Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Clashes Continue

Breaking news (as of 9pm Wednesday): Clashes are going on right now outside the presidential palace in Heliopolis. A pro-Morsi march has gone sour. Morsi is silent, and IkhwanWeb is tweeting that ElBaradei and Sabbahi are responsible for inciting opposition supporters to violence. Anti-MB protesters report that pro-Morsi crowds are armed with rocks and sticks, and beat up people camped in tents outside the palace. Thirteen or seventeen people have been injured so far tonight, and two presidential aides resigned in protest.

* * * 

5 guinea! Dostor, dostor! 5 guinea! Two young men in the Gamal Abdel Nasser metro station hawked their wares: the new Egyptian constitution. Glossy copies of this fiercely contested document emerged from the presses today, after the equally controversial Constituent Assembly hurriedly cobbled it together, passed it, and presented it to President Morsi on Saturday. No matter that a referendum will be held on December 15 to seal the document with public approval. As one constitution vendor told a friend this morning, that is merely a formality -- this is the document.

When I encountered the dostor for sale, I was headed home from St. Andrew's, where I teach my world history course to teenage Sudanese refugees. Today's lesson was on the French Revolution and Napoleon. After several weeks of lessons on the European Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the exploration of the Americas -- all of which seemed incredibly remote to my students -- it was a relief to give a lesson that provided easy (if overly simplistic) parallels to something with which they were all familiar. Why did the members of the Third Estate take to the streets? Aish, horeya, adala egtama'eya --  bread, freedom, and social justice -- the slogan of the Egyptian revolution. What about the devolution of the revolution into the Reign of Terror? What happens when revolutionaries achieve their initial goal -- the overthrow of an autocracy -- and then can't agree on what should come next? None of my students are Egyptian citizens, of course, and we haven't discussed yet their views on Egyptian politics. I get the sense from our casual discussions that the most important thing is avoiding the demonstrations: who is in power does not seem to be a matter of great urgency. Two weeks ago, when we were discussing the Renaissance, I read my students an excerpt from Machiavelli's The Prince. I asked them to reflect on the famous passage suggesting that "it is better to be feared than loved" and discuss this advice in the context of our own time. What struck me was that no student chose to mention either Mubarak or Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, both autocratic and oppressive rulers (and the latter of whom is responsible for my students' existence as refugees in this country in the first place). Obama! Obama! chimed a chorus of voices when I asked them to share their answers. Everybody loves him, they don't fear him. After some aggressive prodding for a bit more subtlety, we moved on to Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi, but the discussion ended there.

Today, I was heartened by the student who came to me after class and asked for clarification on -- of all things - the execution of Louis XVI. Students rarely ask questions in class, and I often feel that I'm performing for myself. I spoke to him for a few minutes about the cleansing of what one might call the French felul. He told me he was going to do extra reading on the subject. Already floored for the day, I found another student, the most diligent of the group, waiting for me outside. I found The Prince at a bookstore in Tahrir, he told me proudly. I'm going to start reading it now. 

As I assumed the requisite corpse pose in the metro car -- all one can do to prevent asphyxiation or a nervous breakdown in the rush hour throngs -- I thought to myself how normal the abnormal has become. A fairly typical afternoon, discussing Machiavelli with teenage refugees in Cairo. A typical afternoon, reminding myself to check the news when I get home to see whether today's million-man marches to the presidential palace have led to any clashes. Or perhaps there would be another statement from the Constitutional Court, which is currently on strike to protest Morsi's decree. How have these things ceased to feel remarkable? I need to step back a bit.

Back home, I checked in with a few of my favorite news sources. Indeed, thousands of anti-Brotherhood forces were marching on the palace to protest the new constitution, the Constituent Assembly that wrote it after the withdrawal of liberals and Christians, and Morsi's regime in its entirety. Reports indicated that security forces had begun unleashing tear gas on the masses. A friend tells me now he's just arrived home from the demonstration and it was one of the biggest in a long time. Meanwhile, I read that a lawyer (albeit one who argued that a fake Mubarak was put on trial after the real one died) had lodged a complaint with the Prosecutor General accusing the three major secular opposition leaders - Mohamed ElBaradei, Hamdeen Sabahy, and Amr Moussa -- of espionage and sedition: Moussa had met with Tzipi Livni to "fabricate internal crises" in Egypt, and then the politicians gathered at the Wafd Party headquarters to put the "Zionist plot" into motion.

Today's news demonstrates the state of uncertainty I've been in for the last couple of weeks. What is important and what is a red herring? Events that would, in any other context, be extremely big, happen in such quick succession that it's nearly impossible to assess their magnitude before something else comes along. Depending on whom you speak to, you find dramatically divergent answers to what this all means. Is Egypt undergoing a massive crisis and authoritarian power grab? Or are the demonstrations that have occurred since the anniversary of the Mohamed Mahmoud clashes in mid-November the inevitable but minor birth pangs of newfound stability? My gut feeling is less dire than that of the secularists with whom I sympathize: I'm not sure that Morsi's fall, which some have called for, would do any group in Egypt much good beyond symbolic victory points, and could plunge the country into a true crisis of leaderlessness and strife between the pro- and anti-Ikhwan forces. (I don't think this will happen, by the way.) But will conflict escalate in the next couple of weeks before the referendum on the new constitution? That is less certain.

Saturday was what was jokingly termed in the neighborhood the "Invasion of the Beards". That is to say, the Ikhwan organized their own "million-man" gathering at Cairo University, which is not too far from home sweet Medan Mesaha. Don't go outside, texted a friend ominously, the streets are filled with beards! Many supporters of the Brotherhood, and all Salafi Muslims, the latter of whom seek to emulate the purported appearance of the first disciples of Muhammad, sport sizable beards. Liberal Muslims here, on the other hand, tend to see aggressive beard-growing as symbolic of self-righteous religiosity. The day passed without incident, though Facebook and Twitter were abuzz with videographic or anecdotal proof that the Brotherhood had bribed poor farmers from the governorates to populate the Cairo University rally. My one contact with someone who actually supports the Brotherhood, on the other hand -- a precocious 18-year-old literature student I met, strangely enough, at the U.S. Embassy screening of the West Wing -- posted a different story. When he returned from the rally that night, he wrote on Facebook [my rough translation]: We felt as we were standing there... more than 4 million people who had come to participate in deciding the fate of their country, come to prove to the whole world that we are behind our elected president and behind shari'a, come not because of money and not in rented buses,... and not because of a bottle of beer or a dose of drugs... We came to Nahda Square to realize the Nahda. [The Nahda (Renaissance) Plan was the Ikhwan's broad campaign platform.]

This giant Ikhwan rally was in a sense a response to the (equally large, perhaps) secularist rally that took place last Tuesday. While anti-Brotherhood forces had been staging a sit-in in Tahrir since at least the previous Friday, the day after Morsi issued his constitutional declaration, the Tuesday march aimed to escalate the degree of resistance. This was also the first march that I joined myself. I have always been ambivalent about attending demonstrations, for several reasons. First, safety. There have been several prominent sexual assault cases that occurred during political demonstrations here since the revolution -- this seems a greater threat than falling victim to a tear gas overdose or being pelted with rocks. Second, I do not want to saddle Egyptian friends with protecting me at a demonstration, which they would feel compelled to do (both as a woman and a foreigner, since the spy jokes and not-so-jokey jokes abound). Third, it's awkward to walk the line between observer and participant. This was especially true when I joined the liberals' march at the invitation of a group of close Egyptian friends.

I met one of the girls beforehand at an upscale coffee shop in Mohandiseen, the upper middle-class neighborhood where marchers were gathering. People were wearing sneakers, sweatshirts, polo shirts, and even a few fanny packs. Some men and children wore the cheap plastic Guy Fawkes masks that have become a phenomenon as the result of what seems to be a nationwide passion for V for Vendetta. Many of the women, disproportionate to the population, had uncovered hair. Nevertheless, the woman marching right in front of me wore a niqab, and was there without a husband, something you rarely see -- I was intensely curious. Thousands clustered around Mostafa Mahmoud mosque, some with megaphones and banners representing various liberal opposition parties. There were many young people, some younger than ourselves, but also many middle-aged people. My friend's mother, who was walking with us, turned to him in the crowd and whispered that she felt like it was January 25 again. We could see neither the beginning nor the end of the marchers as we left the mosque and set off for Tahrir. Some people emerged from the shops and restaurants that lined the route to cheer and take photos, while others waved flags from their windows. At the same time, I remember looking up at the glassed-in second story of Chicken Tikka, an Indian chain, and seeing people staring intently at their menus as thousands of demonstrators poured through the street below.

Along the march route: a homemade banner commemorating Jika, the young demonstrator killed in Mohamed Mahmoud St. anniversary clashes a week earlier.


Clap, clap, clap, horeya, clap, clap, clap, horeya, shouted the marchers around me, repeating the word for freedom. Bee'a, bee'a, ya Badie -- accusing the Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood of selling out Egypt. Many of the slogans repeated during our journey to Tahrir were, like this one, attacking the administration for following the Ikhwan leadership instead of the national interest. Yasqot, yasqot hokm el-morshid! they yelled -- Down with the rule of the Supreme Guide. Just a few months ago, before the military relinquished its stranglehold on the government to Morsi's administration, the refrain of demonstrators from both within and against the Ikhwan was yasqot, yasqot hokm el-askar -- Down with military. Another familiar chant was also appropriated to the present circumstances, Aish, horeya, adala egtama'eya, the most famous rallying cry of the revolution. Aish, horeya, isqat al-ta'seeseyya! sounded again and again, Bread, freedom, and the fall of the Constituent Assembly! (This, again, reflects liberals' fury that a constitution was passed - and passed off as valid - after nearly all non-Brotherhood members of the Assembly walked out in protest that their views were not being considered.) Shave Morsi's beard and he looks like Mubarak! The people want the downfall of the regime! I am not an infidel! 

The crowd was charged with incredible momentum, a feeling that this could be the end of the Morsi regime, the beginning, even, of a second revolution. We passed the landmarks of my own average neighborhood, transformed for the day into a parade ground: Tawheed wa Nour (the Salafi department store), City Drinks, my favorite bakery. My friends pointed out, walking beside us, the famous activist Alaa Abd el Fattah, who was jailed by Mubarak and then put, as a civilian, in military court and refused to speak. By the time we crossed the Nile onto the island of Gezira, it was dark, and the exotically named dinner boats glittered on the river below. Soon enough, we'd crossed the island and arrived at the statue of Saad Zaghloul, nationalist hero of the 1919 revolution, that guards the entrance to Qasr el-Nil Bridge. His outstretched hand points across to Tahrir. Without warning, we found ourselves standing beneath a giant Egyptian flag unfurled by fellow demonstrators, and this was the way we began the final distance to the square.

I wasn't sure what to expect in Tahrir itself on a day like this. The smell of tear gas hung faintly on the bridge -- would there be more when we got to the square? Fortunately, we found out shortly that it was from a peripheral confrontation with police behind the Semiramis hotel. After crossing the bridge, the road narrowed and the crowd thickened. Thousands more were already in Tahrir, having arrived with marches from other neighborhoods of Cairo beginning around noon. The darkness was punctuated with camera flashes and bursts of fireworks. The speeches on the stage erected in the center of the square, amidst the tents of those conducting the sit-in, were furious. But the prevailing mood was strangely celebratory, perhaps because people felt again the excitement they felt on January 25 and yearned to feel again. It was a revolutionary reunion: my friends kept bumping into people they new, somehow, in the sea of thousands. We even saw a friend's middle-aged mother. I couldn't hear the speeches, but we navigated a path through the throngs and found an open spot, one of my male friends holding his hands out to the sides to prevent any harassment. Fortunately (but perhaps not surprisingly given the demographics of the crowd), we girls experienced not a single incident of even the mildest verbal harassment during the march or within Tahrir Square itself. And notably, there was not a single policeman in sight, something that must have been a political calculation. There would be no images from that night of officers in their riot gear throwing tear gas canisters, and of boys hurling rocks back at them  -- the image people here have become accustomed to. We stood in the opening we'd found and ate warm sweet potatoes from one of the galabiyya-clad street vendors. Beyond that, there was not much for us to do. After an hour, we walked home.





This is a video I took as we walked into Tahrir Square at the end of the march. The people are shouting  "Freedom, freedom, freedom." 


I was glad I had gone. While we were marching, I had tried to compare the experience with political activism back home. Egyptians, since the revolution, don't go to the streets to protest as a symbolic gesture of objection, but empowered by the belief - and proof, in fact - that they can overthrow a government. I can't imagine, of course, thousands of middle-class, levelheaded Americans marching through the streets of Washington calling for the downfall of the U.S. government (nor, of course, would I want to). But the nascent post-revolutionary Egypt is still unstable enough that going to the streets may very well shape the entire country's direction for years to come.







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