in the city centre of Cairo and easily reachable by public
transport. It is equipped with a nice library and several places to study. If you don’t want
to explore the hights and lows of Egyptian street-food right upon your arrival, the
Institute has a very nice Restaurant “Le Jardin” that offers meals of good very quality to
affordable prices.
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Even though the IFE lacks a bit of “Campus spirit”, it offers several conferences and
events throughout the year that contribute to animate the student life.
Academic schedule of the year 2015/2016
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Budget Proposal and timeline
Timeline
15/09/2015
Arrival in Cairo
04/10/2015
Courses begin
18/12/2015 – 09/01/2016
Winter vacation
05/02/2016 – 13/02/2016
Midterm vacation
15/04/2016 – 02/05/2016
Spring vacation
23/06/2016
Courses end
01/07/2016
Departure from Cairo
Expenses
Expenses
Total/ Month in€
Visa
25
Housing
200
Food
100
Transport
20
Flights
Insurance
Total/Year
1 000
50
Tuition Fees
1 800
Other Activities
30
Total
425
6 200
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Travels
Egypt was once the stronghold and number one destination of package tours and hobby
archaeologists. Due to the current security situation, today, many of the former hubs of
tourism are deserted but most international visitors. However, this provided me with the
tragic opportunity to experience the desert of the pyramids, beaches of Alexandria,
mountains of Sinai and river banks of Aswan without the disturbance of major tourist
group.
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