Archive for category Thoughts & Essays
Election Day, Revolution Blues, and a Bitter Coffee
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on June 16, 2012
I never thought the day would come when a year and a half after the revolution people would be rushing to the polls to elect a new president while I sit home and sip my coffee. I have to say that coffee never tasted so bitter.
On May 23 I went down and I voted for president. I was skeptical of those who chose the boycott. Yes the system was imperfect, but here was a chance and we had to grab it. I was full of hope and overwhelmed with memories of everything that we went through trying to bring down a 30 year old corrupt regime–only to discover less than a month after the president stepped down that the fight was in fact against a 60 year old military rule.
I still had hope because I believed in the man I was voting for. I had asked his representatives direct questions on how he proposed to rid the country of the military handcuffs and they had clear, concise, answers.
Today the second round of elections brings before us a military man with a history of corruption vs a Muslim Brotherhood man. Logic dictates to anyone who cares about the revolution that the man to vote for should be the second. Everyone knew that it was a tough but necessary choice. Some Egyptians abroad took pictures of themselves in front of the voting stations squeezing a lemon on their heads. It’s an Egyptian saying that if you have to gulp someone you can’t really take you squeeze a lemon on yourself and take them anyway.
Facts which further proved that the military was not up to a clean election were unraveling before us everyday. Lawyers’ appeals to enact a law drafted by parliament to ban old regime figures from participating in the election fell on the deaf ears of the constitutional court. And to top it, two days ago the military swept the institutions of the country clean. The parliament was dissolved, the military police were granted free action in the streets with civilians – and with the help of the judiciary – and the committee to draft the constitution was from now on going to be appointed by the military. In other words, the military was no longer ashamed to show us who’s the real boss of us. They’re coming out straight in the open and telling us, in our faces, that we don’t exist.
Uproar from most of the country’s activists and intellectual demanded from the brotherhood to withdraw officially in protest and to surround the parliament building with all of its members and to protest the blatant attack on legitimacy in the country. It became clear to everyone that we’re heading up against a dead end with a huge wall the size of the mountains of Moria! But do the brotherhood stand up to the magnitude of the catastrophe? Do they grab what may be their last chance of creating a united front and winning millions of people on their side? Oh no. They choose to walk on to the wall, dragging the whole country behind them, announcing that their way is the only way. Their way is the revolution. That will do nothing short of further stapling their role in Egypt’s history since the fall of Mubarak as pure pigheadedness. One that is actually stapling us all up that frightful wall.
And once again, the emotional blackmail resumes as if nothing happened. “Abstention from voting is a vote to the military man.” “Abstention from voting is surrender.” “Vote for the revolution.” And my favorite “Save the revolution!”
In the parliamentary elections that talk scared me. When the second round was between a brotherhood member and a salafi member, I rushed to vote for the brotherhood. I had to save the revolution. I had to save my country. I helped put up a man that was part of a majority in a parliament that let us all down, and not necessarily by choice, but by the mere fact that it was a powerless parliament under the military junta. And now the junta have flexed their muscles and roared and swept it away altogether.
And I’m now expected to believe that the next president will actually have powers.
We have no constitution, we are clueless as to what the president will be able to do, and we have no answers from the “revolution’s candidate” on what he plans to do in this mess. None of those that will vote for him have any answers. But somehow magically we believe that by moving on with the rest of the herd the military is shooing to the ballots we are saving our revolution.
Sorry. I’m not taking part in this farce. Egypt deserves a lot more than this. And the reason I’m not going to the ballots for a second time is not because neither candidate represents me, but because both candidates will end up subservient to the real boss in this country. A boss that has actually come out in the open after working for so many years in the dark. A boss that has actually used our blood to reign openly, unashamed, taking us back to the dark ages of intelligence police, detention, imprisonment, suspicion.
Sorry. It’s a lot bigger and messier than casting a vote in a ballot. The revolution is much bigger than a puppet helpless candidate that has shown little stamina in the face of catastrophes.
In fact, by now I realize that none of the chosen few politicians who claim to represent the revolution have shown any stamina in the face of catastrophes.
The revolution will never die no matter what the military does and no matter who the president becomes, because it was instilled in the hearts and minds of the youth. And the youth are the future collective mind of this country.
I’m proud to have woken up in time. I’m proud of the revolution. I’m proud of my clean finger. But I’m still not enjoying my coffee.
I Voted for President. It Made Me Remember
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on May 23, 2012
No sleep. I toss and turn. I send out a tweet. A buddy in Australia sends me back another tweet. “Get some sleep for at least a couple of hours,” but he knows I probably can’t even if I tried to. This was not supposed to be like this. I was relaxed all along the presidential campaigns. I knew that they would be far from perfect under the rule of the military junta, but I also knew that there was no way out of them if we were to come out of the impasse we’re in.
We’ve gone down the street, we’ve protested, shouted, struggled to get our voices heard, now all that is left for us is to make this vote. We earned it.
I get up in the morning and pour some coffee. Watch the news. Can’t stand the dumb commentary. I need to get ready for a long day, I think to myself. I look at the faces of the people standing in lines on TV. Everyone seems determined and confident. Those are faces of people that will not be fooled.
Ok that’s it. Can’t wait much longer. I get a bottle of cold water and pull on my jeans and off I go.
Streets are all so empty (and by empty here I mean smooth traffic). I take a taxi and I stare out the window but I don’t see much. I’m not in an emotional mood (yet). Suddenly a song I’ve known and loved since childhood starts playing in the radio. “Helwa ya Baladi.” My country, you are beautiful. And bam! Like someone suddenly put on a clip inside my head, completely out of my own will, with scenes from the revolution days.
I remember meeting with my two friends, Nadia and Adel (the latter is the one who tried to tweet me to sleep from Australia) all tense and pretending to have sandwiches under the penetrating eyes of the suspicious state security officers, waiting for the march to join it.
I remember the rising numbers of people in the marches that were everywhere I looked. “The people demand the fall of the regime” roaring everywhere and making my heart beat faster.
I remember the teargas. The suffocating moments where I thought I was going to die. The faces of the three men who came to my rescue and tried to give me water and onions to get rid of the effect.
I remember the sound of the rubber bullets. I remember the injured protesters fighting for their lives in the hospital.
I remember the ruling party’s building on fire. I remember maneuvering to cross the street to reach that tree without getting shot.
I remember the horses and the camels that came rushing into Tahrir trying to whip the protesters out of the square.
I remember the two men in Tahrir who tried to comfort me when I broke down and cried, telling me that it would all be alright. That they were not going to retreat.
I remember the night horrors. The live bullets down in our streets. The men in my family joining their neighbors taking night shifts in the street to protect homes and property.
I remember the minute we heard that Mubarak stepped down. The euphoria, the dancing in the street.
I remember the viciousness of the army in the months that followed. The continued killings and beatings.
I remember the beautiful smiling faces of the people who died.
I start weeping like an pregnant hormonal lady and throw the poor cab driver into a state of bewilderment. I ask for his tissues and blow away until we arrive at the polling station.
I can’t find any lines, I enter the school and find an average line inside, but it wasn’t mine. I didn’t have to stand in any lines. Low voter turn out? I think to myself. I go inside with my red nose and face all puffy. Didn’t get a chance to recuperate from that emotional drive. I take the voting sheet and mark my candidate. I leave.
There are no sirens and there is no music to highlight the drama of the historical moment. A moment that I, at 39, never ever thought I would see. Ever.
I know it would be simplistic of me to think that with these elections we have entered our aspired new era. Far from it. But maybe we’ve taken our first baby step in the middle of a field of land mines and ambushes. Not all the candidates are fresh blood. Some are old faces that have worked closely with the old regime. I don’t trust them. There are things they have done that have helped put Egypt in the sorry state it is in not only domestically, but regionally. Turned it into a shrunken mutilated version of a country that once was. If they win, the very democracy that helped put them there might be jeopardized. And we don’t yet have the system that can protect us from them.
We need a president that will help us build that system. That solid rock hard system that will assure that a corrupt president will be put on trial. If we have that system I don’t care who nominates themselves in the next round.
Thoughts, thoughts rumbling around in my head, beating each other for my attention.
No, we’re not there yet. But we have nothing but our vote so we cast it, hoping that we’ve made the right choice. Now all I can do is pray that the right person for the right moment would win, WHOEVER that person may be.
Friday of Anger: The Birth of a Revolution (Part 2)
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on September 26, 2011
The revolt’s first Friday was decisive. The preceding 3 days had shown that what had started on January 25 was not a mere demonstration. It spread like wildfire across the country. Police oppression cleared Tahrir square for normal use again, kept the streets flowing, but it was like a lid over boiling water. They knew – and we knew – that what had started was not going to stop and the protesters were not going anywhere. January 28 was intended to be our point of no return. Each one of us went to the street with that in mind. It was like knowing that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
It was also a decisive day in exposing many public figures, actors, singers, even imams, who went after their interests, so they either praised the regime and stormed the protesters with verbal attacks, or just remained silent, waiting to see how things would turn out, always wanting to be on the winning side.
I sat in the mosque waiting for the sermon to begin, wondering which kind the imam who was going to deliver it to us was. Word had spread that State Security police, Amn Dawla, had issued clear instructions to all major mosques around the country to preach that revolt against the ruler was a major sin, arguing that it threatens to shake the stability of the country and to promote division–a classic escape Muslim rulers have adhered to for centuries throughout Islamic history.
Unlike most times, none of the women in the mosque appeared to be engaged in any conversation. The place was mostly silent; some were praying and others were reading the Quran. The journalist began to take pictures, making some women uncomfortable. Soon the sermon began and Nadia and I listened attentively, waiting for the imam’s mistakes. Soon we discovered that we were not alone with this attitude. A girl clad in black sat before us, exchanging glances and smiles whenever the imam appeared to be wandering off in the desert, clearly over-making his points.
Panic as the march reaches the human wall of guards. Senior officers in plain clothes watch from a distance behind the guards.
To me the sermon lasted an eternity. I was so charged on the inside I could no longer tolerate the normalcy. It was soon over, we prayed, and moved to the main exit where the women merged with the men at the large open space. Everyone walked normally towards the door and by the time the first in line reached it the chants began. It was a moment of transition from the wary calm and quiet that spread across the mosque and in the faces of the worshippers to a loudness that never ceased from that moment on. Looking around me, it was as if everyone felt the same way I did; waiting for that key moment in which they could finally raise their voices together and demand their freedom. We all rushed toward the outer door, crowding each other as we frantically searched for our shoes and put them on. I don’t recall ever putting on my shoes with more of a rush. I didn’t want to lose Nadia with the shoving of the crowd. I kept my eye on her until I was ready, and we were both out in Azhar street with the flood of people chanting out of the mosque, taking the center of street, past the officers and the plain clothes policemen with their sunglasses and walki talkis who stood by watching.
The Azhar road is topped with the Azhar bridge, reaching directly to the center of the city. It is a narrow, long old market street filled with fabric, spice, and book shops on both sides. It was where my father used to buy the fabrics he distributed among the poor of his hometown village every Ramadan. I had taken it thousands of times on my way to college or on a Fatimid Cairo outing with friends. Its penetrating spice aroma would always linger in my head for long hours after I had passed through it. To me, it was the aroma of home; the Egypt I had grown to love – its history and mine – and the many beautiful tales of I’ve read and heard when I was a kid.
Crowds gathered on top of the bridge until rubber bullets began to disperse them.
As loud as the chants and shouts were as we moved through the closed space of the mosque exit, I expected that they’d disperse as we were out in the open space of the city, but they kept getting louder. The narrowness of the street and its relatively confined surroundings; the crowded shut down shops and the bridge overhead magnified the sounds of the protesters’ chants and shouts, echoing from one side of the street to the other. They seemed to be coming from all directions: in front of me, behind me, over me, and I could nearly feel the vibrations under my feet. The sounds felt like they were coming right out of the walls. Everything seemed to synchronize itself with the people. And as we continued more people were drawn to the streets out of awe or mere curiosity. Like most photojournalists some ran to the top of the bridge to get a better view. I could tell by the rising numbers that not everyone marching now was among those in the mosque. The chants drew many people in.
At this point all the resistance I could see from the police was a mere attempt to control the route of the march. Or perhaps just the density. Our march continued until we came to a human wall of guards in helmets blocking our passage, creating a small stampede. Some of the protesters tried to calm the crowds and stop them from getting into confrontation with the guards, so they signaled for everyone to jump on the iron bars that divided the two way street, the other side of the street being open for advancement. An older woman standing next to me began to panic with the pressing crowd. There was no way for her to go with the guards blocking the passage and the bars being too high. I held her by the hand and began to shout to one of the guards to let us through, given the condition of the woman. I used every bit of logic I could think of when my mere appeal to common sense did not do the trick with him, but all I continued to get from him were the same responses. “No. Sorry. Not allowed.” The more he said those words the more infuriated I became, so I began to push against him with all my might. He did not budge an inch. I know I’m not that weak and yet I failed to cause the slightest movement in him or any of his colleagues. I don’t call them a human wall out of nothing. They’re actually trained to be that. A senior officer places his orders and they are encrypted in their skulls. His words are final and there’s no rationalizing with them.
With the sheer force of the people they managed to create a gap in the iron bars and we went right threw it, marching on and out of the street till we got caught in more serious police resistance. We could hear rubber bullets being shot and people began to run everywhere. Sirens and showers of teargas canisters filled the intersection we found ourselves in. The air was no longer breathable. Nadia and I frantically looked for a place to hide until we found a small passageway between two buildings that many people were rushing into. As we followed them we found a senior police officer carried by some of the protesters and rushed into the same place, his face flushed red and he had difficulty breathing. For many of us this might have been the first time we encountered teargas so we were clueless as to how to combat its effects. All what many of us could think of was water. Many were calling out for water to give to the troubled officer and save him from whatever the gas appears to have done to him.
If that moment was anything to me, it was only proof and reassurance that our uprising was for beliefs, hopes, dreams. Those people of all ages marching around me held no grudges to uniforms or individuals; their only enemy was oppression and corruption. This was a war of ideas and beliefs, not people, because in that narrow passage there was no telling who was the enemy. The officer in the uniform among us was no more than just another helpless Egyptian desperate for a breath of fresh air. That’s what we all were.
To be continued.
Videos from the day:
Beginning of march from inside Al Azhar open space and out to the street:
The early spark. Egyptians from all walks of life join the march from Al Azhar mosque. Old men joined shouting “Down with Mubarak” while some carried their children on their shoulders:
Woman urging protesters to hold on:
Panic at the intersection, the sound of rubber bullets and me cursing:
Hiding from teargas in the narrow passage:
Police vehicle with its eerie siren gets caught among the protesters at the intersection. On that day many such vehicles have chosen to run over the protesters:
Friday of Anger: The Birth of a Revolution (Part 1)
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on May 6, 2011
Burning cars and a smokey skyline were scenes that were first spotted in Suez.
The night of the 25th was like a surreal dream. People gathered in Tahrir after the protesters had taken hold of it. Groups of musicians, artists, poets, all gathered around in circles and expressed their demands in their own ways. Tahrir was a beautiful festival with Egyptians of all kinds, all backgrounds, sitting together shoulder to shoulder and demanding freedom. But it didn’t last for long. At 1 am some 60 tear gas canisters were thrown into the square to disperse the protesters. Suddenly the festive atmosphere became a spectacle of panic. As they tried to leave the square escaping the tear gas they were arrested and taken off the scene. The whereabouts of many remained unknown for a long time.
And from that moment on in the following days panic was the overriding spirit I could smell in the air. I live near downtown and Tahrir, and I could hear sirens of ambulance and police continuously ringing day and night as if it was the government’s final calls for dear life. Some of my friends who had stayed late in Tahrir on the 25th were now caught up in a friend’s apartment in a building that overlooked the square, but they were unable to tell me where they were on the phone. There was no chance for them to try to reach their homes because the police was frantically and randomly arresting anyone in the vicinity of Tahrir. They also spotted female police officers with sticks, ready to harass female protesters. So there was a little something for everyone. No one was to be ruled out or spared.
During this time things had begun to escalate by a hundred more degrees in other towns, especially Suez, a city whose people we always praised as brave resistance fighters one generation after another. The city has a long history of being the main battle front for most of the conflicts Egypt has gone through. Reports of live ammunition being used against the protesters were already reaching us, faster than those of similar incidents inside Cairo. The more the reports flooded the angrier everyone felt, and the more escalated the determination of the protesters became.
In only two days over 20 people were reportedly killed in Suez, and we are used to always doubling the official number announced. The families of the victims were requested to sign forms that denied the actual reasons of death by live ammunition in order to receive the bodies. They refused to sign and staged a protest outside the morgue, becoming the center of attention and inspiration to the rest of the country, igniting further flames of anger and determination. What began as a call for political and economic reform now became a full demand for the fall of the regime. No one was going to ignore what happened in Suez. Facebook, Twitter, and SMS were some of the main mobilizing techniques, which led the government to eventually block all three services from the country.
Soon a call for a massive protest in every street and every town after the Friday prayers spread like wildfire. A list of mosques in different parts of each city was issued and I, along with a number of friends in Cairo, decided to begin our march from Al Azhar mosque. The protests had never reached this size and magnitude before, and they had never lasted for more than a day. I felt that history was being made, that some profound change had already started to find its way in, I could tell just by the non-stop sound of the sirens I could hear even in my sleep. For that reason we chose Al Azhar, known for being an epitome for defiance throughout Egyptian history.
We made sure we agreed on time and place the night before Friday. By then we had no SMS service and a troubled internet. We woke up the next morning expecting the worst, and we got it. The first thing I tried to do was switch on my mobile phone. There was no signal. I went to the computer and found no internet. It was as if I had jumped into a time machine with my gadgets and woke up in another point in history.
Egypt was back to the middle ages.
If there was anything signifying that the end of Mubarak was near, it was these moves by the government. The more it sent out those signals of its own panic the stronger everyone of us felt. And that is how I felt as I closed my laptop that morning. Every step I took now counted. I felt I was walking, marching, sometimes running to freedom. Quite literally.
My friend Nadia was staying at her father’s place, a ten minute walk away from mine. She opened the door and as I walked in I found her sister closing up her backpack while two of her friends waited. They had decided to begin the march from another mosque. They calculated that it was in a large square with wider streets surrounding it, making it harder for the police to crackdown and control the crowds. I could see the logic, but our attachment to the idea of starting from Al Azhar anyway did not wither. We were willing to take our chance.
The first minutes of the protest. Immediately after prayer, protesters begin their chants as they leave Al Azhar mosque.
Nadia’s father, a 73 year old retired university professor, looked at us and said. “Go bring that dictator down. I wish I was able to go with you, but I’m too old now.” His words came to all of us like a brand new rush of excitement as we walked out the door. Few parents in Egypt, at this day and age, would encourage their children to go out and protest in the midst of imminent danger. But Nadia’s father is an old patriot and activist who has seen better days in this country.
With the mobile network shut down, our goal to stick together and try as hard as we could never to lose sight of each other was almost as important as the reason why we participated in this protest. Should anything happen to one of us, the others would know and hence have a thread to follow in finding that person.
We arrived at Al Azhar mosque a little before the noon prayers began. The entire area surrounding the entrance to the mosque and across the street into the old Khan Al Khalili market was covered in plain clothes policemen in dark sunglasses and mobile phones staring around doing nothing, intimidating everyone by their mere presence. Others in uniform seemed to be of high ranks. They held their buzzing walki talkis and stared back at everyone who looked at them. News of random arrests had been spreading like wildfire and the last thing we wanted was to raise suspicions around us before anything even started. Nadia was all set for tear gas and rocks with a helmet and vinegar in her backpack. Upon our first entrance to the market to buy some water and snacks our bags were checked.
“Are you a construction engineer?” Asked her an officer with a smile. “Yes.” He had said the lie for her. She couldn’t really tell him she was equipped for a revolt. Yes was, after all, a word the police always liked to hear.
We walked right past the plain clothes officers and we were inside the mosque. A foreign journalist had put on a hijab and placed herself among the women worshippers, taking random pictures, wanting to capture the first spark. It was hard to suspect in anyone that they were going to participate in any demonstration. The men and the women looked perfectly calm and normal upon their entry into the mosque. Most people tried to avoid looking around them like we did. I was too excited to hide anything, especially when I was inside the place of worship. I took a far end corner, leaned against the wall, and stared at everyone.
To be continued…
The Silent Stallions of Libya
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on February 21, 2011
In Arabic we have a proverb that says beware the wrath of the patient. When Egypt rose against the tyranny, oppression, and widespread rooted corruption that had been governing it for three decades it was as if Sphinx had suddenly come to life and rose from his eternal rest. We toppled the president, a man known for his involvement in much of the plight of the Palestinians, if not his own people, but we still don’t feel that it’s over. Even before January 25, the day the revolution began, we had a series of little protests and semi-free press that criticized Egyptian domestic and foreign policies on a number of issues. Some journalists, although jailed later, criticized the person of the president. We expressed ourselves, but we were jailed, arrested, and tortured.
The Libyans have none of that. And they’ve had none of that for 42 years, not 30. I visited Libya in 2007 in a small attempt with a friend of mine to do some “Arab tourism,” visiting a fellow Arab country and seeing it through the eyes of a people who wanted to learn more about their immediate neighbors, with whom we share so much.
There was not a single day that passed without meeting a person who was either half-Egyptian or married to an Egyptian. Everyone was extremely kind, peaceful, calm. Nothing like what much of the media had tried to show of the Libyan people in many years that passed.
Posters of Qaddafi filled every street corner in such a way that made Mubarak appear quite benign, modern, civilized, and democratic. It was the 38th year of the coup d’etat which Qaddafi liked so much to refer to as a revolution. Larger than life images of him greeting his people, with the number 38 shamelessly plastered next to him.
We focused much of our trip on Benghazi, the land of the Sanoussis, the ousted royal family whom Qaddafi continued to despise, showing his hatred to the past with exaggerated and appalling neglect for the city. Streets were poorly paved, much of the buildings affected by the coastal weather were left unpainted for years. Government buildings were rundown, with broken windows left unfixed. Benghazi was a beautiful, neglected stallion ready to spring the minute it broke free of its curb.
People there were mostly silent. We were warned beforehand that it would not be wise to speak politics with any person. We were given the chance to visit the grandson of Omar Al Mukhtar, the legendary freedom fighter who fought the Italian invasion in the early twentieth century, now an elderly sheikh with an open lounge for students and visitors paying their respects. I was especially curious to listen to his views on the situation in the Middle East, especially after the 2006 war in Lebanon had just ended. The man’s eyes widened and he became extremely tense, refusing to talk to me, while men surrounding him decided that my friend and I were no longer welcome in the place.
Qaddafi does not just oppress dissent, he refuses the mere concept of opposition. Educators, professionals, writers, and many more skilled Libyans are living abroad. And outside Libya, if they oppose his regime he hunts them down and kills them. If you’ve ever tried talking to a Libyan about the truth of the Libyan regime prior to the current uprising you would know what I mean. Qaddafi haunted his opposition even in their dreams.
The more I watch the media the more evident the size of the horror gets clear to me, and that’s not just because of the sight of dead bodies or severely injured civilians. It’s because of the quivering voices of the anonymous eyewitnesses that can’t fight back their tears as they plea for help to the outside world, be they men or women, young or old. It’s in the shivering jaws and hands of the old opposition Libyans living in the UK, the US, Germany, and virtually most countries on the planet except their own, as they spoke with mixed emotions of grief and pride, their eyes wide in disbelief as they saw the liberation moment coming so close. Those silent people who couldn’t even speak about the regime even in exile were now exploding with horrors of the past they had witnessed, and appealing to the world with their plight.
I’ve seen it in my own country. If the fear is broken nothing else brings it back. If the wall of silence crumbles nothing will ever build it again. And it is crumbling everywhere in the Arab world, exposing the ugliness of the savage rule it had been subjected to for decades. And the Libyans, those amazing people who can teach the world lessons of patience, are bound to show the world how they will present their lives to the mad beast that dwells among them. It is their only gate to the world outside.
Jan 25, 2011, the Day Fear Died in My Country
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on February 20, 2011
Protesters lift bars as they try to advance and join another march, tear gas shown in the distance
I’ve been feeling so trapped inside my body. There’s a bundle of emotions swirling around me, so dramatized by all I’ve seen, that I feel so drowned in its deep waters. It’s been 26 days now and I still have not been able to tell my story. But I know I need to get it out fast before the memory starts to fade away, before I finally ride up on one of the strong tides that keep pushing me adrift off and away from the shore.
Ever since it all started I’ve been shrinking in my own eyes. It’s like when a cat is suddenly face to face with a lion – wherever that might happen – and suddenly realizes its own insignificance. The silence that overcame me crept into my inside, making me doubt whatever I might want to say or share, believing it would by far be less significant than what many others had to say, or have already said.
But I will try. It’s my experience, and this is my blog, so feel free to search elsewhere if it doesn’t grab you!
I arrived back home in Cairo on January 24, one day prior to the scheduled protests on the 25th. I had been in Saudi Arabia for three weeks with my mother’s family. I had by then managed to train myself to shed off much of the pains and sorrows of the past and to wake up each morning with a fresh look towards a new day. I overate, overslept, overindulged myself in perfumes and nail polish. My busiest times were the times I sat to read a book of my choice. I had deliberately chosen to stop following political events around the world, I had started to doubt whether I actually wanted to have a career in political science or even the media to begin with. I no longer cared what happened in Egypt, because all the events sounded the same, and all the results were boringly predictable. There was the corrupt government whose mummified faces didn’t seem to be going anywhere. There was our ridiculously unprofessional state-run media blabbing away about the divine qualities of the president, his family, and his associates.
And there was the usual handful of activists, intellectuals, and professionals who wanted change.
This handful of lone protesters always seemed to be standing on an island of their own. They weren’t many when compared to a population of over 80 million people, but they were working day and night to empower the poor and the workers. Their morale did fade sometimes, their hope did become a vague, unrealizable dream, but they continued to work the way a street sweeper continued to sweep, even though passersby threw trash right after he finished.
And it was no accident that those protesters were standing on an island. They were quite literally placed on it. With police forces three times the size of our army, few Egyptian streets were void of police officers or truckloads of guards parked near a university or a mosque, ready to quell the faintest sign of ‘unlawful’ assembly. So a demonstration of 200 people would be surrounded by a thousand uniformed guards, tens of plain clothes officers, dozens of sunglasses and mobile phones, and officers of so many ranks I lost track of. It would not be allowed to march, but remain cornered in place, like caged animals in a zoo, while passing cars would slow down to try to hear what the chants were saying to no avail.
This lasted for as long as I could remember for the past 30 years of Mubarak’s regime. This was the people’s only channel to speak directly to the regime in an attempt to be seen and heard by all, not just the educated elite or even merely those who could read newspapers.
With this background I eyed the call for the January 25 protest with so much doubt and skepticism. I had the burden of the years behind me, of the scenes and the frustrations that never seemed to cease. And I did not believe that change could be brought about with an appointment, setting date and time to take the road against oppression. Revolutions didn’t happen that way. They were spontaneous. They had to be spontaneous. They weren’t a rendez-vous with freedom.
I woke up on the morning of the 25th feeling lazy, and guilty for being lazy. My friend Nadia called and insisted that I go, so I got off the bed because I knew that I would not be able to live with the guilt of not being out on the street on that day.
Massive march towards one of the oldest bridges in downtown Cairo, an entrance to Tahrir square
As I later found out, we were like many other skeptical Egyptians who were going out of a fading sense of duty. We knew there was nothing else we could do if we wanted any change. So the step now was to decide where to go to begin the demonstration. A number of places had been discussed by those who said they’d participate. Some had planned to have breakfast in a chic cafe in an upper class neighborhood and move from there – adding much to my already skeptical attitude – and others had decided to begin in Shobra, a busy, crowded neighborhood known for its mosaic of inhabitants, from Christians to Islamists. So Nadia and I opted for Shobra. We wanted hot events and we wanted to see them for ourselves.
We signaled for a taxi and got in, immediately putting on our casual girls all out for fun act. The taxi smiled and pointed to two people that had signaled for him before us. “Do you see those idiots? They stopped me and said, ‘take us to the demonstration!’ Demonstration?? I want to live!” And he laughed. “So why are you going to Shobra, young ladies?” We looked at each other and Nadia instantly replied, “We’re visiting a friend.”
I sent my first tweet that I was on my way to the demos and received a phone call from my friend Adel. “You’re going to the demonstration?” He asked with excitement. All I could think of was to control all my replies lest I horrify the taxi driver.
“Umm, yeah.”
“Cool where will you go?”
“Shobra.”
“Shobra! Why is that?”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that. Choice. Ok… maybe I’ll go in Mostafa Mahmoud, then.”
I couldn’t wait for Adel to hang up so that I could SMS him on why we wanted Shobra or why I spoke to him that way.
I could not resist taking a quick picture of this man. He was sobbing as he chanted and joined the protest.
We arrived in the main square in Shobra. Neither we nor the taxi driver had ever been to the place and we didn’t know how to find it, but the sight of an increasing police presence told us we were close. Someone pointed out to us that it was further ahead, and the minute we reached it we knew we were in the right place. Dozens of police trucks were parked on the sides, dozens of plain clothes men in dark sunglasses, dark coats, and neat haircuts had pulled up plastic chairs and sat on the sides of the road, believing that that way they could actually blend among the people. Those were the famous Amn Dawla, the humungous state security apparatus that had been terrorizing political activists for decades, bullying all dissidents whenever they felt like it. Men in uniforms of too many ranks stood talking to their radio receivers, barring some shops with iron bars and helmeted guards.
And there was not a single protester in sight.
Like many other Egyptians, the mere sight of heavy police presence unnerved us, because we knew that under the emergency law that’s been ruling the country for 3 decades, they could easily pick us up off the street and arrest us for no apparent reason other than being physically there. We kept walking back and forth with no place to go until we decided to settle in a restaurant and wait for Adel to join us. That way, maybe we wouldn’t really attract too much attention.
Adel arrived and asked the police to allow him into the restaurant, signaling with his hand that he wanted to buy a sandwich. We were all oblivious to the oddity of people deciding to just hang out in a restaurant under police siege.
Time passed and nothing was starting. Action was already beginning in that upper middle class cafe we had rejected, however. Nadia learned that our friends there were arrested right out of that cafe and carried in police trucks, only to be released in a far suburb away from the center of the city. We figured that plans where we were might have changed. Nadia was always inseparable from her mobile phone, following everything on Twitter. So she read that a protest was actually growing in downtown Cairo. We immediately took the decision to go there. We stopped the taxi and continued on foot, when suddenly we found ourselves in an overwhelming crowd of people marching in the streets, chanting against the government and calling for the fall of the president. This was the first time I had ever seen a protest allowed to actually march in the streets of Cairo.
An army of guards surrounds the state television building for fear of the protesters reaching it.
We kept walking along with it, and people were standing in their balconies in all buildings watching. Others stood on the sides of the street like they were looking at a parade. It felt like one to me, because I had never seen such young fresh faces calling for freedom before. They were the kind of people that I only saw when Egypt won a soccer game. Suddenly those young men were rallying for change. Suddenly they were out, risking everything, for the right reasons.
This march did not appear to have any leaders. Hundreds were growing into thousands, and the young were carried on shoulders in many groups, shouting the regime down. They seemed to come from every street, every alley. And the more time passed the more crowded it became. My heart was beating fast. The sounds of the crowds almost shattered the walls. And the protesters looked up to the windows, calling upon the people watching to come down and join them. They called for every person standing by to join. I could see people beaming at the protesters, eyes lit up, filled with joy and hope, yet standing pinned down to the ground, too afraid. As I walked along I could hear hums very near to me. I turned and found a middle aged man in tears and a look of disbelief chanting the national anthem. He had decided to join the march.
Nadia and I began to run from one end to another in each rally, trying to figure out the size of the crowds, then I began to see the hesitant faces that had previously stood by now in the midst of the marches, shouting off the top of their lungs, “Down, down with Mubarak!”
The destination of the marches in different parts of Cairo was Tahrir, or liberation, square. Being the largest in Cairo, the place holds special significance for both the people and the government alike. It was as if those who controlled it held the upper hand and were seen and heard by all. And as the crowds began to grow and the police tried to isolate marches from each other, I knew that there was no way the police would allow a soul into Tahrir.
The larger the number the safer and more assured most people began to feel. They challenged the police to continue their marches to join those on the other side, and when they failed they spontaneously changed direction, in thousands, to another path leading to the same destination.
The coordination was perfect. An advanced row would begin to shout to the back “Go back!” And it would be transferred from one row to another until an entire batch of at least a thousand or more people would change direction with no clash or division.
Not being bound by a single group, Nadia and I were able to penetrate even to the side of the police, changing our occupations and purposes of being in the street as we went along depending on who asked us. One minute we were journalists, the other we were trying to get home. I could see that the situation was extremely tense on their side. I overheard an officer speaking on the phone, “This is only getting worse! We can’t handle these numbers!” The minute I heard that sentence I knew that the time had come. This was the time to do it. If not now then the chance wouldn’t come again, not for another 30 years.
The crowds were finally able to enter Tahrir, pushing the police toward the ministry of interior building, by which time the police had redeployed throughout the street that led to it, pointing water hoses and using tear gas to disperse the crowds. Suddenly there were rocks flying in the air. We took shelter in a corner right at the street where the battle began. The further the protesters advanced the more cheerful they became, and soon they were joined by thousands more coming into Tahrir from all directions. Tahrir had become theirs.
I stood speechless. I left my home that day expecting a few hundred to be surrounded by an army of black-cloaked helmeted guards, and I found scores of people from all walks of life chasing the police out of Tahrir! I had never ever imagined a protest of this size or magnitude. And the amazing contrast of moods between the crowds and the police was what struck me the most. The minute I was among the protesters there was nothing but defiance and determination, yet among the police there was nothing but horror and panic.
Something very big had happened in my country. The people were no longer afraid, the regime was.
The Mirror of My Mind: Remembering 2010
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on December 31, 2010
I was seventeen the last time I cared that a new year was approaching. I was at the height of my stressful months on the final school year before college. I was too stressed to even study, and I needed to get my mind off everything. I had a wild party with my friends and we sprayed each other with everything sprayable.
Today I find myself thinking of the year that passed and I can’t help smiling. I don’t recall any year more dramatic than this one, because a life normally changes gradually, but my life changed almost with a switch of a button. It was like a literal closing of a book, placing it on a table, and picking a brand new fresh book, with a glossy cover, and opening it with curiosity.
2010 marked the ending of a way of life I’d had for as long as I can remember. I lost people who were a part of my existence. Some were the frame that defined my life, my priorities, what I did, what I cared for, and some changed me in ways for which I will forever be grateful, shattering the ground underneath my feet and awakening the wild, crazy part in me. And I met new people I never thought would have so much impact on me. I ventured into new domains, I saw new horizons, and for the first time in my life I began to free myself of me. I decided to look in the mirror of my mind and ask myself for once who I was, or who I thought I was. I didn’t like the answer because something inside told me that it’s not really what I wanted. So I closed my eyes, blocked my nose, I dove into the sea of the unknown. I loved the cold splash and the separation from reality the sound of silence under the water gave me. I emerged feeling so fresh, so new, so washed. I was again in touch with the six year-old who had unlimited dreams of what she wanted to be. I had really, really missed her.
2010 was a year of grave loss and incredible gain. My emotions barged on a bumpy ride. I had the saddest moments of my life, and I was comforted with the divine hand that led me on a new path, giving me the most exhilarating experiences of my life.
I am grateful. And I won’t wait for tomorrow; I will surprise it!
One, Two, Freak Out!
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays, Travels on November 10, 2010
Island Peak (Yikes!) photo by Emil Friis from Everestnews.com
Ok. Take 2. I have the duffle bag half open, I have my toothpaste and toothbrush lying next to it, it’s 11:30 PM and I’m a few pounds heavier. I am packing this time to go to the Himalayas. This is the journey to go meet the Big One. I will be climbing with a group of 7 people I don’t know to Everest base camp at 5300 m altitude, I will be greeting Mount Everest, and I will begin my first technical climb up Island Peak to 6180 m. In snow.
Let’s see … About a month ago I went on an Amazon shopping spree and I bought five mountaineering books ranging from guides to true stories of horrors and successes. The books arrived when I was on a trip to Dubai and when I came back the box remained unopened for three days. I have the books lying in front of me on the desk but I’m too hesitant to read any. I have not been doing any physical training for this trip. I have not looked up any information on Nepal except an hour ago to check out the weather.
I short, I’m freaking out. And when I freak out I go on denial.
My body weight and shape have definitely changed. I’m not sure how comfortable my clothes will be this time around. I’m not sure how my heavy backpack is going to feel on my back. I’m not sure if I can still carry the weight and continue to endure at a high altitude, let alone start my first climb in snow. My brain keeps telling me to drink a lot of coffee in the morning and eat a lot of junk at night. I stare at the TV for hours, hating, loathing the acting and the cheap plots. I have a jammed state of mind with loops endlessly swirling around my head.
I’m still moving on with the plan, though. If Kilimanjaro was about quieting my mind then hello?? I think my mind now needs to shut up!
There still is one thing different about me this time. I have learned my bitter lesson and got myself a lot of dry sacs to categorize my things. Now I have a sac for pants, a sac for tops, a sac for socks, etc. And I love the you-can’t-beat-and-drown-me-this-time feeling I have towards my things! I now look at my bag with command and superiority.
To be fair to myself, it hasn’t really been that long since Kilimanjaro. It’s been only two months. That’s not enough time for my muscles to completely fall out of tone. Maybe go to sleep a little, but not reverse. Muscle memory will hopefully make my body pick up where it stopped.
I made the decision to fly to Nepal in one minute. I read the announcement about the trip and something inside me began to boil. My adrenalin started to pump in seconds. I knew I wouldn’t be alright if I stayed and slackened in Cairo for too long after Kilimanjaro. The longer I do that the worse my mood becomes. And if the motivation for working out is behind me I feel depressed. More and more of the TV mode I’m currently in is only further proof that I need to get on a mountain as soon as possible.
So I guess I took my decision back then to save myself from today. I’m glad I made that decision. I need to throw myself at another mountain. I need to count my steps and look at my boots. I need to wash my ears with the silence and my eyes with the whiteness of the snow. I need to feel and hear my every breath. I need to be free again.
Rants of a Shackled Egyptian
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on November 1, 2010
I wake and sleep to the sounds of the traffic and sirens outside my window. I look at this and think twice before I go out for any reason. (Can you spot the ambulance on the left?)
How badly can you want something? What would normally be the thing to do when you are placed with someone who has authority over the thing you want so much and withholds it from you? Would you walk your talk, confront them and live up with the consequences? Would you speak with fear of being denied your thing and so you acknowledge the authority lest you wake the beast?
My story today may not be that dramatic, but little violations of my rights everyday can turn me into something I’m not pleased with.
I was driving home last night, trying to arrive within less than 30 minutes on a route that should in any other city take 10 minutes. I started my journey with my car crawling among other cars in a pool of chaos. I managed to get near the area where I lived around 7:30, exactly 30 minutes later. To my surprise I found that the street I normally take to reach my home was blocked with police rails and two officers were standing there. If I missed that street it would take me another 30 to 45 minutes of turning in the chaos to get back to a previous spot and choose another street. I had no option.
I spoke to one of the officers. “I live right there and I need to get home quickly.”
“Sorry madam, prohibited. There’s a tashreefa.”
Tashreefa has no literal translation in the English language, probably because there is no equivalent to the phenomenon outside our world. It is a deliberate blockage of streets in anticipation of a prominent politician passing in his bullet-proof car. The streets get decorated by soldiers, human beings that are placed on both sides of the road from beginning to end for hours until the sacred passing takes place. Until then the street is literally out of order. No forewarning, no easy access to alternative routes. You drive there, get stuck, and discover that it’s a tashreefa.
My blood began to simmer. “You cannot deny me access to my own home. I must get there now!” He went to speak to a higher authority sitting on a chair with its back to the street and busying itself with some papers. He came back with the same answer. “It’s prohibited, madam.”
At this moment the simmering grew to a boil. I found myself opening the door and charging out of the car in an anger fit I usually describe as an out of body experience. I suddenly acquire a much higher voice and begin to say and do things I have no control of. I walked to the “authority” on the chair and ignored the officer’s calls after me.
“I need to get to my home. All I demand of you is a little respect to my basic human right as a citizen of this country!”
The man’s eyes were wide open staring at me in disbelief. “You may take the next street.” I began to fume. “The next street is a one-way street and if one of you catches me he’d charge me 1000 EGP, and there is no way I can enter it since it is equally blocked with cars trying to get to the already blocked road we’re in. So now please allow me to get into my home. You may search me if you will. I have no weapons. I need to get to the child that is waiting for me there!”
I had no idea who that child was, unless I count my cat as one.
Predicting that he would not be rid of me soon, he waved at his subjects to allow me in. I walked to my car without another word and drove in. It was a party in the Turkish ambassador’s residence. Black cars, black suits, black dresses. I was thrown back into my black mood. I drove with so much fury and kept cursing out loud alone in the car.
I got to my home and all I could think of was how many of us end up being reduced to basic levels just to protect our rights to go by in the streets of Cairo with no hassle. What’s more important, I was alarmed at the things I said. I said “please.” Please?? What the hell was I thinking? Was I so afraid he’d let me do the 45 minutes turn and I was secretly begging for his mercy? A “child”?? What child? I lied!
Is it the systematic subordination we’ve been subjected to in our society for so many years that made inner submissive cowards out of us? Has the hierarchical system of authority been passed down to us individuals, making us oppressive to those below us and submissive to those above?
Yes. As children many of us went to schools where we were beaten by teachers for speaking in class or for not doing our homework. We were yelled at and humiliated in front of our peers in class. When we grew up we became used to laws and regulations being issued overnight and executed with no consideration of any say on our part.
The spark that I see in the eyes of Egyptians as I look at pictures taken some forty or more years ago no longer exists. The people I see walking in the street have a look of defeat in their eyes. The women have lost their glory, lines of exhaustion and fatigue have carved their ways on their faces. The men have lost their sense of self-worth. The little sense of control they still aspire to have is practiced on their children or wives.
Egyptians have been systematically neutralized by a smart centralized authority that has reigned above them for so many decades. They used to revolt, but now they can’t get more than a hundred people to stand still in a demonstration. A culture of prohibition overrules everything. I can’t get a refund in a shop, I can’t change my order in a restaurant, I can’t enter certain restaurants because I cover my hair. The list continues.
Inside me there’s a free soul longing for harmony with its surroundings, but sometimes I feel like it’s forever caged inside the body of the hesitant person I have become. I don’t know how long I will further have to wait until it is out, but I’m going to keep trying to unshackle it bit by bit until I, all of me, am free.
On Loss
Posted by Arwa Salah Mahmoud in Thoughts & Essays on October 26, 2010
A little stream of consciousness moment…
Sleep always evades me when I need it the most. It’s like when something that belongs to you keeps popping up everywhere in the house and you don’t give it a second thought, then suddenly you need it, start looking for it and it vanishes. People and things have a habit of doing that, especially when you take them for granted. You don’t realize the value of something, or someone, until you lose them. It’s a harsh way of learning a lesson, but most times it is the only way.
It really frustrates me when I look at this reality. Since I was very young I’ve been bombarded by instructions and advice from those older than me. Arab culture always glorifies those that are older.
Older people forever give advice on things that don’t seem to make sense to the young, things that I always thought did nothing but paralyze me. My only way out was to continue to do them without their knowledge. I felt that I needed to build my own experience and to be able to decide for myself on what is good and what is bad, but I never really managed to shake off the guilt feeling that was always associated with defying my parents’ rules.
I may be wrong, but I think that no matter how much a parent tries to protect their young they will never be able to with instructions or even advice. It’s a choice that they need to make, do they want their children to be under the safety of their wings but to not know much beyond the boundaries of those wings, or do they want them to protect themselves by making their own mistakes? Love makes it so hard to go for the second option. Most of the time they feel so helpless watching their loved ones make the same mistakes over and over again, as if nothing they say to them seems to make any difference.
So we all end up drawn toward the light like insects, one by one until we’re electrocuted. There’s no logic passed down. We all hit the wall first and then learn.
Loss terrifies us. It’s hard to imagine it no matter how much we try. It makes us feel vulnerable the minute we start thinking about it. We tend to think with the givens of the present, and loss just doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. It is as if it would bring an end to everything, like an edge to the familiar beyond which lies only darkness and nothingness.
But when loss actually hits you suddenly feel blank. Sometimes at a moment like this you lose your ability to act. It’s like falling down an abyss at uncontrollable speed. You see nothing around you and you have no idea where you are headed. You just know you’re falling, and your entire world appears to be shutting down. Everything crashes into nothingness.
The worst question I think any person can ask themselves in a moment like this is what now? What next? You don’t even have the tools that can help you think properly of any future. The concept of a future becomes so alien and scary.
But when the days go by the dark slowly begins to lift and you see some faint light that helps you understand your surroundings. You start coping with the new reality of this empty hole you feel in your chest. Everything that reminds you of what you lost makes the hole even bigger, and there’s no healing here. You just learn to live with it.
I now understand why in Muslim belief a widow is urged to stay connected to the home she shared with her deceased husband for a certain period of time. It is morbid, but somehow it helps her face her new reality. Maybe if she were to leave the place or travel to another country before she has fully accepted the loss she may never be able to go back to her own place; it would be a forever open wound best left untouched. Staying makes her face it. Deal with it. Until she’s created new memories, new realities, new surroundings. Until it no longer hurts as much.
It’s like climbing the rock instead of trying to figure out a way around it.
It’s amazing how we’re all equipped with a natural ability to survive. When I climb a mountain my body adjusts itself to the loss of oxygen and figures out new strategies to cope. That doesn’t change the loss, but it gives you an ability to cope with it.
All the little things I live with, those belongings, pictures, cushions, and handwritten notes that remind me of my loss will be staying with me for a while. I’m just going to take them with me and keep walking toward the light. I wouldn’t know how to cope otherwise.
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