Being in Cairo

It's a strange feeling to be in Cairo. Things are more convenient in a way and far worse in others. My privilege gives me protection from some parts of the ruthless city. A car, a flat and you're ready to shut out all those voices of inconvenience. I should be ready to step outside the car for a while and deal with the annoyances of the parking attendants, most of whom are government informers. I also have to deal with whatever bureaucracy exists in public as well as private enterprises. Everything is forbidden without reason, or rather a hidden reason or one that does not respect you. The private business owners have mimicked the top down government approach of asking their employees to follow instructions without questions.

Yes, questions are the enemy, because they demand answers. The biggest question is 'Why?' and the answers are what most people want to avoid because the truth is inconvenient. Why do I have to wait in line? Why is everything so inefficient? Why are there more hard drugs in the market? Why don't the police arrest criminals? Why do innocent people languish in jail? So many questions and the answers are known but not spoken. The answers are so dark that people prefer to pretend they are a mystery.

Yet a house and some money can go a long way to shield you from the idiocies of society. They can't however block news of injustice and they can't block the injustices you see each day when you step outside for a while and they can't bring back dignity, only buy you some cheap knock off that disappears as soon as your money does, or as soon as your opinions become inconvenient. 

The guitar keeps me company. It creates a beautiful sound from touch. I get better at it. I pick the difficult pieces because they challenge me. I need some sort of challenge that I can take on. I can no longer do the moral challenges as immorality triumphs again and again. Let me look to the physical if I can. Maybe I can do more pull ups, more push ups, more sit ups. Maybe I can play harder pieces. Maybe I can build some furniture with wood. Maybe stain my wood better, finish it better. 

This is Cairo for me now. An attempt to escape its brutal reality. It is constantly coping even at times when I'm just having fun. 

At times I walk down the streets and it all overwhelms me, but that's a story for a different day. Right now it's 3 am and I'm happy to think of Cairo from the comfort of my quiet space. 

Dispatches from Cairo

A long forsaken blog. Blogging might be dead in some way. Writing is not. I have allowed the blog to die over the years as social media started to take hold of distribution. A facebook status or a twitter post were a replacement. Mostly because the point was about influencing people at a time of political fluidity. The dreams of contributing to a positive change died slowly as people in Egypt turned their back, not to blogs, or social media, but to the question of morality as a whole. What is the point of persuading people who do not want to act based on morality but opt for an notion of pragmatism that is rather impractical and only serves to camouflage their moral bankruptcy. 

As time has passed, the social media companies are controlling our content, siding with oppressive governments for an easy buck. It may not be the time to influence but to archive and document once again like the pre-revolution times. This year I will try and document some of the thoughts independent of transient social media. This platform now is far from perfect, but at the very least attempts to evade the continuous data games that are carelessly played by big social media companies who aim to control the spaces they once claimed were free. 

My time in Cairo is full of observations, social now, less political. As I walk through the streets my mind wanders to various things from seeing the potholes, the frail infrastructure and the economically defeated faces on the streets. 

Maybe I'll write once a month, or once every two months, but I will attempt to keep this going like once before and if I don't, I'm asking me to forgive me, because I know how overwhelming it has become to try and express myself in the face of trauma, depression and the frequent visits of hopelessness. I can only remind myself that even then it may have some value to express how I feel.

I'm hoping to be able to find more personal dispatches in the future worth noting. Or maybe this is just a brief awakening that won't last. Who knows.

Protesting Is Not Enough

[Protesters set fire to tires near State TV building in Maspero on 25 January 2013. Photo by Wael Eskandar]

Another January 25 marked the third year of continued protests in the hopes of finding our way to a successful revolution. On Friday, I joined the Shubra march to Tahrir Square where I saw many the familiar faces along with many other protesters once again.

This was not like last year’s march. This year there was certainly less energy and even less cohesiveness in the very long march that extended along Shubra’s streets. The street was laden with pockets of protesters. The pockets could be identified from a distance along the road by the endless density of flags. They were flags of 6 April Movement, Revolutionary Socialists, and the big white flags with the iconic faces of the martyrs of the ongoing revolution, including Emad Effat, Mina Danial, Jika, and now added to that list was Al Husseiny Abo Deif, the al-Fagr reporter who died in the Ittihadeya clashes last December.

The sentiment across Cairo, and perhaps across all of Egypt, is that protesting is no longer enough. Two years into the revolution and the prospects of bring about meaningful change through peaceful protests are slowly diminishing. With virtually every promise made by President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) to the public or to opposition broken, it seems that dialogue is not yielding satisfactory results. The leaders of the National Salvation Front (NSF) set up by Mohamed ElBaradie, Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi seem aware of this reality, but are unable or unwilling to take a more confrontational stance against the current regime, thus falling far behind a more radicalized street movement.

The list of broken promises is too long to review. One notable promise that the MB betrayed pertains to producing a constitution through consensus and an inclusive constituent assembly that represents all factions of Egyptian society. Broken promises and lies have been so widespread and flagrant that a popular campaign Kazeboon (Liars) was re-launched to expose the MB’s lies through street screenings organized by citizens, movements and parties.

[Leader of Federation of Independent Trade Unions Kamal Abu-Eita speaks to crowds participating in Shubra-Tahrir Square march on 25 January 2013. Photo by Wael Eskandar]

Disenchantment with the ruling party and the formal opposition is reminiscent of the Hosni Mubarak era. Yet this time around independent actors are more willing to take matters into their own hands and do something about it. That perhaps explains why the protesters were not as energetic as they used to be in their chants against Morsi, the MB’s rule and the constitution. The hopes are no longer riding on chants and marches. Instead, hope seems to be riding on groups willing to escalate and adopt more adventurous tactics, such as the Ultras who blocked the metro for a few hours last Wednesday, and later on the same day, the vital sixth of October bridge.

The Shubra march featured one group that has been the subject of interest for many protesters in Egypt in the past two days, namely the Black Bloc. The group is comprised of young protestors who cover their faces in ski masks or scarves. The Black Bloc released a statement identifying their purpose as standing up to the “fascist oppressors” the Muslim Brotherhood. They have also warned the Ministry of Interior not to get involved in the fight between the people and the Brotherhood. The group has no official presence on social media networks It is unclear whether they had a role to play in skirmishes between marchers and what appeared to be Muslim Brotherhood personnel near the Ikhwan Online offices in Tawfikeya. Rock throwing was exchanged between the two sides, but eventually the march proceeded normally.

[Black Bloc protesters in the march from Shubra to Tahrir on 25 January 2012. Photo by Wael Eskandar]

Absent from the protests was any presence by the Muslim Brotherhood, which remained largely silent about the protests. Similar to their predecessors among the Mubarakists, they seem to have left their political problems for the police to handle on the streets. When clashes ensued the police used more potent teargas this time, as if, as popular allegations go, ineffective teargas was the reason Mubarak was toppled. While in Tahrir Square the night of 24 January, the effects of the gas seemed more extreme than previous times I had experienced it, even though the canisters were often a long way off.

At some point in the afternoon, protesters made their way up the sixth of October bridge and blocked all traffic. Tahrir Square exhibited the usual duality in these types of situations, wherein the vast majority of the people stood in one area, leaving a select few at the front lines of confrontations with the police.

[Protesters set fire to tires near State TV building in Maspero on 25 January 2013. Photo by Wael Eskandar]

As we headed to the protests near the State TV building in Maspero security forces  fired at us excessive amounts of teargas, even though provocation was not apparent. The more they fired, the louder and more energetic the chants became.

Protesters’ tactics seems to have shifted towards direct action such as blocking vital means of transportation and occupying government buildings. There have also been talks of picking up arms, or at least investing in equipment that could serve to protect protesters from the brutal attacks of security forces. With the policing establishment inherited from the Mubarak era left unreformed, the vast majority of Egyptians believe that the police sole purpose is to serve the interests of the rulers rather than protect the innocent and uphold the law.

From the perspective of the regime, Tahrir Square seems to be the safest place for protests as it is not in the immediate vicinity of any of the vital buildings such as the Giza or Cairo governorate buildings, State TV, or parliament. More importantly, is far away from the main MB headquarters in Moqattam. The protesters’ fixation on Tahrir square in Cairo seems to be more of a setback than an advantage. Many protesters in other governorates, such as Mahalla, Ismailia andSuez, have already stormed government buildings and police stations. Cairo’s protesters are unable to follow suit due to heavy security presence and the location of Tahrir Square.

As the clashes continue, the Brotherhood and its supporters will continue to label their challengers hired thugs. For anyone on the ground, however, it is clear that these are not thugs, but revolutionary youth enraged by the feeling of being cheated out of the revolution they deserve.

Published in Jadaliyya on 27 January 2013

2 Boys 2 Thoughts

On my way to football, while heading towards my garage I was munching on an apple. I looked for somewhere to throw the remains after I was done eating it. As is usual in the streets of Cairo there were no bins, and the only one that was available was tied to a pole and its bottom hinged downwards making it like a basketball hoop that cannot contain anything. I moved towards it and I saw a little boy moving at the same time, as I looked at the dysfunctional bin, I saw the boy fixing the bottom by attaching a hook that should hold the bottom in place. The cute little boy looked very worn down and he looked like a mechanic, with an air of grease and oil about him. I was very pleasantly surprised by his gesture, he had nothing to throw in, but the image of all the garbage underneath the bin provoked him to do something about that. I also felt sorry cause this good gesture is what we will definitely kill in him if he continues to live in this country.

On my way back from football I saw a young family. Young man, young wife and a little boy walking along side. He stretched out his hand to hold his mother's and she refused and gave him a slap to the shoulder as well as a very aggressive look. The boy looked very disappointed and his eyes were so meek pleading his mom to hold his hand, but to no avail. I'm not sure what could have happened to make the mother react this way and I won't judge. All I will say is that moment seemed like a moment of utter cruelty. I cannot judge because with those we love we have those moments. We have this air of cruelty and disregard when it comes to those we supposedly love most. We pass through moments like these when we hurt those closest to us and if a snapshot were taken we'd recognize the extreme cruelty we display to our loved ones that we dare not bestow upon strangers.

It's very easy to be cruel to people we're close to and sometimes love really is blind, it blinds us from seeing who we've become and how we take others for granted. It is on the account of caring and loving that we give ourselves rights to mistreat those close to us. Any stranger on the street would have smiled to that kid at that moment rather than slap him across the shoulder, but the mother didn't. That's why I think it's better if we sometimes treat each other as strangers.

Default Treatment (II)

Why is it that the default treatment of people towards one another here, and possibly elsewhere, is dirt?

Let me illustrate.

I’m waiting in front of my building in an old Fiat 128 that we own waiting for my father to bring my car round. My car is a relatively better Toyota. Since the street in front of my building is a no parking street, no car really has the right to wait around but as is usual a very small temporary wait in the streets of Cairo is nowhere close to abnormal. So my father pulls I behind me, car slightly slanted. I see an ‘Ameen Shorta’ (low ranking traffic policeman) waiving his hand in a friendly manner, smiling and telling my father itfadal ya basha and what have you.

I move forward slightly to make it easier for him to pull nearer to the curb. He motions to me that I shouldn’t move further and that it was fine, but the Ameen doesn’t see it. So what he does is that he smiles to my father then changes his expression to reflect a more intolerant look. As I’m getting out of the car, he starts yelling at me to move further in front (3agala 2odam) in a very aggressive and hostile manner. He obviously wants to do the pacha, my father, a favor by helping him align his car with the curb.

The bossy tone was meant to emphasize my insignificance, so I wickedly apologized for not moving my car, but point out that I’ll be out of his hair as soon as I get in my car just behind me. Baffled, of course, he adopts a more apologetic tone and showers me with all those pacha and baik remarks.