The dish “is in the crosshairs of certain city dwellers who look upon shawarma vendors with a jaundiced eye, as forerunners of a foreign invasion. Their reactions speak volumes about the crises in the Middle East and their repercussions in Cairo, but also about regional geopolitics, migratory streams, the refugee problem, the economic crisis plaguing the country and the fervent nationalism which is surfacing again as a result.
Shawarma “has become a symbol of xenophobia and rampant nationalism.”
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