Why is there a slum called the "Manor of Camel Jockeys" and why did it change into "the City of Hope?"

CAIRO – 18 February 2021: It would be strange for a non-Egyptian that an area in Cairo called the Manor of Camel Jockeys had its name changed due to the notoriety of its original name. How did the Manor of Camel Jockeys get such a bad reputation, prompting the renaming into the City of Hope?

The aforementioned names are translated, the huge slum area in northeastern Nasr City was known -and would probably still be known for some time- as Ezbet el-Haggana, and now as Al-Amal City. It lies on an area of 750 feddans and hosts between 40,000 and a million people in estimation.

The Parliament commended the renaming of the area. Undersecretary of the Industrial Committee of the parliament, Mohamed al-Sallab, also said a petition of 8,000 signatories of Al-Amal demanded the name change into Al-Amal, to instill hope and to refer to the development marginalized areas are witnessing.

The old name had a bad reputation that instilled a kind of worry when heard by some people, perhaps as the name of many other slums. Haggana is also very close to the Arabic word “Haggama,” which means “attackers.” The area had another name, Kilometer 4.5, after the name of a small bridge that crosses over it. But that name also deprived the area of an identity or a meaning. It is not surprising that some people from Al-Amal avoided saying where they came from.

The name Ezbet el-Haggana surely did not have a reputation when it was first coined. The name was quite literal. Around the 1930s, the bare plot was used to accommodate military jockeys, an entire department of the Egyptian army to this day. In the 1950s, Nasr City was established and began to thrive as an upscale neighborhood and job provider. Many laborers built their own simple homes in the area to be close to their work. The government turned a blind eye to the community until it sprawled to what it is today.

A-Amal is witnessing widescale development today, with the government denying the relation of the residents in an official statement Wednesday. Egypt embarked on an ambitious project to eliminate 351 hazardous slums and relocate some 800,000 of their residents to safe housing units with facilities. However, some unplanned areas will only be upgraded and legalized as long as they do not constitute danger to the people who live there.

People requested the name of their areas be changed numerous times in recent years. A village in Gharbia governorate, the Delta, was called "Meet el-Bez," and was recently changed into "Meet el-Nour." Meet is the hieroglyphic word for "road." "Bez" is an Arabic slang for "breast." The villagers reported being embarassed to ask bus drivers to stop at "Meet el-Bez," and the governor of Gharbia approved the change into "Meet el-Nour," or "the road to the light."