The people re demanding more regular blog posts so I promise
you all I am going to try. Problem
is I wake up at 5:15 am so every time I try to write I fall asleep. It’s a rough life.
It has been a good, busy few weeks. Last weekend I had the busiest best Friday I’ve had in
awhile. I went to Tahrir with
Caroline for a protest for a few hours.
We met some very interesting people including this man who brought along
his cat:
 |
| Revolutionary Cat / Man Who Gave Us the Gift of Mexican Food |
(He also told us about an AMAZING Mexican food joint here in
Maadi that was opened by a friend of his whom he met while working in Texas as
a helicopter engineer. This Texan guy came to Cairo to visit friends who took him to one of the shotty “Tex Mex”
chains at the mall; the only Mexican in Cairo at the time. He was like “I can do better than this”
so two yrs worth of research and finding investors later, he opened El
Sombray…the real gift of the Nile.
Hahaha.)
OK, that was a pretty serious side story sorry. So while we were at Tahrir we wandered
around the corner to the sit in being held by the family members and friends of
the Blind Sheikh. Omar Abdel-Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in the US for seditious conspiracy associated with the 1993 bombing of the WTC. Honestly, he’s a straight up terrorist. But Caroline has been chatting it up with one of his sons.
 |
| Sit in in support of the Blind Sheikh |
On the way back to Tahrir we had to go through a
checkpoint. These checkpoints are
set up by civilians around the square to make sure no Israelis or any other
“enemies of the people” are headed in.
I was taking a picture of the demonstrations on my phone (since my
camera decided to die 10 min into the whole affair) when this woman ran over from
a checkpoint all sorts of mad telling me I couldn’t take pictures and demanding
I hand over my phone. 1. Um….no and 2. No pictures? THIS IS TAHRIR SQUARE!
How the heck do you think your revolution made it out of Egypt? CAMERA PHONES!
Anywho, some man ran after her telling
her it was ok, totally normal and to leave me alone. But not before they searched my bag. Oh Egypt.
 |
| Said Trouble Causing Photo |
Here are some more Tahrir pics:
 |
| Love at first sight?! |
We left Tahrir to head over to Café Riche to meet Hassan’s
parents whom (I’m sure you’ve gathered from previous posts) I love. They had been at Tahrir most of the day
with Sean Penn. OK, not WITH Sean
Penn but I wanted to get it in here that Sean Penn did spend a few hours
walking around Tahrir with an Egyptian flag. Why?
Unclear. (Shouldn’t he be
at Wall St protests?) Café Riche
is a well-known café close to Tahrir where King Farouk is said to have met one
of his wives, where famous authors such as Nagib Mahfouz have frequented and
where flyers and posters were printed and the 1919 revolution was
organized. You know the type of
place. Beloved by artists and
revolutionaries. I was pretty much
in heaven.
So from Café Riche I went to Scott and Theo’s and Scott and
I took the metro to Dokki to an amaaaaazing Yemeni food place and then to a
rooftop café called Nomad to have a few beers and smoke shisha. My shisha was a bit unstable and at one
point began to fall over so in a brilliant move I reached out to save it with
the hand that I had my beer in, dropped the beer directly onto the glass bottom
of the shisha and in a steaming, wet explosion shattered the whole damn
thing. The beer survived
however. 7amdulilah. It was a mess. And horribly embarrassing. Needless to say we quickly made out
exit from Nomad, but not before I got glass between my flip-flop and foot and
cut my foot open. Cuz that won’t
increase my chances of getting hepatitis…walking around Dokki and taking the
metro with an open wound on the bottom of my flip flopped foot. Anywho, from Tahrir we went out on a fallukah,
which is a pharonic looking sailboat on the Nile. It was late, around 11 and it was so peaceful and relaxing. We then headed to Hurriyah, a bar
downtown for a bit. Busy day, eh?!
The rest of week was fairly par for the course…sleep, school sleep,
dinner, sleep, start over. Dina and Ahmed were here for 5 days and it was so so so good to see them! D is about 5 months pregnant and this was the last time I will see her without a kid! weird!
We have
a long weekend that began yesterday because of the October 6th holiday,
which I will get into in a minute.
Most people went out of town, but Sarah and I are having a Cairo
stay-cation. We went to City Stars
yesterday and shopped for 6 hours.
6 HOURS! Insanity. I spent thousands of pounds. THOUSANDS. I feel good about it though. Got some stuff I need (watch, shoes for school, sunglasses)
as well as a great deal of things that I do not need but that make me very
happy indeed. Tonight is a
friend’s birthday and we are considering staying in one of the nice hotels
downtown tonight and spending all day tomorrow sitting by the pool and getting
massages. We will see…
On to a more serious side of things let’s talk about
politics shall we?!?!?!
Yesterday was a national holiday in Egypt in observance of
the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war (Otherwise known as the Yom Kippur
War). President Sadat said that
Egypt would only enter into negotiations with Israel if they returned land in
Sinai and the Golan Heights. Not
shockingly Israel refused. Sadat
said he would risk the lives of “1 million Egyptian men” to regain the
land. Egypt and Syria launched a
pretty sick surprise attack on Israel with the Egyptians coming through at
Sinai and the Syrians into Golan Heights. They made it pretty far in, Egypt crosses the Suez
Canal within a few days, but the Israelis pushed back hard, eating small
Egyptian and Syrian children along the way. (not really.)
The Camp David Accords followed forcing Israel to give back the land it
captured during the 6-day war. Its
implications ended up being a bit more symbolic than tactical. The Arab world felt vindicated by early
advances in the conflict and Israel ended up a bit less confident and
invincible. I’ve read that part of
Sadat’s motives in launching the attacks was also to convince the Soviet Union
who had long supported Egypt’s military to provide more advanced arms and
supplies lest he tell the Egyptian people that the Kremlin had deserted them
and they turned on the Soviet Union to find help in the Americans. Interesting stuff all around.
12 yrs later, during a parade celebrating the Egyptian
crossing of the Suez Canal during the 6 days war, Anwar el-Sadat was
assassinated and power was handed over to the then Vice President, the one and
only Hosni Mubarak.
The news coming out of the states over the past few weeks
has me wondering, ‘why is it that I always miss civil unrest? I was late to Egypt, missed London
riots by a day and now my very own country is finally starting to protest and
IM NOT EVEN THERE! I must admit
I’ve been skeptical of the whole “Occupy Wall St” movement for a few
reasons. It seems largely
unorganized with no real set demands.
Yes, I understand, we want an end to corporate America’s stranglehold
over the government, but what SPECIFICALLY do these protesters want? And are they going to keep on marching,
keep on camping out, keep on getting arrested and keep on getting beat up by
the police until they get it?
There’s just something in me that says ‘no’. I was fairly moved by a video I saw of a march going through
Chicago. The protestors were chanting,
“we are the 99%” and “Whose street?
Our street”. I definitely
got goose bumps.
The second reason I’ve been struggling with Occupy Wall Street
is the constant references to Tahrir Square. Now I understand that they are using Tahrir and Egypt as inspiration
and to show solidarity, but where was this solidarity when Egyptians were being
shot at by rubber bullets and water cannons? I was at Egyptian solidarity marches in Chicago in January/February
and they were tiny. So I am
somewhat bothered that all of these people failed to show up then and are now
drawing inspiration or solidarity or whatever it is only after the fact. Not to mention the fact that people
here in Egypt literally risked their lives to protest against their
government. Do protesters in the states
have the passion and motivation to take it that far? More than one friend here (Egyptians included) have told me
that I am just being pessimistic and that they respect the connections between
US demonstrations and Tahrir Square.
I understand where they are coming from and I want to get there….I
really do. But all I remember
right now is being downtown at the Egyptian Embassy and having crowds of people
across the street watching us march and doing nothing.
Speaking of protests Ill tell you about the rather large one
last week with “revolutionary cat man”.
This was called in response to recent moves by SCAF (Supreme Council of
Armed Forces who are now ruling the country) intensifying the Emergency Law,
putting more restrictions on freedom of speech and limiting the ability of
protestors to organize. There were
stages set up with speakers and a fair number of people tried to stay the night
but were forced out due to said restrictions. However, the next day, SCAF met with the leaders of 13
political parties to propose a timetable for handing over power, elections, new
constitution, etc. I read that
part of this agreement included an end to military trials for civilians but I have
not been able to confirm this. The
way the timetable works has many people worried that the military in fact has
it’s own candidate for president. Parliamentary elections will begin November 28th
with both houses meeting in March of April to elect a constituent assembly to finalize
the new constitution, which will then be put up for referendum. (The people will vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on
it.) Once the constitution is
approved they will wait 2 months then have presidential elections. Um…what? That is a loooooong ways away! This means that SCAF could feasibly be in chare until the
end of 2012! There is also some
concern that parts of this agreement, which in rhetoric prevent former members
of Mubarak’s party from participating in elections, may also prevent some
revolutionary parties from participating as well. It’s a mess.
In related news the Mubarak trial presses on. Sheathed in secrecy and closed
doors. The media has been banned
from attending the trial and there is very little news coming out of it. Last week Field Marshall Tantawi testified. While it is not known what his
testimony was he came out after and told the media that "Nobody asked us to open fire and
nobody will open fire" on the people. In effect saying that Mubarak never gave direct orders to
shoot at protesters. EFFING
LIES. So apparently that’s not
going so well.
Despite these setbacks it would be unfair and dishonest to deny that not
everything is going south.
There have been very positive changes in Egypt since January that I believe
will eventually turn the tide of all of this. I read a great blog recently (thanks Read E.) that outlines
some of these positive changes.
1. Despite recent hiccups,
the media is much more pluralistic and open post revolution.
2. Liberals have
established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Pre revolution there was no chance of
movements like April 6 would be able to even compete with parties like the
Muslim Brotherhood. But now they
are right up there with the rest.
Not only are liberal parties legit, the course of political discourse in
Egypt has turned decidedly to the left among many groups. Not only in discussions about leadership,
but in terms of individual rights especially among the more religious Islamic
and Coptic segments of the population.
3. Politics used to be a “hush
hush” topic in Egypt. I remember
when I came here last July being told not to discuss politics. But now it is all the rage. Taxi drivers talk about it, people sell
political shirts and newspapers on the street, workers are protesting and
striking, thousands of people spend their Fridays in Tahrir square, football
fans march from the stadium after matches to Tahrir chanting and carrying
posters.
So amidst the criticism and despite the bumps in the road no one can
deny that post revolutionary Egypt is a much better place than it was a year
ago. I feel so fortunate to be
here during such an inspiring time and so in awe of the Egyptian people and
what they have accomplished in such a short amount of time.
I wish so much for my people back home
to show the same passion and commitment in making the changes the U.S. so badly
needs. No one is firing rubber
bullets at you, no one is firing water cannons at you or threatening to torture
your family. In relative terms to
the situation here and in this region it is so much easier for you all to get
out there and make your demands known.
DO IT! If the Occupy Wall
Street movement is going to use rhetoric in solidarity with Tahrir Square it must also
do so in action. Things need to
change and you all have what it takes to make it happen. If you had asked most Egyptians in the
early days of the revolution if Mubarak would step down they would have told
you no. If a movement led by a
group of 20 and 30 year olds can topple a 30 yr dictatorship that banned protests
and political opposition parties and ordered the military to fire on his own
people as they prayed, there are NO EXCUSES for Americans not to take this all
the way. Make me proud people….
Love from Cairo,
Martha
Martha
No comments:
Post a Comment