Tahrir Today: the first anniversary of the Revolution. I was there...

Tahrir Today, the first anniversary. I was there, along with so many people I met whom I knew, famous writers, major businessmen, doctors, professors. An immense crowd, at least as big as February 4th, and the same spirit: determined but cheerful and peaceful. Men, women and children, many young people, a diverse crowd, from all walks of life, from the most privileged to the most underprivileged; many secular young liberals, no harassment of women in spite of the dense crowd. The Muslim Brotherhood, if they were there, kept a low profile. No checking of I.D.'s. The difference from a year ago: the chants of "Down with the rule of the Military!" instead of "Down with Mubarak!" Actually, the word used, "Askar" is closer to "Militia."

Egypt's Revolution: First Anniversary, Part I

Egypt’s Revolution : First Anniversary, Part I

So you had a revolution…and now, you have the first democratically-elected parliament in sixty years. Today was the day when the new parliament was seated, and all of Egypt watched the spectacle in the hemi-circle parliament hall as newly-elected candidates stood up to take the oath of office- or didn’t. One presumably Salafi representative tried to put his own spin on the oath, which requires him to respect the republican system and the constitution. He was finally prevailed upon to read the oath as written, and the proceedings carried on smoothly from that point on.

So what does this new post-revolution parliament look like? As expected, there was a predominance of Muslim Brotherhood, stocky men in business suits, their facial hair neatly trimmed; but also the typical thin, long-bearded fundamentalist Salafis in robes; also a sprinkling of exotic men in red fezzes and odd dress, presumably Sufis. Then there were the sleek, clean-shaven representatives from the liberal parties, and the de rigeur fifty percent quota of ‘peasants and workers’, as per the existing constitution. Women were few; a cluster of them sat together front and center, in a rainbow of pastel hijabs: mauve, pink, blue.  

For the liberal movements, as for the young revolutionaries who paid the price for this free election with blood and tears, the spectacle is bitter-sweet. They paid the price but saw the prize seized by the Islamist currents that had initially sat out the protests. But a young artist I spoke to yesterday at the opening of an exhibition at a gallery in Zamalek seemed to be optimistic. I was arrested by his large-scale painting of a woman lying on the ground, violated and near-naked, pain and dignity in her face; next to her on the ground were a riot police helmet and truncheon. The message was clear: the woman in the painting stood for all the women assaulted by the police and army since the revolution began.

The young artist in a black beret, an activist member of the new Tahrir Party, was not worried. “The Muslim Brotherhood will have to be pragmatic in office- the problems they are facing, economic especially, are so huge in scale that they will need all the allies they can get to spread the responsibility around. And in a year or two, at the next elections, we’ll be ready. We’ll claim our revolution.” 

Cairo through Bifocals, Dimly

It's rather disconcerting, being in Cairo these days. I imagine it must be like looking through bifocal glasses: close up, daily life carries on as usual, the social and cultural calendar as busy as ever; but in the bigger picture, every day brings 'fresh alarms', and the current crisis in the country is the sole topic of conversation, whether at dinner or lunch invitations; over tea on the Marriott Promenade; trying out new flavors of macaroons at the competing patisseries in Zamalek (mango at Fauchon and Earl Grey at Tortina); strolling around gallery exhibition openings; at book launches; power-walking around the jogging track at the Gezira Club.
There is a sense of an impending crisis to mark the milestone first anniversary of the January 25th Revolution. There are those who predict popular outrage if Mubarak is let off his trial without a guilty verdict, but almost no one who expects the actual death penalty called for by the prosecutor, and even fewer who would condone it.
Conspiracy theories are encouraged by the seeming collusion between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Military. At a book discussion yesterday attended by the author, Bahaa Taher, whom I'd met when sharing a panel a couple of years earlier, that was the scenario that dominated the discussion. Taher himself in no way underestimated the strength, organization, and professionalism of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he warned against taking their ostensibly moderate views at face value, recalling their history of international ambitions and ulterior motives. As for the Salafis, as one woman shuddered, "what they would like to establish in Egypt is Saudi Arabia without the oil."
There is some self-reproach but a great deal of frustration among women like her- the educated, privileged, secular elite- about their inability to compete with the Muslim Brotherhood in offering the kind of social services- educational, medical- that have bought the MB their support at the voting booth.
Meantime, life carries on in Cairo, but the outlying provinces, and especially the highways leading to them, are riskier to venture into. The Sinai in particular; St Catherine's Monastery, once a tourist mecca for international and Egyptian visitors alike, is a ghost town.
Ominously, the best and brightest young people, those with the most expensive educations and international experience, are starting to leave the country. But it's hard to blame them, when the latest scandal in the domestic media is the shocking political brainwashing cropping up in this year's middle school mid-term exams: "Write an essay on the great role played by the Supreme Military Council in recent events," runs one essay topic. "Write a letter of congratulations to the Muslim Brotherhood Party on their electoral victory," runs another. "Conjugate: the Revolutionaries have destroyed the country," runs a grammar exercise.

January 25th risks being the day the idealists of a year ago come back to Tahrir one more time to take back their revolution.

Latest Interview from Cairo

I was interviewed from Cairo by D.G. Martin for the program Who's Talking on 1360 WCHL on January 4th. We talked about the latest from Cairo nearly a year after the Revolution.

http://www.chapelboro.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=5625136

New Year in Tahrir: A First

New Year in Tahrir Square:

Thousands of Muslims and Christians celebrated New Year's Eve together in Tahrir, in a show of solidarity particularly significant as it marks a year, to the day, since the horrific bombing of an Alexandria church. It is the first time Egyptians claimed Tahrir Square as a 'public space', Cairo's Times Square; under Mubarak, Tahrir was off-limits to a public assembly of any kind. Finally, the celebration is a heartening rejection of the Salafi current which holds such celebrations as 'un-Islamic'.