Heritage without people, heritage without time: The preservation paradigm in contemporary Egypt

This article situates the current Egyptian regime’s de facto rejection of adaptive reuse or participatory preservation projects within the lineage of colonial notions of heritage. Much like its colonial predecessors, the regime deals with heritage as its private property, deploying brutal authoritarian capabilities in an intense ongoing campaign to extract revenue from every possible source. Unlike its colonial predecessors, however, the current regime has access to technologies of granular surveillance and wide-scale repression, which it combines (when opportune) with the traditional mechanisms of distinction achieved through access to transnational education and class privilege. The regime claims the right to attribute historical value, and the freedom to ignore that value, as ways of displaying its authority for diverse audiences, including academics, activists, and members of the pre-2013 ruling class. By implementing a policy of ‘heritage without people,’ the current rulers of Egypt have amplified the use of heritage as a commodity whose value is commensurate with its ability to generate revenue. While seeming to prioritize urgent need in implementing urban development projects, and citing historical and architectural importance to justify the ‘rehabilitation’ of a monument or neighbourhood, the regime has wielded the category of heritage and the promise of preservation to acquire large tracts of prime urban real estate.