Look forward in anger

WITH his gelled hair, taste for coffee and keen interest in women, Muhammad Fawzy could be a university student anywhere. At the age of 21, and studying engineering at Cairo University, he should be looking to a bright future; after all, the world is crying out for technically minded graduates. But Mr Fawzy feels the outlook is bleak. He worries that no job he finds after graduation will pay enough to cover his costs, let alone allow him to support his widowed mother. Without a good salary, Mr Fawzy cannot buy a flat; without his own home he cannot marry; and without marriage, he cannot have sex.

“I cannot have a girlfriend for religious reasons, and because I wouldn’t like that for my sister,” explains Mr Fawzy. “I was in relationships [with women] previously but it never got physical. I never held their hands or kissed them.” He often talks to women, but on Facebook: it affords privacy and safe distance. As with much else, his predicament about women is more complex than just the pull of tradition.