Varanasi......astounding

Last night, a traditional Indian dance show in town: very nice, but notable only for the final dance, a patriotic song in which I recognized the word "watan", Arabic for homeland, and the sign of the cross incorporated into the dance. Our guide later explained that the dance represented the diversity of the Indian watan, and that references were made to all of India's religions in it; I confess I only recognized the sign of the cross.
Today by plane to Varanasi, the holy city of the Hindus. A member of the group tells me very pointedly that this is the part she was waiting for, the Hindu part; she couldn't wait to get through the Mughal. In thay case the golden triangle of north India seems like an odd choice of tour. I did remind her that she was the one who complained most of not having enough time to see the Mughal miniature painting at the museum; she nodded emphatically.
Security at the airport at Khajuraho is taken very seriously by resolutely grim-faced, khaki-uniformed security personnel. Women go through a line monitored by women and men through one manned by men. "I'm not used to people not smiling back at me," Linda remarks in her soft voice.  "Do I look like a Pakistani!" Bob, the tall psychiatrist, complains, blue eyes glaring.
A short flight to Varanasi, formerly Benares, and we regain the world of smiling Namaste-gesturing tourist havens; big bowls of jasmine flowers and glasses of mango juice await us in the lobby. We are given, instead of the usual flower leis, wooden bead necklaces.
That same evening we take a long rickshaw ride out to the Ganga (Ganges) riverfront. We have been warned about odors and noise, and I tie on a surgical mask and cover my hair with a scarf against the dust, ending up looking like a few veiled women we see, or even some of the male cyclists. The streets we go through our quite wide but choked with traffic: the yellow and green rickshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, and a handful of private cars jostle one another. I am used to close encounters in Cairo but nothing like this.
Varanasi is the holy city, the mecca for Hindu pilgrims, but there seem to be quite a few mosques along the street to the waterfront. The street theatre is incomparable: men being shaved on the side of the road, a gorgeously caparisoned horse in red and gold, ready for the bridegroom, the color-coordinated wedding band following behind. The beggars of course are ubiquitous, and the odors send several of the women in our party fishing for their scarves to cover their noses.
Once we arrive at the Ganga waterfront, we quit our rickshaws and make our way through the crowd descending to the ghats, the steps that lead down to the river. I think I have stumbled into an early Renaissance painting: the scene of the quiet river and the row boats floating in the hazy twilight, fabulous building rising along the banks. "Alma-Tadema", retorts David, a large, bon-vivant, celibataire endurci retired teacher of French, who lives in a tony in the New York suburbs. "
Our twenty-some group piles on to a boat rowed- somehow- by only two young men, and we set off on the river to watch, from a distance, the scene of funeral pyres and mourners carrying shrouded bodies down to the river, immersing them, then laying them in the flames. "You can't smell burning flesh," our guide Ritu points out, "because the bodies have been covered with ghee (clarified butter), herbs, and sandalwood." She is in her element here, eyes flashing with passion as she tells us the tale of the goddess Ganga and the god Shiva, or alternately eyes misting with emotion as she talks of the burial and prayer rituals of the Hindus. She tells us that Goldie Hawn has a home in Varanasi, where she likes to come.
Along with the funeral incinerations, people are bathing, cows and dogs are wandering in and out among the pyres and paddling in the river bank, and beggars and vendors are plying their trade. Death here is not separate from life. One of the little girl vendors sells us foil bowls of flowers with a tiny candle inside. We light them, make a wish or a prayer, and set the little boats afloat in the river. The air is heavy with haze or smoke, and hundreds of moths flutter around our heads.
After dark our boat lines up behind scores of other tourist boats to watch the prayers about to begin a little further on the ghatts on the riverbank. Hundreds of people are sitting and standing on the shore, as in a stadium, and seven podiums are set up in the front. Melodious chanting is magnified by loud-speakers. Seven young men, the priests, get up on the podium, first collectively, and then on separate podiums, and take turns leading the chanting while swinging incense burners. It is a unique sight, certainly the most amazing spectacle I have ever witnessed.
We leave before the end of the prayers, to beat the rush, and find our rickshaw drivers for another hair-raising ride through the old town to our bus then the refuge of our hotel.

.the "Temples of Love" at Chandela- and the status of women?

Today, a complete contrast: from the acme of pure devotion that is the Taj Mahal to the riot of explicit sexuality represented in the equally famous statues and carvings of the Hindu temples of Chandela. To get there, we take a two-hour train ride followed by a five hour coach ride on bumpy country roads. The railway system itself is quite orderly, but the station when we get off at Jhansi shocks and upsets most of us by its squalor and the misery of the beggars who drag themselves along, their mutilated legs twisted behind them. I am so distracted that a nimble little boy snatches the bottle of water I am carrying out of my hands. Children here often beg for pens but this is the first time I've seen them go for water.
But once on the bus, most of our drive takes us through prosperous villages with healthy, neatly dressed villagers; well-fed Indians are a beautiful people with their fine features, glossy hair and willowy build.
The hotel resort at Chandela is tucked into a lovely garden and our rooms are delightful; everyone's good humor is restored. The other tourists are French, Swiss or German.
The morning looms hot as we head out to the temples, built in the 11th C, later abandoned, covered in jungle growth and re-discovered by an English officer in the 19th C. We soon realize why we are assigned a special guide- Rajput, a jovial man with heavy mustache and heavy accent- for the visit to the Hindu temples: our regula guide for the trip- Ritu- is a very proper woman utterly incapable of launching into salacious interpretations of the temple engravings. Rajput, on the other hand, delights in pointing out gods, men, women, and occasionally animals in contorted poses that would test any yogi's balance.We are shown temples to Kama, the god of love, to Vishnu and Shiva and their spouses. Of course, many of the engravings are intended to be interpreted allegorically, our guide explains.
At some point, in response to a question from an Indian couple passing by, he explains something in Hindi and then turns to us and says that he had to give them an alternative explanation in order not to shock them. He apparently believes all Americans to be unshockable; he has clearly not heard of the Bible Belt.
He asserts that the depiction of the naked women in poses of sexual abandon is evidence of the high status of women in 11C India, before the Mughals Muslims brought about veiling and what he considers debasement of women. I remark that some might take the Taj Mahal, the ultimate homage to a woman, as evidence of her high status.
 

The Taj Mahal: for me, neither holy nor romantic, rather....

This morning, at 6 am, without so much as a cup of coffee, we get on buses for the short ride from the hotel to the Taj Mahal. There are already a great many tourists rushing to the gate, but no waiting in queue. It is quite chilly and misty as we walk through the red sandstone fort walls and up the long approach to the Taj Mahal. It loooms pure white marble, serene and remote, through the dense mist, on an elevation at the end of a long alley of reflecting pools and green lawns. The impression is oddly light, despite its massive size, as if it had been laid lightly on its base. It is familiar, of course, from photos, but in reality you take it all in at once and realize that getting closer, penetrating inside, is not really necessary. It retains its mystery, its serenity, its inviolable purity, in spite of the tourists crawling over its base like ants over an elephant's legs.
Our tour guide explains that one of the two domed structures to each side of the Taj Majal is a mosque, and the other simply there for symmetry, a guiding principle of Mughal achitecture.Inside the monumnet and up close, the delicate, intricate inlay of tulips and poppies in semi-precious stones- cornelian, lapis lazuli, malachite- inlaid in the white marble looks like fine embroidery on white linen. The precision of the perfectly reproduced panels, the sheer work involved, is beyond imagination. "This strikes me as a very feminine building, " Bob, the tall retired psychiatrist in our group comments. We all know, of course, that the Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jihan as a memorial for his beloved wife Mumtaz when she died in her 14th childbirth.
Her body lies in a crypt under a marble mausoleum inside the building, where photography is not permitted. There are many violators, however, among tourists and Indians alike. Outside, everyone takes advantage of the photo op around "Diana's bench", including one woman who backs up too far and falls into the reflecting pool.
The Taj is a holy shrine to all Indian sects, our guide explains and is a romantic mecca for tourists, of course. But I did not experience it as either holy or romantic: rather a deep sense of peace, of eternity, of light; sad, in the way of all perfect beauty.

From India, Unfiltered

India Unfiltered

Up to the last moment, not knowing whether or not we would leave Cairo to go on a UNC-organized tour of"Mystic India" booked months agoin the States.  At the last minute, we throw a few clothes in a bag and go. I have never gone on such a long trip with so little preparation. At Cairo airpport, the young men at the check-in desk spontaneously solicit our opinion of who should be the next president; it is disconcerting to hear them speak so openly and publicly, with total strangers, unthinkable a few weeks ago. But it's only the beginning. Tahrir Square is cleared for now, some of the demands have been met, but the emergency laws are not lifted.
Stop-over in Doha airport: so pristine and bright and luxurious. "Quiet rooms" to doze in. The flight attendants all Asian, very neat in their retro burgundy uniforms with the caps perched over identical buns. The airport is truly cosmpopolitan: A few Gulf women in black and heavy makeup, Japanese girls in short skirts and boots, Europeans businessmen and American back-packers.
Delhi, in contrast, is startling: the Indian workers and cab drivers are skinny and dark compared to their Egyptian counterparts. The government-regulated, prepaid cab is a great system, but the cab itself is barely holding together and the driver is silently ferocious. A boy bangs on the window and brings his hand to his mouth. A girl of about four is collecting something on the side of the road, but what? On the short route from the airport to the hotel in the diplomatic enclave, the buildings and road are noticeably dilapidated, but it is green, so green after Cairo, trees and gardens lining the road. A couple of graceful women are working on the landscaping of the sidewalk, dressed in colorful saris straight out of an Indian miniature. It is cool and drizzling.
Once through security at the gates, the hotel is a world apart: imposing turbanned Sikh doormen bow along your path and pretty girls in belly-peaking uniforms smile at you behind the reception desk .Petite, far-Asian waitresses in white gloves glide around the tea lounge. Hotel service in India puts the hotel industry of Egypt to shame. In Egypt, hotels are staffed by bustling young men who never seem to have quite the right deferential attitude for their profession.
The next morning we meet up with the rest of the tour group- 20 people with UNC or U Penn affilitations, or none- who flew in directly from the States. We are greeted by an old friend, Gloria, and by the UNC representative, like survivors of a revolution, which we are, of course.
The diplomatic enclave of New Delhi is a gracious succession of wide, tree-lined, quiet  avenues, low, unimpressive colonial architecture. Traffic is so light you wonder how Delhi can be a city of 12 million until you go onto the main thoroughfares and get enmeshed in the cacophony of cars and green and yellow, three-wheel auto-rickshaws, otherwise known as toc-tocs. Traffic drives on the left, as in all British former colonies. The contrasts are as jarring as any I've seen. Beautiful parks everywhere and then a rickshaw ride through the smelliest, nastiest, poorest "souk" alley imaginable, in Old Delhi.
The British Raj imprint on official Delhi: the axis of the great arch of India Gate and the grand Ministerial Buildings and Parliament, linked by wide boulevards and green lawns. The Monsoons in July and August bring the torrential rain that accounts for the lush vegetation, but also for the wear and tear on buildings. The houses in the Diplomatic Enclave belong to the wealthiest citizens, and the number of air conditioning units you can count indicates the wealth of the homeowner, since they are very expensive to run in India.
The Mughal imprint on Delhi is everywhere in the architecture of the monuments: the towering red Qutb Minar next to an old Hindu temple with its elephant engravings on the walls. The Jama Masjid Mosque, built in the 16th C by the same Shah Jihan famous for the Taj Mahal; so vast its courtyard can accommodate 25 thousand worshipers. It is raining in Delhi the day we visit, and we get our feet wet in our socks; shoes are not allowed in a mosque, although women do not have to cover their hair at this mosque. Later we get our feet wet again, this time without even socks, at the Sikh temple; bare feet and covered heads are required of both men and women here. The temple is an imposing, cheerful white structure with gold domes and a good deal of gold decoration inside as well: the Sikhs are a wealthy sect. As we leave we are offered a sort of semolina paste called halwa,served with bare hands, which it is not rude to refuse but is rude to accept and then not consume. All but one of our American group declines. The Hindu temple is a gay riot of color, painted statues and gaudy paintings everywhere,  and children running around boisterously. Our guide makes a point of explaining the benign significance of swastikas in Hindu iconography, no doubt having noticed the preponderance of Jewish names on the group list. But this is such an erudite, academic bunch that I am sure they are already aware of the history of the swastika. There are also stars of David on the walls, but they represent ancient Hindu symbols for male and female energies.
The Delhi Museum is a fascinating delight of miniature illuminated paintings of the Mughal period, but we are not allowed enough time to take them in; I leave with my curiosity unsatisfied, especially about the many scenes of the Christian Nativity- commissioned for Muslim rulers?
We drive past the Red Fort, and visit Ghandi's memorial garden, appropriately spare, and a mecca for school groups. Then we visit the massive Humayan's Tomb, a Mughal palace built by a man who had a clearly different notion of his legacy.
That evening we are split into smaller groups of eight to go to our first home-hosted dinner.  The group Gloria and I join has for hostess a fortyish widow with an assertive personality who gives culinary tours. In the small sitting room of her New Delhi apartment, she affirms that India is a secular country, that Hindus are a peaceful people, unlike Muslims, apparently: she claims that at partition, which came with independence from the British in 1948, Muslims were given the choice of staying in India whereas Hindus were driven out of Pakistan. I consider reminding her that pre-independence Delhi- according to our own travel brochure- was a city of under 1 million, mostly Muslim, and that within weeks after "independence", it became a city of 2 million, almost all Hindu. How would she explain that? But then I reconsider; I do not want to bring up a subject of contention at a social occasion.
We begin the first of many interminable journeys by coach car, from Delhi to Jaipur, in Rajasthan, where the Hindu Rajas and Maharajas (Kings and Uber-Kings) ruled under Mughal Muslim Emperors. Our guide affirms that India is a secular country with many minorities, Muslims, Sikhs,Budhists, Jains and Christians among them, but she is fond of reminding us , "Hindustan is  the land of the Hindus." She is a charming woman who looks too young to have a son in college in Chicago.
Several people among the group have asked us to tell about our recent experience in Egypt with the revolution, and I promise to do so when we have nothing better to do on a long drive. The early part of the drive to Jaipur provides the opportunity.
On the way to Jipur we stop for lunch at the 15th C Neemrana Palace on top of a hill in the countryside. To get there we have to go through the village at the bottom of the fort, and everyone seems to have great fun  negotiating mud puddles, manure, and near-death encounters with oncoming traffic. At the top of the footpath, the impossibly romantic Neemran palace is every bit worth the short climb, and we are served an elegant al fresco lunch. Gloria remarks that it reminds her of a French countryside setting, and it turns out that in fact the developer who bought the abandoned fort for a pittance and turned it into a hotel is a Frenchman.
The next stop on our drive is a total contrast: we stop at an orphanage in the countryside, Vatsalya's "Children's Village," where street children are picked up- the girls at any age, the boys up to 8 years old, before they are corrupted by the streets- and given a new start in life in an idyllic country setting. It is a clean, cheerful place where the children are round-cheeked and smiling. The older girls are proud to show off the bakery, where they mill the wheat they grow in nearby fields and use the flour to make bread and biscuits twice a week. There are several European girls in temporary residence to help at the Village, and they seem at home there.There is a crafts shop and I buy bed covers and cushions I don't need but am delighted to have bought.
A few hours later, we reach our hotel in Jaipur, a converted 18th century palace set in beautiful grounds, with correspondingly luxurious rooms. We turn on the television set for the latest news from Egypt and the domino-effect uprisings cropping up in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya. The Indian news media eye the uprisings in the Arab Gulf in particular with concern regarding  thefuture of Indian expatriate workers there and their remittances to the Indian economy.
That night there is a wedding on the grounds of our Jaipur hotel; it is a particularly auspicious day for weddings and there are 160 reported in Jaipur alone. Indian brides wear red, but it is not exclusive to the bride; and the bridegroom wears a white tunic suit and a turban. Some of the younger women guests wear their gorgeous saris in creative, modern styles. Garlands of jasmine are strung up everywhere over the pavilions where the wedding vows are exchanged. It seems to be a somewhat deconstructed and relaxed affair.
The food at our 5-star hotels is lavish, and I indulge in the fresh fruit salads, in spite of the skeptical glances of my American companions. The yoghurt too is excellent and available at all meals, and the fresh naan and roti breads are addictive. North Indian cuisine is much milder than south Indian, and is surely toned down even more for a tourist palate, but a little goes a long way with me. Most dishes are vegetarian, but chicken and lamb (or goat disguised as lamb) is also served. Only Jains are totally vegan; Hindus can eat chicken but not beef, obviously, whereas Muslims can eat any kind of meat but pork.
The sacred cow, our guide explains, is revered as the symbol of motherhood; Hindus also believe that cows, dogs, and cats are common reincarnations, so it is very bad karma to be unkind to any of them.
I am getting addicted to masala tea, spiced with cardamom and ginger, and laced with milk and sugar, accompanied by a sweet biscuit, English-style. Also to the charming Indian custom of answering with an obliging "yes, yes," rather than just yes, when you ask for any service.
In the morning we take a vertigo-inducing elephant ride up the long widing path to the Amber Fort, built over centuries from the 12th on, by the Rajputs. The photographer wallahs run along on top of the ramparts of the wall of the fort, an incredibly death-defying exercise, to snap your picture. The Amber fort itself is vast and stunning, decorated with the mirror mosaic typical of th region. On the way down, inexplicably, everyone rides jeeps and the elephants return without passengers.
Jaipur, the pink city, the city of Rajputs and polo players and a Wind Palace for the harem (the Hawa Mahal, an Arabic name, as so many monuments in North India seem to carry.)  Jaipur is also the city to shop for carpets, textiles, pottery and jewellery, according to our guide, who takes us out of town to particular shops where we get preliminary lessons on the manufacture of carpets, ceramic, and hand-blocked textiles. We are also treated to tea and little fried balls, all part of good salesmanship. Our tour group, who seemed to hesitate over minor purchases, surprisingly fall over themselves to buy carpets and jewellery for thousands of dollars. I refrain from commenting that the salesmen are switching prices at such a dizzying rate that I feel there is no base line. I do appreciate the lessons I get in precious stones: emeralds and saphires are the stones of Rajasthan; a peacock-neck saphire is the most precious, a violet-blue with fire, putting the pale blue-gray saphires to shame.
I get separated from the group for an hour or so at the City Palace, and when I am "found" ( I did not realize I was lost) I am greeted with such reproachful relief from the rest of the group that I realize I must not allow it to happen again.
In Jaipur, we have our second home-hosted dinner, in a traditional rambling home surrounding a central courtyard and housing a multigenerational family, which sits, a tragic relic, in the middle of a noisy, run-down market street. Our host, an "aristocrat" (our guide's term) fallen on hard times, comments disapprovingly, when we ask his opinion of the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, that "Muslims are like that, it is in their nature, unlike we Hindus, who are peaceful." Interesting remark coming from a man who is very proud of being of the caste of the warriors. But then he continues with an even more interesting remark: "We will end up with unrest like that in India because of the reservation system- a form of affirmative action- that reserves 30% of the military positions to the lower castes." In his opinion, they are promoted without merit, so the military will progressively become staffed with incompetents.  The daughter of the house is a lovely, dignified young woman who admits readily, almost proudly, to having had an arranged marriage. Our guide tells us, though, that this is increasingly rare among modern young Indians. Caste remains an important criterion in match-making, whether a marriage is arranged or not.
Another long coach ride from Jaipur to Ranthambore Park and Tiger Reserve; our guide does her best to find us acceptable restrooms along the way, a real challenge; but sometimes the only available facility is squat toilets; I prefer to wait. In India, typical toilets, Western style or traditional, have a tap low to the ground and a pitcher, with which to wash. More upscale places have a flexible metal hose attached to the side wall, for the same purpose, familiar also in the Middle East.
We reach the Tiger Reserve at the ed of a six-hour drive; we are lodged in an English style hunting lodge with the perfect wrap-around porch to take afternoon tea. The ride into the tiger reserve is a bone-rattling, bruising couple of hours during which we are not allowed to get out of our noisy vehicle, something like an uncovered armored truck for 16 people; we are followed by other similar vehicles or jeeps full of tourists or Indian tour groups. I have a close encounter with  a monkey, and we see various spotted deer, Sambar deer, antelope, Indian wild pigs, peacocks, pumpkin-and-black treepies, brilliant green parakeets. No tigers.  As elsewhere in India, it is hot in the middle of the day and literally freezing cold in the early morning or late evening. The next day, many of us skip one of the safaris in favor of a healing spa massage, thereby missing a sighting of a splendid male tiger. There are only about 1000 left in the wild in India, and the Ranthambore Reserve has 33 of them.
A couple of people in the group have developed what they call "Delhi belly", and a doctor is called in to see them. I have thrown my back out on the agonizingly bumpy ride in the Reserve, so I take a walk to try to limber up. I am joined by Linda, one of the most fun members of our group, a petite blonde with a delightful Georgia drawl and that charmingly arch Southern way of remarking, a propos of our indisposed travel companions: "My dear, we are dropping like flies."
At night we hear horns blowing for hours; it turns out there are trains passing not far and the horns are the equivalent of warning bells. There is a small mosque on the grounds of the lodge park, presumably for some of the workers, and the call to prayer can be heard as well, as it can all over India; I am impressed by this sign of tolerance.
On the road again, out of Rajasthan and into the countryside: lush green, the women in the fields a bright flash of color like parakeets. Their saffron, crimson, canary, fuschia saris are a grace, a gesture of defiance in the face of poverty, a gift to the onlooker, in a world where so many poor women wear black. Cows, buffaloes, boar-like pigs, floppy-eared black goats, the occasional humped Brahmin bull, share the road in biblical profusion. When we get to the higher elevations of Kalakho, the valleys are lush between the mountain ranges; the villages are prosperous, the vegetable stands packed with black aubergines, white cauliflowers, long red carrots, green guavas, black grapes, green papayas, splotchy bananas. Some of the houses are painted green, denoting Muslim occupants. Here and there a house has grown much grander and larger than its neighbors, boasting three storeys and balconies and ceramic decoration. Almost all the houses are covered in large cow dung patties neatly arranged to dry over the roofs. A few peaked, turban-shaped straw huts like those in Star Wars are used to store the dung patty fuel.
At the end of a long jeep ride, the retreat, or ashram, a "hill station" up in the mountains of Kalakho, is a delight of pure air and fierce sunshine; instead of being inspired to meditation, though, our group seems to be inspired to general silliness as everyone tries their hand at cricket, croquet or badminton. We take a camel ride to the village down the road, where the villagers celebrate the marriage of basil (the plant) to the god Vishnu, then dance for us and pull us into the dance. I am personally uncomfortable with the clearly  contrived exercise. These are prosperous villagers though, with many motorcycles among them, and most of the children go to school. The most common  color for school uniforms seems to be pale blue.
At night, around a fire on the lawn, a stunning dancer in a scarlet sari performs miracles of grace and balance, followd by a fire-throwing boy, whom I refuse to applaud while he pours  kerosene in his mouth and then blows flames out of it. If we are told not to encourage beggars in their pofession, why should we encourage a boy to risk his life playing with fire?
The cabins at the retreat are predictably Spartan, and the hot water supply limited. Linda comes to breakfast this morning perfectly coiffed but a little pale: she had just sudsed up her hair with shampoo when the water turned icy cold on her and she had to complete her shower anyway.
On the road again, to Agra, the great city of the Mughals, and the home of the  TAJ MAHAL! Our guide claims that the original Mughals came from Samarkand, close to Mongolia, which would explain why some Indian and Persian miniatures depict slant-eyed warriors.
On the way, we stop at Fatehpur Sikri, the abandoned city of the great emperor Akbar, who united all the five faiths of his kingdom in his royal court there, and not only married the Hindu princess Jhoda but built her a Hindu temple in which to worship her gods. When we approach the palace we have to get out of our bus to ride gas-powered vans, a laudable measure the Indian government takes to protect its monuments from pollution. We are packed on the van, standing room only, with French tourists; we have seen French tourists everywhere we've been so far. The palace itself is a vast series of open courtyards surrounded by redstone walls, interspersed with pools and beautifully manicured gardens. It must have been stunning when its walls were still covered in beautiful paintings; only traces remain of painted warriors and maidens, horses and elephants.
This afternoon in Agra, we visit Agra Fort, or the Red Fort, an astounding, massive red sandstone fort enclosing a vast palace, gardens and mosques; here and there a few decorations survive, in  marble mosaics and pietra dura embellished with semi-precious stones. The sheer scale of the complex is overwhelming. From the top of the audience hall terrace the Taj Mahal looms in the distance like a fairy-tale white palace.
Tomorrow morning at dawn, the moment we have all been waiting for: the visit to the Taj Mahal!

Cairo, the New Normal

Cairo, the New « Normal »

Heavy traffic and about twenty armored tanks lining the Corniche along the Radio and Television Building, some say to prevent a coup within the army itself. People scanning the newspapers to gage who is dictating the headlines now. Speculation: one of two Nobel Prize winners, Baradei or Zuweil, Arab League chief Amre Moussa, or a military man in civilian clothes, as it has been since 1952? Taxi driver wisdom turns out to be near ubiquitous but breathtakingly wrong: that Baradei is an American agent (the man who stood up to Bush-Cheney pressure to declare weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!)and that although Mubarak and Sadat made billions, Nasser died with 65 LE in the safe!

Meantime, the January 25^th movement vow to keep the pressure up till there is a time frame for lifting emergency laws and dissolving the fraudulent parliament. It’s not over yet. 

Tahrir Square: from Frying Pan to Fire?

This morning, after the great celebration in Tahrir Square, it is time to clean up after 18 exhausting days of occupation, protest, bloodbath, cheering, and the trampling of millions of feet. Today the square was a tourist attraction, with cars parked up and down the 6^th October Bridge- illegally, of course, but there is no police in sight- while the families, with young kids on their shoulders, snapped photos of the square below.

Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who launched the original Facebook uprising, summed up the general feeling: euphoria, yes, but relief most of all, at a terrible danger averted. “Hamdillah ala salamatek ya masr,” he said. “Thank God for your safe delivery from danger, Egypt.” And the peril had been great indeed: civil war. What many people abroad did not understand, when they heard Egyptians express their fear of the police, particularly that branch of it called “national security”, is that there are three police servicemen for every military man. Less than half a million in the army, nearly 1 ½ million in the police services. If things had gone the wrong way, the two could have clashed.

So what we are left with today is the lesser of two evils: a ruling military council, but only in the interim to free elections and a civilian government. At least that is the optimistic scenario. Egypt’s military is sitting on 60 years of entrenched privileges, and is unlikely to relinquish them. But a hopeful sign is that Defense Minister Tantawi, the head of the council, is sharing top billing with a civilian, the head of the Supreme Court of Egypt, Judge Sirry Siyam.

But there are many of the older generation in my family and elsewhere who remember that when the coup of the colonels in 1952 drove out King Farouk, they had cheered, and went on cheering while General Naguib took the reins. It was only when it became apparent that the widely-respected Naguib was only a figurehead, soon ousted unceremoniously by Colonel Nasser, did they realize that they had gone from the frying pan to the fire.

But today’s young people, the generation of January 25^th, are confident in their power to bring about change and control events. They have no fear of the military, nor of the revolution of wild expectations that they have unleashed, particularly among the poorest and most disenfranchised. Today, at least, they have no doubts, and are celebrating their day of victory. They have reclaimed the flag of Egypt for themselves, and they are bursting with pride.

From Tahrir Square: Friday of Anger?

Last night- after hours of building up hope, after the top military brass had issued communiqué no. 1- came the stunningly disappointing speech by Mubarak, Egypt’s once and future president, according to him; followed by the insulting exhortation by his V-P, and now acting president, Omar Suleiman, for the youth of Egypt to go home and get to work and avoid watching satellite TV. Satellite TV, as a matter of fact, showed the rage that greeted his speech: the men, and especially women, who cannot make ends meet or educate their children screaming for jobs, this minute. Others threatened to march on the presidential palace the next morning, and that raised alarm about a potential bloody clash between the protesters and the army. Today’s demonstration promised to live up to its name: Friday of Anger.

So when I walked down to Tahrir Square at noon today, I was bracing for even worse tension than last Friday. But the atmosphere in Tahrir Square reminded one of a street fair or pre-football match crowd: the masses streaming in seemed relaxed, there were many smiling families with small children getting their faces painted in the colors of the Egyptian flag, and street vendors were hawking everything from flags to badges. Stalls were set up at both ends of the bridge leading to the square, selling sandwiches and juice. The smell of roast sweet potatoes filled the air.

The contrasts in the crowd were striking: the clean-cut kids in their $200 gym shoes and their thigh-high boots who strolled over from the sports club in Zamalek rubbed elbows with the mechanic apprentices in their torn sandals who came from clear across town. On the bridge I met Egypt’s former ambassador to Washington and his brother, walking over to take a look.

Inside the square, free food was being distributed: benefactors came in carrying huge cartons labeled “Hostess Cookies” and “Molto Chocolates”, among other things. A makeshift bandstand played upbeat patriotic songs and some of the crowd joined in. There was very little chanting and no raised fists. But here and there, a few grim faces as people were handed leaflets detailing the alleged holdings of Egypt’s corrupt elite.

The generally lighter mood may have been brought on by the announcement earlier that President Mubarak had left for the resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh, or by the army’s second communiqué promising a lifting of the reviled emergency laws as soon as conditions allowed; or the angrier protesters may have peeled off to march on the President’s palace in Heliopolis- some 10-15,000 are estimated to have done so.

The Friday of anger is far from over, but so far the worst scenario seems to have been avoided, and the Egyptian people are demonstrating, again, that they have learned how to dig in for the long haul and wear down the regime and the army by a show of indefatigable good spirits.


A few photos:
 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=619416&id=658830443&l=e71ce36997

Any minute now!

Rumors have been flying all day, and you could cut the tension with a knife. Mubarak is set to give a speech any minute now, and the army is televising bulletin no 1 (it's the numbering that is sinister) about being in constant session and deliberating how to protect the people's interests. A military coup to follow? Suleiman side-lined?

Tahrir Square: Anatomy of a Middle-Class Revolution

Tahrir Square: Anatomy of a Middle-Class Revolution.

Yesterday was the biggest day yet for the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, and around Egypt. Hundreds of thousands poured into the center of Cairo, and traffic came to a near-complete standstill between the hours of 1 and 7 pm. This time, the aim was to oust, not just Hosni Mubarak but his newly-appointed V-P, Omar Soleiman, and his whole cabinet. It was to be expected: Soleiman has announced that he would not lift emergency laws, the same laws under which, for the past thirty years, Mubarak and his regime have squashed all dissent with draconian measures. Soleiman added insult to injury: Egyptians, he declared, were not yet ready for democracy.

Mubarak needed these emergency laws, he has claimed for thirty years, to hold Islamic extremists in check. But it wasn’t only the Islamists that Mubarak’s dread police could arrest, detain, and brutalize with impunity. It was anyone and everyone, and when the sons and daughters of the middle class were brutalized in turn, the seeds of revolution were laid.

A few years ago, a young man and his fiancée, traveling to a Red Sea vacation resort, fell afoul of a police checkpoint. The boy was dragged out, beaten and sexually humiliated before his fiancée and his friends. Then he was forced to crawl, on hands and knees, and lick the boots of a circle of police officers standing over him, while he begged for mercy. Meanwhile the police video-taped their own brutality, and threatened the boy, if he complained, to post the video on youtube. Threatening their victims with public shaming is a regular tactic of the police to ensure silence.

But in this case, the boy’s father convinced him to report his ordeal. The police promptly posted the video, thereby incriminating themselves. The story had both a happy and a tragic ending: on the one hand the boy survived the public shaming, his fiancée stood by him, and he celebrated his wedding a few months later. On the other hand the police officers incriminated in the video were sentenced only to a couple of months suspension, after which they returned to duty.

That incident was the precursor to the death of Khalid Sa’eed, a young Alexandrian who criticized the regime on his blog, and who was arrested and died under interrogation. His case gave rise to mass demonstrations, and eventually to the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Sa’eed,” which was one of the main organizing tools of the original demonstration on January 25. A generation of young Egyptians had reached a boiling point. It is no coincidence that Police Day, January 25^th, was the date chosen to launch the uprising.

Anyone watching Egypt knew that it must blow up, and blow up soon. The revolution this time is a revolution of middle-class young people fed up with a police state and empowered by internet and media. It is not a revolution of Islamists or Communists, but if this one fails the next one could well be. 

Whose Revolution? And a Coptic-Muslim Mass.

On the surface, there is a semblance of normality on the streets of Cairo today. The rowing crews were out on the water early again. Yesterday the banks re-opened for three hours; there were short queues of 8 people or so, but no scramble. Cars were double-parked all over the streets as usual. People went to work, went to lunch; traffic was as its normal busy self till curfew at 7 pm.
This comes as a relief to many, even irreducible critics of the Mubarak regime. As one businesswoman- a recent widow who has taken over the running of her husband's factories on top of her own legal practice- told me: "I am meeting payroll for 500 families, and no one can come to work. How much longer can I keep paying their salaries with no revenue? And what will they do if I have to shut down the factories indefinitely? Already the day workers who are hired by the day to load and unload trucks and so on, they are out of a job, and their families live hand to mouth."
Only the demonstrators in Tahrir Square bunkered down for another night under a light drizzle, after an inspiring day: a Coptic mass was held in the square, attended by Christians and Muslims alike. In contrast, on television, Coptic patriarch Shenouda declared his support for Mubarak.
During the past three days, Tahrir Square has seen less bloodshed and more entertainment; it has become quite the thing for a succession of political, military and media figures to make an appearance: Chief of Staff Tantawi, opposition party leaders, Shorouk publisher Ibrahim el-Mo'allem, writers like M. Salmawy.
But all this has the uneasy feeling of the calm before the storm. It is clear that the multiple tugs of war among the forces of the old regime and between them and the opposition, is from over. The complete breakdown of order: shutting down internet, cell phones, public transport, withdrawing police off the streets and letting prisoners loose- that breakdown of order, it is generally believed, was part of that tug of war. It did not succeed entirely, thanks to the phlegmatic response of the Egyptian people, who took security matters in their own hands and avoided panic.
What some fear, and others welcome, is a military take-over of power. The top men in the new "cabinet" are all military men. Egypt had its first chance at a civilian government in 60 years post-Mubarak. It remains to be seen if the door to that opportunity is still open.

From Tahrir Square: Notes on a Revolution, cont'd.

It seemed important to go to Tahrir square today. After the intimidation tactics deployed against the protesters over the past two days, it seemed important to show that such tactics would not work. For me, issues of safety apart, the personal challenge was overcoming my claustrophobia in crowds.

Just before the end of Friday prayers at noon, a friend and I walked over from near the Gezira Club to the Kasr-el-Nil bridge flanked by the pair of lion statues, and crossed the river in the company of a growing but calm crowd. We were stopped and searched three separate times in the short distance between Zamalek and Tahrir, each time by polite but determined young women students; men were searched by men.

Then we were in the square, ringed around by iconic buildings: the pink Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, where King Tut’s treasures lie; the Mogama’, Egypt’s notorious registry of records and bureaucratic nightmare; the American University in Cairo, now relocated to the far outskirts of Cairo; the Ritz Carlton, the Semiramis Intercontinental, all the grand hotels.

The square itself was a solid mass of humanity, of all walks of life and of all ages; in the middle a tent city of sorts sheltered a few bandaged men. Here and there someone would wave a banner and start up a chant, but there were no leaders and no organized protest. It seemed to be enough just to be there. There were no thugs and no violence, although I did catch a pickpocket- a pretty girl- slipping her hand into my friend’s handbag and lifting her cell phone.

There were camera crews here and there: a Swedish television station stopped me and interviewed me: what was an obviously middle-class person’s grievance with the Mubarak regime, the reporter wanted to know. Another foreign reporter, who was using her cell phone to take pictures, asked me if I would interpret for her. She wanted to ask a woman in peasant dress, holding a lovely blue-eyed baby girl, why the woman risked bringing her child to the protest. “It’s for the sake of her future,” the mother replied.

The chants and banners were mostly “Leave, Mubarak” or “we won’t go till he does,” but there was also an effigy of Mubarak hanging from a lamppost and I made it clear to the people around me that I objected to that. Their response was that I hadn't walked in their shoes- apparently they were making a judgment based on my appearance.

I got into a civil disagreement with a couple of university professors who were criticizing opposition figures who wanted Mubarak to put constitutional guarantees in place before he left. As far as I understand, according to Egypt’s constitution, only an elected president can dissolve Parliament. If Mubarak goes before that issue is resolved, V-P Omar Suleiman will take over and he cannot, as a non-elected president, dissolve Parliament; that would leave the country with the same representatives who were elected in fraudulent elections. 

A couple of hours later exhaustion set in, and we started to walk back. By then, tanks and barricades blocked off the bridge, and we had to make our way around them. My friend found her car and left and I walked back to the Gezira Club to catch my breath and have a cappuccino. Several people I knew sitting around the Lido there asked me how things were going in Tahrir Square, and then a few of them decided to up and take a stroll down that way and have a look for themselves- very much the same way they might in other circumstances decide to go take a look at charity auction at one of the grand hotels on the Corniche. As I sipped my coffee, someone asked what time curfew was today; the new normal.

"Without the Eyes of the World, There Might be a Massacre."

That's what one young man told me before the first big protest that launched this grassroots revolution. It's more important than ever that the eyes of the world stay on Tahrir Square today, when a massive protest is planned at noon. All I can do is my minuscule part to keep the eyes of the world there, and to help interpret what they see, through radio interviews. Last night with Chapel Hill's own D.G. Martin, who is charming in person, but who was a tough interviewer: he focused on concerns re Israel, the US, minorities in Egypt. Will post the link to the interview when it's available online, but meanwhile here is a link to a snippet that was played on the news.
http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=17332

Notes from Cairo: Revolution or Uprising?

I watched from my balcony overlooking the Nile yesterday evening- well after curfew- as Mubarak's NDP thugs streamed down the opposite shore, trucks blaring loud chants, horses and camels in the forefront, and crossed over and made their way to Tahrir Square to wreck havoc and turn a peaceful sit-in into a bloodbath. Anyone who still believes Mubarak should oversee a peaceful transition should be convinced. He has had thirty years to affect a "transition"- and all he knows is to resort to the same thuggery tactics that he and his party deploy every election season. Mubarak must go. If he stays, the events of the past ten days will be referred to as "the uprising of January 2011"; if he goes, we will talk of a revolution. We owe it to these brave young protesters to make it the latter.

The young have been the great revelation of this revolution. A generation accused of being alienated, apathetic, materialistic and unpatriotic, has proved to be responsible, involved, and ready to spring into action and sacrifice. They are everywhere, handling everything from traffic to trash to security check-points, calmly and politely.

When the looting was at its worst at night- when the government withdrew the police and let loose the criminals in the jails- the citizens guarded their homes themselves. After curfew every building and alley set up its own night watch from among the residents and doorkeepers. Most were armed with only a stick or a baseball bat, some had guns and chains to form road blocks. Creative would-be looters even tried coming across the Nile in small boats to residential island neighborhoods like Zamalek, but they were caught. During the day, people went about their business almost normally, quite calmly and civilly. That is the spirit of January 2011 that Egyptians can be proud of and must be remembered, in spite of the dismaying images that came out of Tahrir Square last night.

For more, here is the link to a radio interview I gave: http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/mp3/bbriefing_2011_01_30b.mp3