Egyptians Are Being Priced Out of Access to Their Own Mediterranean Beaches

In July, I planned a trip to Sahel, the "coast" as Egyptians call it, with a group of friends from the UK and Italy. Unlike Morocco and Tunisia, the beauty of Egypt's North coast is mostly unknown to international tourists, so we thought it would be a great place to celebrate two of our friends' birthdays.

I was not aware of how expensive it would be to spend a week by Egypt's Mediterranean Sea. Looking for chalets was the first shock, finding a nice restaurant for the birthday lunch was the second.

Kind vs. evil

Sahel has historically been the place where Cairene and Alexandrian upper classes enjoy their summers in qarias, gated compounds, separate from the poorer people who can only access public beaches in Alexandria.

A qaria (Arabic for village) typically features cute one- or two-story chalets, one or two pools, a few local restaurants, and a simple, magical beach. Children bike and rollerblade in the little lanes, families barbecue in their gardens, and everyone gathers on the Mediterranean shore for fiery sunsets.

Until ten years ago, Sahel was quiet and tayyeb (kind). One was able to enter qarias and their beaches by knowing someone inside the compound, or even just talking with the security guard at the gate.

Cairene highways are illuminated with shiny advertisements for elite getaway compounds and "real, unfiltered" life, turning places like Marassi, Hacienda, or Seashell into high-society status symbols that have nothing to do with a cute beach holiday. This part of Sahel is often referred to as shereer (evil).

The average monthly household income in Egypt is around EGP 14,000 ($284). The cheapest chalet we could find for a group of seven people in the 'evil' part of Sahel was EGP 240,000 (about $4,900). We settled for a beautiful house in the 'kind' part, paying EGP 68,000 (about $1,400).

When a friend invited her to the launch of his new restaurant in Sahel, she was able to stay in an accommodation behind the restaurant. "The next morning, I naively pulled up Google Maps to find the closest beach and tried to walk there," she remembers. "People laughed when I said I was going to walk. One of the restaurant owners ended up driving us in, because he had a villa there. We had to go through at least three gates to get in. It was like nothing I'd experienced — and I've travelled to over 40 countries."

Amin was wearing flip-flops and a swimsuit under a sundress, and soon realized that people were staring at her. "Everyone else was dressed in designer labels — Fendi, Dior — you name it. There seemed to be an outfit for every stage: lounging, swimming, and drying off," she says. "It was surreal. Coming from Sydney, where the beach is this egalitarian space, it was a real culture shock."

I had a similar experience trying to reserve a table at a nice restaurant for my friend's birthday lunch: we couldn't just enter the compound; we needed a QR code to get through the gate. To get the QR code, I first had to fill in a form and share my Instagram profile to get verified. Online, I read warnings that we would need to look the part to even be considered, and because we had brought Birkenstocks only, we didn't dare reserve at the fanciest places.

Tragedy of the commons

There is a common narrative among Egypt's upper class that the privatization of beaches and parks is necessary because poorer people will trash public spaces. In Sahel, there's a steady westward movement as upper classes, who once owned chalets in the kind Sahel closer to Alexandria, relocate to the exclusive, evil Sahel, because more conservative people are beginning to frequent their qarias.

While it is uncomfortable to be the only person wearing a swimsuit when everyone else is veiled, there is also a simplistic conflation of poor equals conservative equals people who will trash the beach.

Egypt's natural spaces should be accessible to all its inhabitants, but they are only accessible to a tiny fraction of society. As a result, most Egyptians have no sense of ownership of their land and are consequently less invested in keeping it clean.

"The public space isn't ours, it's just a place that is normally under-maintained," says cycling activist Heba Attia Moussa. She explains that trashed beaches are a phenomenon of the "tragedy of the commons."

"If you have a common ground or resource that is available for more people than it can take, the resource will be exploited," she says. "If you find one public beach, like in Alexandria, it will be so crowded that you cannot even see the beach. If every person drops one tissue, it will be dirty."

In contrast, Sahel's gated shores are empty for wide stretches, for the one percent to enjoy. "Egyptians are not dirtier than other Africans. It's the way that spaces are managed that induces this pollution," says Moussa.

Gentrification of simplicity

Beyond the high rises and exclusive compounds lies a new capitalist venture: the gentrification of simplicity. Once people tire of the social pressure of having to look perfect at the beach and plan to get the correct QR codes for the right gates, they yearn to return to the simple holidays of the good old days.