Josie is speaking to an Egyptian woman in her gift shop in Siwa. She asks her the same question she’s been asking other Egyptians while making her video: “100 hours in the ‘scam capital of the world’ as a woman.”
“What would you say to anyone who thinks Egypt is full of scammers?”
The woman answers patiently, giving the response Josie has heard again and again: everywhere has its bad apples, and if you generalise, you get it wrong.
Josie is gathering statements from Egyptian locals to countering the narrative online, created by white British and American vloggers that Egypt is full scammers, and not worth visiting.
I’m struck by how this seems to be a common response in Egypt – from Cairo to Siwa, people are actively resisting stereotypes. By contrast, in the UK – where I live – the average Joe, tabloids, and even the government issues blanket warnings about entire countries, based on the behaviour of a handful of people.
When I first moved to the UK from South Africa in 2007, I was struck by how negative every news story about other countries were. In South Africa, there’s a lot of positivity towards other places – you might see the British cheese rolling event, or religious celebrations in India in our 8pm news slot. I saw none of this in the UK – instead, international news stories lean mostly negative.
Most people I know who do resist generalising tend to dismiss stereotyping as innocent laziness or ignorance. But that explanation feels too shallow. It makes more sense when you see it as a continuation of colonial narratives.
During colonisation, stereotyping people as dangerous, dirty, or uncivilised served a political purpose. They gave European colonisers justification to “civilise” people who were supposedly incapable of governing themselves.
The UK no longer has that political or economic need to stereotype others (I don’t think anyway) – why does this attitude persist? Is it simply a colonial hangover that gives the average Joe a feeling of superiority? It it a lack of awareness and education about colonial history? Or is it a way of keeping racial hierarchies in place within the UK today?