On the eve of the protests in Cairo, I was getting my ass injected with an unknown substance. That morning, I woke up with a killer headache and the sniffles but watched from my roof terrace as swarms of police and Egyptians carrying the Tunisian flag filled the streets. At one point, thousands of people started to run, and alongside of them, waves of police deployed for the protest. I knew immediately they were all headed towards Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. I had calls sporadically throughout the afternoon from friends complaining that main roads were blocked off and all the metro stations were closed, making it virtually impossible to get downtown.
Despite the warnings for foreigners to stay inside, my head was killing me, so I went to a nearby pharmacy to grab some Tylenol. “You want an injection in your ass?” the guy behind the counter asked. I thought for several seconds and then responded, “Sure.” Hearing the faint chants from protestors outside and what sounds like occasional gunfire, I realized then that I felt far more uncomfortable half naked in the back room of the pharmacy with a strange man whispering “sexy sexy ass” than I would outside amidst the protests.
As I was leaving the pharmacy, an Egyptian friend who lives in Tahrir called and invited me downtown to have coffee. Although my ass was still sore, I agreed. I always bring my dog with me to avert dangerous situations. There are two bridges in Cairo that bisect the Nile. As I approached the first one, I saw maybe 100 or so armed police officers blocking the bridge and several people trying to show their IDs. Discreetly, I picked up my dog and removed my press pass, which she was wearing as a collar. “Look cute,” I whispered.
The man who seemed to be in charge of the soldiers first looked at me suspiciously. “Where are you going?” he said. “Just going for a walk with my dog.” He turned to the other soldiers. “Hiyya aizia meshy bi kelb!” Everyone busted out laughing and I was permitted to cross with my dog as the others stood there with their IDs waiting to be turned away.
Once downtown, I could distinctly hear the shouts coming from the other side of the square in front of the KFC. There were still about 50 or so protesters surrounded by hundreds of bystanders. I took a place across the street and watched another 20 to 30 people be hauled away by policemen, who greatly outnumbered the protesters and surrounded the square on all sides. The woman next to me was obviously a journo snapping pictures. “Why on earth would you bring your dog to a protest?” she asked me. “I don’t know,” I said. “She was curious.”
When it became apparent the riots were starting to die down, I decided to go have a tea with my favorite people in Wes El Balad–an Egyptian family who own a perfume shop on El Bustan, across the street from where my roommate and I used to live. Walking to El Bustan down the crowded street everyone started to run again so I picked up my dog and ran too. The guy running next to me was named Ali, and he also had no idea why we were running. “Can I have your number though?” he shouted over the chants. “I don’t have a phone” I shouted back.
At the perfume shop, I was greeted warmly and promptly ushered into the store. “What are you doing down here?” said Abdul. “To visit you of course” I replied. “What’s with all this protesting?” I said. “Oh you know, too much government,” said his son Ahmed. “It’s nearly finished now.”
“It’s some bullshit,” said Mohammad. “Since the riots, no tourists will come here. We had to close the shop early yesterday and again today. It’s very bad for business.” No one seemed to give a shit about the protests, only when they were going to end. The shop is located only two minutes from Tahrir Square and yet none of them expressed any interest in going.
While I wouldn’t want to downplay the significance of the struggle of the Egyptian people, it is sometimes hard to gauge the severity of certain political situations here. Tuesday’s protests were actually pre-planned by the Muslim Brotherhood (an opposition party that wants to instill Quranic law in Egypt and is officially banned though tolerated by the government) in response to the suspicious nature of the November Parliamentary elections, in which Hosni Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party secured 209 seats, the opposition parties five, and the Muslim Brotherhood, none.
The uprising in Tunisia was also a catalyst for the Tuesday protests, even though the date was already pre-selected. Many Muslim countries looked to Egypt as the next in line because they have a greater percentage of people below the poverty line, unemployment and inflation continues to be a problem, and the Mubarak regime is known for its authoritarian rule and use of torture and media censorship.
That said, trying to ascribe the current situation to simmering religious tension doesn’t really work. The New Year’s Day Bombing of the Church in Alexandria pissed off a lot Egyptians. Many of the people I spoke to about the incident (which is now being linked to the Palestinian militant group Army of Islam) insisted that the bomb couldn’t possibly be the work of Egyptians, whether they were hardline Islamist or not. “My people, they’ll cheat you, but if you need help they will always be there to help you out,” my Egyptian ex-boyfriend would constantly say, and this corny sentiment was actually proven true in the days after the bombings, when mosques hung up Christmas lights and Muslims gathered around the Churches to protect their fellow Egyptians.
Despite the fact that Egypt has all of the fixings for a populist revolution, most people are still skeptical of whether or not this recent activity will actually lead to an overthrow of the government. Most Egyptians around my age have spent their entire lives under the rule of Mubarak. I, for one, don’t know a single Egyptian who voted in the November elections. They’ve never had any reason to believe that things are going to change, so why now? In Tunisia, the police joined in with the rioters. People in Egypt believe that the police will continue to side with Mubarak, even though most of them are between the ages of 18 and 25, earn shitty wages, and generally share in the same situation as the rioters.
The only thing that’s challenged this sense of complacency is the continued reports of people setting themselves on fire to show their discontent with the government, a la Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia. Still, many people doubted whether even a fraction of the 75,000 people who confirmed attendance of the protests on Facebook would turn up. I think everyone was a little surprised at the turnout. In Tahrir Square, thousands of people gathered until early morning, the police trying to contain the crowds with tear gas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades. Hundreds of people were detained and arrested and four people have been reported dead.
Sitting a short jog away from the site of the violence, I got a call from two of my friends. Josh called to say that the Egyptian government had shut down Facebook and Mairead called to say that our Egyptian friend, Muhammad was put in jail last night. “What happened?” I said, although in truth I was not at all surprised. “Oh they were just arresting random people,” she said. “It was crazy. Where were you? We called you.”
“Yeah I was getting a shot in my ass,” I said.
“Oh OK, well we still on for dinner tonight?”
“Yes, definitely.”
RACHEL POLLOCK
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