Two scandals broke in the world over the past week.
The first, and bigger of the two, is the scandal involving Greg Mortenson, the author of the much-ballyhooed Three Cups of Tea, a book that, I confess, I’ve never actually read. I’ve had something of a love/hate relationship with the book – it’s set in northern Pakistan, so people assume that I must be intimately familiar with the topic of the book because it’s “set in the Middle East.” The problem is, due to the fact that my university has a department that specializes in South Asia, Pakistan lies across the border in the very-well-demarcated border between us. Pakistan is, quite simply, in their part of the world, not mine.
While you may have missed the scandal, you pretty much would have to have been under a rock to have ignored the Three Cups of Tea phenomenon. It’s a book for adults, there’s a young adult version, and a children’s book (which I did buy for my lending library at work). And the message is all about hope and empowerment through education and all that stuff that us do-gooder liburls eat up like candy.
There’s also been something disturbingly neocolonialist about the story that’s never sat well with me and has, on some level, prevented me from picking the book up and reading it myself. White guy stumbles into a village in the mountains of northern Pakistan and discovers that (gasp!) they’re poor and that (gasp!) the girls don’t go to school and that (gasp!) … something about human rights and dignity. The point here isn’t about whether the girls need the education or not (they do), it’s that it took the arrival of Whitey McWhiterson for something to be done about it (or so the story goes) and suddenly Whitey is the world famous celebrity. Not … y’know, the girls or the schools. A charity is set up, sixty bajillion dollars are collected, and Whitey reports back that Pakistan’s girls are well educated.
There are a few problems with this story, not least of which is that it isn’t true. The scandal revolves around the fact that not all of the money made it to Pakistan, the charity built fewer schools than it claimed to have done, and parts of Whitey’s story appear to have been fabricated. The last part doesn’t even raise an eyebrow with me.
As an aside, one of the things that irks me about Mortenson’s celebrity is that there are other charities that have been doing this for years – the Aga Khan Development Network has been in the region for two decades building schools for girls. Interestingly, one of the things they ran into was the unexpected phenomenon that the girls were getting a much better education than the boys in the mountain villages and, come marriage time, refused to marry young men they felt were their intellectual inferiors. So now, the AKDN is building boys schools, too. Has Mortenson’s charity found this to be the case? Well, who can say…
Needless to say, Mortenson’s in a heap of trouble and donors are severing links, bladda bladda bladda. However, as much as Mortenson may be a creep, the work is still getting done, and lives of young girls are being affected in a positive manner. I’ve read a couple of rather reasonable defenses, both of which have as their main point: don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
On to Zahi Hawass.
My three or four regular readers are probably thinking, “Jeez, Chris, another picture of a smoldering model? And what does this have to do with Zahi Hawass?”
Zahi Hawass, the egomaniacal Pharaoh for Life of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization has launched his own clothing line. Hawass, who must, by law, appear in any documentary about ancient Egypt (or if it’s not a law, it sure seems that way), decided that people should copy his trademark look, which is based on that of Indiana Jones.
And so, as one does when one has a clothing line, he hired some (not even remotely Egyptian looking) models and posed them in an appropriate venue. In this case, the National Museum of Antiquities (commonly referred to as “The Egyptian Museum”) in downtown Cairo.
In other words, that ain’t a fake mummy case that there model is leaning up against.
Zenobia broke the news last week about the photo shoot, and the photographer (also not Egyptian) responded saying, “Hey, don’t shoot me.” As a photographer, I feel for the guy – I can’t say that if Zahi Hawass offered me the chance to take photos in the museum I’d turn it down either.
But that’s the problem. Mere mortals can’t. And the reason why has to do with the good Dr. Hawass himself.
Now, museum goers will note that photographers are frequently forbidden from taking photos in museums. Certain pieces of art are trademarked. Flash photography can damage art work, and these are all good points. The impetus in Egypt may have had something to do with that – I do recall back in the mid 90s that photo without flash was OK, but in the museum (as in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings), slipping the guard a bribe to look the other way often circumvented such regulations.
It’s also equally possible that the photo ban had to do with Hawass’s part ownership of the gift shop concession.
However, the bigger problem is that Hawass has grown over the years to treat Egypt’s antiques as if they were his own personal property.
Hawass was at his best when he was doing his functional job as director of the EAO: as the visible worldwide spokesman for Egypt’s antiquities, he was a darn good cheerleader. However, he was often given to controversial statements that were clearly politically motivated – he has denied categorically that there were ever Hebrews in ancient Egypt and denied the historicity of the Exodus, both statements that are a wild leap over the lack of available archaeological evidence. Indeed the statement appears to be more aimed at denying any legitimacy to Israel’s occupation of Sinai between 1967 and 1983. Needless to say, when you’re a money raiser, this isn’t the wisest course of action.
Hawass’s own scientific prowess has been questioned, and the veracity of many of his claims – not just the one about the Hebrews—has been scrutinized over the years. More emphatically are claims of favoritism in allowing teams to dig at certain sites, and his tendency to take credit for discoveries that someone else made. In addition to the whole concessions thing. The looting of sites during the Egyptian Revolution seemed to be the last straw: the Supreme Military Council removed him as Director (a cabinet level position), then reinstated him, and then he was removed again pending a court case that he lost which earned him a year’s probation.
So, why do I claim that Hawass is a bigger creep than Mortenson? Because, quite frankly, for all of his gaffes, Mortenson has actually done some good work. As has Hawass, but Mortenson doesn’t claim to be the president of northern Pakistan. Hawass, on the other hand, clearly views all of Egypt’s antiquities as his personal playthings to do with as he sees fit. He’s crossed the line between being a caretaker and dictator. I’m not pardoning Mortenson’s conduct, but for me … Zahi Hawass is an institution whose time has come. There are plenty of other people in the world of Egyptology who could do a much better job: Kent Weeks and Salma Ikram, of the American University in Cairo are two. Wifaa Sadik, the director general of the Egyptian Museum is another.
Put another way: it would be a shame for girl’s education in northern Pakistan to stop being a cause celebre due to Mortenson’s mistakes, because, as such causes go, it’s a good one. Egyptology, on the other hand, isn’t going to suffer a bit when Hawass goes. In fact, it’ll probably improve.
And that’s why Zahi Hawass is a bigger creep than Gren Mortenson.
