Although the United Arab Republic –
Nasser's vision of a pan Arab state - is long since dead, having only briefly
bound Egypt and Syria in uneasy union, an echo remains of that ill starred
dream. It is found, in all places, in an annex to the Cairo Agriculture Museum.
The museum itself is a relic. Across two
buildings it details Egypt's contributions to plant and animal sciences. The
life cycle of the chicken. Local and foreign duck physiognomy. Maize
production, circa 1935.
The desire to update the exhibits seems to
falter in the 1950s. Tins of jam [fruit preservation] with faded labels. Wool
production from when Australia led the world, ahead even of the USSR. Wheat
starch products. Wax models of the staple foods of each Egyptian governate. One
hundred and twenty varieties of mango.
There are hunting trophies mounted on
walls, African fauna with their dates of death in the local zoo, preserved
chameleons from the Belgian Congo and Ruanda. Upstairs glass displays are
filled with birds, their feathers mostly dull with age but occasionally bright.
Poisonous snakes, empty ampoules of serum, fish of the Nile.
The UAR display is none of this. Instead
there are paintings of the historic places of Syria. The waterwheels of the
Orontes in Hama. Now silent or destroyed. Manikins in a local dress that is
more or less absent from the modern state. Handicrafts, leather work, fluted
vessels of hand blown glass.
This part of the museum is now closed. Half
the exhibits are wrapped in newsprint. The lights are out. Finished, khalas,
says the man outside the door. Five minutes I ask. He waves me through. I pick
my way through the exhibition's darkened halls.
