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Ali Ahmida, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Political Science, has given a talk at the American University in Cairo’s Annual History Seminar. Held March 24 and 25, 2017, this year’s event focused on “The Sa’id in Egyptian History and Culture.”

Ahmida’s talk, titled “Libyan Refugees in 1940s Upper Egypt: The Memoirs of Abdallah al-Qairi,” centered on Abdallah al-Qairi’s writings and the experience of Libyan refugees escaping Italian colonialism into Upper Egypt after 1930. Born to an urban Libyan family from Misurata and educated in Menia, al-Qairi then moved to Cairo where he received a degree in Arabic Literature from King Fouad University. His childhood in Menia had shaped his political and social views of peasants and anti-colonial struggles during 1950s Egypt.  After his return to Libya, he became a leading writer and a minster in Libya until his death in 1992.

In his discussion, Ahmida noted that one has to make a distinction between tribal and urban immigrants. There are two arguments; one on the larger historical context, and the second on the significance of al-Quiri’s memoirs about his childhood in the Sa’id . First, the new immigrants varied in their reaction to the new life: some kept their way of life while others, especially the urban immigrants, became involved in Egyptian life. Second, the Sa’id emerges as a diverse region where many immigrants from Sudan, Arabia, Libya and the larger Maghrib sought a place of refuge and settlement for social, political and a passage to the Hajj in Hijaz.

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