Khaled Al Khamissi: Is a journalist, film director & producer, in addition to novels writing. He has produces many social and political articles and studies and a column writer in many Egyptian gazettes and newspapers.
Khaled is a Masters Degree Graduate in Political Science from the Paris famous Sorbonne University            
 

Words That Has To Be Said

 For many years I've been a regular taxi customer in Cairo (Egypt). I have almost been though all the streets and allies in Cairo in taxis during the years that I eventually became familiar with the trade and life stile of taxi drivers.

I have a passion for talking to the taxi drivers as though the decades they became representative of the hardship lifestyle for the common Egyptian society.

This book embraces many stories which I personally lived through and heard from these drivers between April 2005 and March 2006.

The book contains some of my experiences and stories, (not all of them are published), and the reason is that I was warned by some of my friends who are in the law practice, warned me that publishing such material and including real names (whether in stories or in the jokes mentioned in the book), can definitely get me ending up in jail.

It is really a shame, as the stories and jokes I found in the Egyptian streets could be lost with nobody recording or recognize them.

I tried to convey these stories with the exact street language -which is a very special, rude, impolite, hostile, and honest language- unlike the fake language spoken in parlours and seminars that we all got used to.

My aim here is not to revise the accuracy of what I recorded, my aim is to understand and record the opinions of these classes of citizens (the taxi drivers) as though their mingling with all classes of society, they form a collective point of views on important common stories and political events in Egypt.

 The sociological aspect exceeds the informational one in this book's priorities.  

Most taxi drivers are from a social class that is economically disadvantaged. They work in an extremely physically tiring job, as sitting for a long time in worn-out cars damages their spinal cords, and the never-ending traffic jams and crowding of the streets affect them negatively psychologically. They struggle around all day long for ends-meat (they literally run), and are always in quarrels and disputes with the customers about the taxi fair as there are no standard regulations for taxi tariffs, and the police and authorities treat them in a atrocious way that would definitely please "Marquis De Sade" in his tomb.

The taxi business is a loosing one in Egypt if we compared the revenue from tariffs verses costs such as taxes, car annual licenses renewal and other fees. However, the taxi drivers think to the contrary, as they never calculate the intangible and hidden expenses, such as depreciations car services and maintenance costs, etc,....   and as a result, the vehicles become worn out, dirty, and the drivers become like slaves working on them.   

Many regulations were applied in Egypt to support taxis locally. One of the decrees, set in the late 90s, simply was that any old car can be converted into a taxi. This, however, increased the number of taxis in Cairo to almost 80,000. In addition to a government initiative -to reduce unemployment- which forced banks and financial institutions to supply car finance for taxis. This regulation resulted in reducing the level of unemployment as people started working as taxi-drivers and therefore, making banks, car agencies, and spare part importers flourishes.

Just by being in taxis, you will find out that those taxi-drivers have a different educational backgrounds. You will find the educated drivers, with bachelor's degrees, some with a master's degree, and others are practically illiterate
(I personally haven’t met any one who had a PhD yet).

All taxi drivers share a common gigantic experience about our community as they literally live in the streets. They meet new people everyday and even carry out conversations with them. This is basically why they know a lot about our community.

Honestly, I have heard a lot of taxi drivers talking profoundly about politics, maybe even better than real politicians as the civilization of Egyptians is reflected in its common people. These class of Egyptian people are teachers for anyone who wants to learn about real life facts and hardships.
 

Khaled Al Khamissi
March 21st 2006