The Aftermath

The morning after it all happened, we went outside to survey the scene. It was July 4, but the fireworks that had gone on all night were for something else. Dokki was back to normal, the streets crowded and shops open. Miriam and I walked to Versailles, the hairdresser, a few streets over, where the atmosphere was even more jovial than usual. The clients and stylists all greeted each other with open-armed congratulatory Mabrouks! and Allah yebarek feeks! -- and even Ya shabab al-sawra! (Youth of the revolution!). Over where the hair was being done, two stylishly dressed middle-aged women were indulging in a little history. Now King Farouk... da zaman gameel! said one, suggesting it was a glorious age. Zaman al-sheyaka! added the other -- the age of chicness! The first continued that she had been to Iran and everyone there was looking to Egyptian fashions. The second nodded knowingly. Alshan masr umm al donia! she said with triumph, using one of Egypt's favorite nicknames -- Because Egypt is the Mother of the World!  

Indeed it was a day of celebration for everyone who was out and about in the Mother of the World. The only person to suggest otherwise was one of the juice men at City Drink, who shook his head quietly and said: Morsi mosh khalas, Morsi isn't over yet. The young, conservatively dressed girls working in the friendly family bakery further down Tahrir St -- a shop I thought was likely to be a Brotherhood stronghold based on their aggressive broadcasting of religious channels --  told us how excited they were that the government had been overthrown. They hadn't gone to Tahrir because they, too, were afraid of harassment, but otherwise would have been thrilled. The newspaper man on the corner of Tahrir and Ali Ismail was also grinning broadly. He asked me where I was from, and I hesitated... I knew too well how all sides were casting the US as the villain in what had just occurred. I told him, though, and he didn't miss a beat. Do you think Egypt is nice? How about we switch and you stay here and I go live in America? Ah, the irony. 

Since everything seemed calm (the Brotherhood was in depressed shock over at Rabia El Adawiyya mosque in Nasr City), we decided to metro over to Abbaseyya to have our July 4 meal at our favorite Chinese restaurant there. The metro was packed as usual, and at Medan El Geish the goats and sheep marked for slaughter stood waiting as always. 

Later in the evening, friends who were being evacuated threw a hurried goodbye party. Of course, the conversation turned immediately to politics. Two Americans sitting nearby, a reporter and a PhD student, plunged into a heated "coup vs. not a coup" debate. The student thought that saying it was a coup was writing off the immense initiative of regular people in effecting change, and he found this really insulting to Egyptians. Indeed, the #notacoup campaign underway by anti-Morsi Egyptians is driven most, I think, by the fact that calling it a coup belittles people's sense of agency in bringing about the change -- regardless of the fact of the military deposing the president. Since people already think that foreign (American) hands are afraid of the will of the Egyptian people, the use of the term by foreigners seems only confirmation of their belief. The reporter, who had been in Tahrir the night of the speech, was much more critical. 

I turned to my friend Ahmed Farag, who had been with us during the speech, why people didn't seem to be more skeptical of the military's intentions. After all, many of these same people (including he) had been very active against SCAF rule during the events of late 2011. (Remember yaskot yaskot hokm el askar- Down with the rule of the military?)  The most common response I have heard to these doubts over the last few days is that the military cannot return to oppressive SCAF rule days because it has witnessed the great power that the people wield, and the people will not countenance military rule of that sort again. Farag shared my general mistrust of the military, but also stressed to me the 'importance of the streets.' This is what people will turn to again and again, he indicated, if more injustices are committed or another unsuitable government is installed, because it has been proven to work better than anything else. With one caveat: We know how to remove a bad ruler, he said, but we still have yet to figure out how to install a good one.

 I also asked him about the arrests of Brotherhood leaders and the shuttering of news channels seen as favoring the MB. The New York Times and others have suggested, I think convincingly, that these arrests could fuel a repetition of history, with the Brotherhood going back underground having seen that its attempt (if an incomplete one) at democracy ended in such failure. Farag agreed with me that the arrests were, on principle, concerning. However, he said, they were a necessary public safety measure to prevent the incitement of violence by firebrand clerics on TV or by MB leaders with keen organizing skills. Indeed many other people have also said this to me over the past few days: that by cutting off the head of the snake, the military is preventing pro-Morsi forces from carrying on a sustained, organized campaign of violence. Without leaders, they have suggested, violence cannot continue at a serious level for more than a week or two. Personally, I think these early moves will have much longer repercussions, but at least for now I seem to be very much in the minority. Then again, as an American, I have been advised to keep my mouth shut.

We sat on Will and Claire's balcony looking out at a familiar horizon. The bare outline of the Cairo Tower floated in the midnight haze, the outlines of the buildings along the Corniche not so far away barely visible. As usual, the (I'm sure unintentionally) suggestive logo of the Faisal Islamic Bank hovered before us, a glowing beacon suspended in the darkness. We found ourselves turning up the volume and singing along to Tom Petty's Free Fallin' and Old Crow Medicine Show's Wagon Wheel, a last and rather haphazard gathering of Americans sort of celebrating the 4th of July very far away from home. 

Back at our apartment, Miriam and I dozed for a few hours before the car arrived to pick her up. Two hours later, CASA came for Janelle. I answered the door to find Hany, the jolly assistant from the CASA office, ready to evacuate her. So, are you leaving, too? he asked me. No, I'm staying, I said, smiling faintly. He flashed me a big thumbs up. You are Egyptian!! he told me proudly. It was of course a compliment. (Egyptians, thrilled about what has happened but also used to a fairly high level of instability at this point, are completely bewildered as to why everyone is leaving...it must be a US government conspiracy to keep American citizens from sympathizing with the Egyptian people.) But there have been few days, in fact, when I felt less Egyptian. 

I fell back asleep and awoke around 10:45am to the drone of five military helicopters flying in formation past my bedroom window. Each dangled a large Egyptian flag. There was to be a major show of military force in the skies of Cairo that morning, and it continued at a pretty constant drum for more than 24 hours. I walked a few blocks to my friend Chris's apartment for pancakes and maple syrup. We weren't really sure what to do with ourselves but read social media. The salient thoughts in my mind were as follows:

1. As mentioned above, Islamists will decide that democracy has nothing to offer them and will return to a much more dangerous state of existence for everyone.

2. The military (any military, really) does not really have democratic interests in mind. Let's hope it is really in its interest to foster a quick transition to a good civilian government, but I think it will always make sure that people know that it is the real power broker (and could step in again if necessary). This isn't going to go away.

3. I'm perplexed as to why people are so sure that the military (with great popular support of course) deposing Morsi's government is a great victory over dependency on the West. Because while both sides cultivate anti-Western rhetoric and the US was working with the Brotherhood inasmuch as its members were the elected government of Egypt, it is the military that is the most indebted to the United States. $1.3 billion in military aid is no small potatoes. 

Later on the afternoon of the 5th, I was in the car with Magdy on the way to have dinner with his family in Maadi, in an apartment that looks out on the infamous Tora Prison (where Mubarak is imprisoned and now Brotherhood leaders are being interrogated). On the Maadi Corniche, we passed a bold display of military tanks outside the Constitutional Court where Adli Mansour had recently been sworn in as the new president. We ate rather quickly and returned to the living room, where extended family were gathered around the TV and Magdy's dad, in his galabiyya and smoking his shisha, presided over the scene. There were clashes on the 6 October Bridge. The camera was trained on a narrow part of the bridge, playing graining images of people - were they the military? the police? protesters? from which side? - running up and down and throwing rocks. Briefly, the channels shifted to the pro-Morsi gathering around Rabiat El Adawiyya to show Mohamed Badie, Supreme Guide of the MB, giving a fiery speech to his supporters. He denied that he had been arrested and refused the return of military rule. Relatives brought out cheesecake and sweets, and Magdy's mom brought out a giant cake printed with the Egyptian flag. 

After dinner, we drove Magdy's aunt to her home in Haram, where children were out in the streets playing on swings and merry-go-rounds and there was something of a carnival in the air. In Dokki, at my own apartment, the doormen had locked the front doors in the off chance that the University clashes would spread to our neighborhood. I talked with them for awhile, and they assured me that although there was darb nar ashwa'ey (random fire) in some places, Medan El Mesaha would always be safe, inshallah. They assured me that they were there to protect me. Later we passed by friends in Zamalek, which was quiet and balmy as usual. Like everywhere else, we ate nuts and fruit and watched TV. The same scenes on the 6 October Bridge, and the University, and in Alexandria, played over and over. Or perhaps they weren't the same, it was hard to say. All the little figures seemed to be moving in slow motion. 

That night, the thrum of jets soaring overhead mingled with the crackling voice of Fairuz. O Virgin Mary, she sang, you are greater than the sun and the moon, and every star moving in the orbits of the sky. And later, as we washed dishes, she wafted in again from the living room: I loved you in the summer, I waited for you in winter. Your eyes are summer, my eyes are winter. And our reunion, oh my love, is beyond summer and beyond winter. 

The next day was calm again. I have not been moving around on my own, which, added to the sudden disappearance of almost all my friends, makes me feel strangely like I have suddenly started living a life in this city totally disconnected from the one I have led for the past year. I spent the afternoon in Zamalek - eating at a gourmet burger restaurant, sitting around Costa Coffee with friends. At the burger place, a Danish TV station interviewed my Egyptian friends. They defended the army and criticized the United States. I told the reporters I was going to keep my mouth shut, however tempted I might be to speak -- the last thing anyone wants these days is American interference. 

At night, driving to Maadi again, we passed over the University Bridge, separated from the location of the clashes by the campus itself. We found the lagan sha'abeyya of Manial - self-appointed groups of youth who aim to protect their neighborhoods by night -- staked out on the bridge. They had set up a blockade with barbed wire to intimidate troublemakers and prevent men (notably, MB supporters) with weapons on motorbikes from entering the residential island of Manial. They didn't look twice at us -- I suppose we didn't look suspicious -- but they stopped some cars and peered inside, searching for weapons. 

Today, Sunday, both sides have called for demonstrations: the Muslim Brotherhood for obvious reasons, and the anti-Morsi forces to assert that they still have far superior numbers.