Port Said - a mere shadow of the past

Looking out to sea from the harbor one sees the gigantic hulls of ships, some moored, others gliding past the docks into the open sea. Wafting in through the winds is the familiar smell of the sea and harbor. Port Said, located on the Mediterranean Sea at the entrance to the Suez Canal is still one of the busiest ports in the region with around twenty five ships passing by, every day. However, things have changed in this small seaside town.

What you don't see are the bambouti holding up trinkets or brightly colored oriental rugs to sailors. You don't hear the cheerful banter of bargains being made as shoppers jostle each other in the crowded market place. What is left is only a shadow of the former.

Today, markets are still open but there isn't much business. Shoppers do come but most of them price-conscious housewives, uninterested in trivia. Street side café's have taken a forlorn look as have the people, disgruntled with the recent revoking of the city's status as a free port. With business no longer thriving livelihoods hang precariously.

Back in the early 1800's Port Said was a small obscure strip of beach, in all probability a fishing village. Caravans, armies and pilgrims wanting to cross over to Sinai did so at Qantara, by means of pontoon bridges. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French consul, convinced of the strategic and commercial utility of a waterway between the Red sea and the Mediterranean began pressing his scheme to the then ruler of Egypt, Said Pasha.

Work finally began in 1859 on what would be the longest man-made canal - the Suez Canal. And to accommodate the workers, Port Said was built from scratch on a narrow strip of beach. By the end of the century, it had achieved a certain dubious reputation. Major C. S Jarvis wrote of Port Said, "in 1860 it did not exist, but by 1890 it had achieved the distinction of the wickedest town in the East, and vice and evil were rampant on its streets."

The rise to posterity is conceivable. Which ever way you looked at it, Port Said would serve as a gateway, either to Asia and the East or to Europe and the West. For ships using the canal it served not only as a fueling point but also for any maintenance work that may be needed before embarking on the onward journey. For sailors and travelers aboard these liners the city embodied the exotic allure of oriental life.

Native women veiled in black to reveal only kohl lined eyes, water carriers laden with urns and water skins (a skin full of water costing one piaster) beggars eking out a few coppers from the Arab merchants, wandering musicians, all going about their business. The sight of steaming mounds of rice behind glass cases with the aroma of grilled meat permeating one's senses.

Amongst all this bustle would be donkey driven carts striding alongside motor carriages, driving women or the more elite officers of the Suez Canal authority. It was usual for people boarding their ship from Port Said to come a day in advance from Cairo looking for giveaways to take back home to their friends and families.

The endless stream of vessels carrying spices, pepper, oils and other goods from India and China en route to the West and back provided enough opportunities for fleecing. "Port Said was one place you had to watch out for," remembers Eric Condillac, then a young recruit to the Merchant Navy, "you could have your own possessions sold back to you."

"Ohh.I could tell you plenty of stories," he laughs. He remembers a barber who was insisting on two pounds for a haircut, and in those days that was a lot of money (five dollars). "I offered a pound and after much haggling he agreed. When he was done halfway he stopped and said quite nonchalantly, 'that will be for a pound.' I had to dish out the rest or face the wrath of my superior. It was foolhardy to think you had outsmarted them, for they knew you would return. And they sought you, sometimes months later on your route back.

Unlike Alexandria, the beaches of Port Said were never too popular except for one sequestrated stretch. This resort built by the Suez Canal Company for its staff had a few wooden cabins that could be rented. But by and large, the rest of the community was kept out of it.

Soon after the Suez Canal was in operation, all the major maritime powers had established themselves in Port Said. As a result most quarters were designed in a European, 19th century architectural style with high verandas and wooden balconies. The town square has, to this day retained some of its original, colonial bungalows.

Sylvia Modelski, author of the book 'Port Said Revisited' reminiscences how Egyptians, French, Britons, Maltese, Greek, Italians, and many other nationalities mingled in peaceful coexistence to produce what she called a 'kaleidoscopic effect' during the 1950's. Modelski, whose family moved to Port Said during the World War II, lived and went to school there. Although she left Egypt with her family, most of her friends stayed on until they were forced to leave in 1956, when the Suez Canal was nationalized. The only significant change that she can remember of those later years was the introduction of Arabic in her former French school.

"Looking back, to me the most surprising thing about the city in the early to mid-20th century was its worldliness despite a very circumscribed geographic location - an isolated small island really. The constant traffic of great ocean liners and the eagerness with which modernity was accepted by all enlarged my life beyond what I would have experienced in a usual small company town," she says. And it is these experiences growing up in Port Said that inspired her to write the book, she tells the Reporter.

Since then Port Said has witnessed more than most waterways.

The construction of the Aswan Dam in the 1960's interfered with the flow of nutrients from the Delta region as a result of which the population of sardines fell dramatically. It put a virtual end to what was once a successful fishing industry.

As the target of the tripartite aggression when England, France and Israel jointly attacked Port Said, its inhabitants were forced to flee their homes. In response they vanquished the statue of de Lesseps (a symbol of imperialism) from where it stood at the entrance to the canal. What remains now is only the pedestal.

Many a valiant soldier fought the forces of occupation during this period, some of who were captured, tortured and killed. One such was the 19 year old El-Shahid Guad Hosni who wrote his story in blood on the walls of the prison. A museum erected on the premises of the prison bears testimony to what happened behind the bars.

Then came the wars with Israeli, first in 1967 and again in 1973 during which time the harbor was closed to shipping. When it was reopened in 1975, Port Said was assigned a duty free zone. The investment authority encouraged the setting up of industries in the free zone by offering tax exemption for an unlimited period. The duty free status also meant any product that was imported into or exported from this zone would not be subject to import duty or customs regulations.

Of late, however industries elsewhere in Egypt have begun to feel the pinch of it after imported products started appearing in Port Said for prices that were considerably cheaper than the locally made ones. Especially affected was the ready-made garment business. Cairenes began flocking to Port Said on weekends returning with car loads of clothes which would then be resold with substantial profit margins.

Nobody will tell you for sure how these clothes come to Port Said. Some believe they are export rejects or surplus from the factories running in the adjacent free zone areas. Government authorities say these are smuggled into the country by way of ships transiting through the port.

It was then not surprising that Port Said would come under fire soon. Even when a wave of nationalist sentiment encouraging Egyptians to 'buy only Egyptian' refused to bring the desired results the government issued a decree. But not before a consignment of imported Chinese lamps had nudged their way past the local fanoos' during Ramadan.

A 500 % duty was slapped on imported goods, and a further blow was dealt with the announcement that Port Said would soon be stripped of its duty free status. Unaware shoppers returned home empty handed that weekend, for the first time. The city seemed to have aged beyond years. Port Saidis protested that they knew no other trade and a wave of demonstrations followed. Some 145 people were rounded up and imprisoned.

Today, the people of Port Said are having to move on from the only trade they are familiar with. Visitors meanwhile will have to mollify themselves with eating fish, indeed one of the best in Egypt.

By Anjana Das