Selma Cook is an expatriate Australian-Muslim writer who lived in Egypt from the late 1990s until the February uprising against Hosni Mubarak’s military regime. Her story is from Aiman S Ahmad
MELBOURNE - Back in 1992 Geelong-born Selma Cook decided she wanted to see something of the world outside Australia. So she stabbed her finger on a map of the Middle East and, when it landed on Egypt, the single mother moved to Cairo with her three young children.
At the time, Cook, who had converted to Islam three years previously, wasn’t confident of her ability to raise her kids as good Muslims on her own in Australia.
“I was afraid of the drugs and gangs”, says Cook. “I felt I needed a stronger community to give my children positive peer group pressure so they would learn to value good citizenship, respect for elders and the family and a strong moral code.
“I also wanted them to learn Arabic because I felt that the turmoil in the Muslim community because of different interpretations of text and misinformation was a lack of knowledge of the Arabic language. I wanted to give the kids the tools to help them survive …”
Cook, now 50, is back in Australia after experiencing first-hand Egypt’s popular uprising against President Hosni Mubarak in February.
“I kept the children inside our fourth-floor flat”, she recalls, “there were rumours that electricity and water could be cut off. I stocked up on food, water and medicine.
“A number of times there were hordes of thugs downstairs with guns and machetes trying to break into houses.
We would hear news from friends in other areas who had family members and friends killed, either in the demonstrations or by thugs. There was an atmosphere of sacrifice and dogged hope that change would come, one way or the other."
While there was much anticipation in post-Mubarak Egypt that the revolution would deliver the much-desired transition to a democracy, every-day life remained a struggle, Cook says.
The country came to a halt and danger and instability were everywhere. Many malls and shops had been ransacked and were either gutted or boarded-up, and the strong military presence made her uneasy.
Cook had also become disillusioned with her life in Egypt. She had married an Egyptian within two years of arriving in Cairo and had two children by him but the marriage ended in divorce. Over the years she had endured poverty (it took her 13 years to save for a ticket to Australia for an earlier visit her mother and her oldest son, Ali, who had long returned) and it was a struggle to find work.
She moved back to Australia in April this year with her children - sons Faruk, 23, and Hisham, 14, and her daughters Nafisa, 21, and Maryam, 15.
Cook sees the symbolism in the family carrying two bags each onto the plane home - the same as they had done when they emigrated to Egypt all those years before.
But, she insists they returned to Australia richer after a lifetime of lessons, reflections and growth.
Cook and her family now live in the outer suburb of Hoppers Crossing. She says it’s a quiet place with all kinds of people and where you can find everything you need.
“It's between Melbourne, where my friends are, and Geelong, where my family is. When I became a Muslim I left Geelong and went to Melbourne where the Muslim community was larger and more organised.
“Now that we are back from Egypt, I've put myself between the two.”
Cook says she missed Australia when she was in Egypt. She hung pictures of Australian gum trees, beaches and the bush on the walls of her Cairo flat, In her first year in Egypt, she wrote poetry as therapy and later wrote two books - Buried Treasure and The Colour of Fear - fictional portraits of an Australian Muslim family set in Australia and Egypt respectively and aimed at young people.
Cook self-published these books as they didn’t meet either Muslim or Western publishing frameworks. Male workers at Islamonline, a well-known website where Cook served as managing-editor of youth issues, questioned the feelings the chief protagonist in one of her books had for his dead wife -- believing his masculinity was being misplaced. This was despite the fact the prophet Muhammad always said he had been in love with his first wife Khadija, long after her death.
Says Cook: "Literature is a fantastic way of expressing our experiences and perceptions; it can be a way of motivating people, inspiring them and letting them see life in a different way. In our digital world people are growing further apart and have largely lost the sense of community."
Despite her disillusionment with Egypt, Cook sees both good and bad in that country. While she witnessed Mubarak’s police force assault Sudanese refugees, she also experienced the kindness of strangers. On many occasions when she was on the road, people stopped to lend a hand whenever her old car broke down.
“Every part of the world has beauty and ugliness, depending on what we humans do with it. I've learnt that if you don't have that 'village to raise your child', you can make one", says Cook.
Cook’s sights are firmly placed on making a life for herself now that she is back home in Australia. She is studying to become a counsellor and says, “I believe Australia, while not perfect, is more egalitarian than most countries. It tries at least to consider all people as equal and give them their rights.”
The training at Multicultural Media Exchange has offered me an opportunity to represent my community and hone my practical skills. It has also illustrated the importance of diversity in a democracy and has allowed me to form networks with other young people who each have stories to tell. Aiman S Ahmad
