_______________MASSACRE IN THE DESERT BY ANDREW ROSS (11/18/97)

Queen Hatshepsut's Temple on the West Bank of Luxor, Egypt: I know it well. As a tour manager for Lindblad Travel in the '80s, I climbed its broad steps scores of times with my clients. Once, my Egyptologist husband and I rode donkeys over the cliffs from Tut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings and saw Hatshepsut's temple glowing below us like a pink seashell. From the heights, you view the rugged desert, the isolated Temple and the Nile in the distance, cutting through a swath of green vegetation. In the Temple itself, the reliefs of Hatshepsut's sea voyage extend down a long wall, a continuous picture show of aquatic creatures -- squid, anemones, fish. The temple is 3,500 years old and an extraordinary tourist destination. It was difficult to reconcile my image of this beautiful, placid temple with the carnage that occurred there Monday. No one knows what effect these events will have on Egypt's $3.7 billion tourist industry. Since 1992, Islamic extremists have conducted a campaign of violence against foreign tourists in a move to topple Egypt's civil government and supplant it with a religious, conservative one. Yet the Egyptian government has countered with a relentless, efficient campaign against the militants, and tourists have slowly returned, unable to resist the lure of this ancient land. In fact, Hatshepsut's Temple has recently been the scene of a performance of Verdi's opera "Aida," hosted by the Egyptian government in hopes of bolstering an industry that has begun to recover from the shocks of terrorism. Much has already been written about Egypt's need to position itself as a democratic country, economically sound and aligned with the world at large. Yet when I read these articles, my mind focuses on the human element -- the people behind the politics. All I can envision are the faces of my Egyptian friends working in tourism. How will they put bread and beans on the table for their families if that industry declines? Egyptian tour guides are dedicated professionals, intent on showing the marvels of their Pharaonic past to visitors. Our bus drivers backtracked miles to recover lost sunglasses and stopped the bus for every tourist's photo opportunity. Then there was the sweetness of the hotel room attendant, who brought me tea and medicine when I was alone and infected with a bronchial virus. And the gift seller near the Nile, earning a few hundred pounds a year, who served me a royal meal of pigeons, greens and rice in his family's house. They extended hospitality, warmth and humor at every turn to travelers far from home. Egyptian faces: intrepid, resilient and stoic in the face of extremes of poverty and wealth. They're hard-working, with dreams that keep them alive. A hotel doorman in Cairo, a displaced Nubian from Aswan, dreams of returning to his home on an island in the Nile. A favorite waiter at a cafe longs for repatriation to his village in Upper Egypt. If the tourists stop coming, where will they find work? Some of my academic friends question the soundness of an economy in which tourism plays such a key role. Yet for many Egyptians, tourism is the way up and out -- better jobs, good schools for their children and a flat instead of a shack or the street. I mourn the victims gunned down in this remote place in Egypt. And I grieve too for the many industrious Egyptians I know, for this recent episode of violence threatens their existence in a very deep and fundamental way. -- Ann Joachim SALON | Nov. 21, 1997

R E C E N T L Y+| IN DEFENSE OF MATT DRUDGE BY DAVID HOROWITZ

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