Posts tagged tahrir

#July8: What Is Next? - by Psypherize

It’s been a week so far and the sit-in continues in Tahrir Square, with the power cut off during the day to keep us from using it to power fans and laptops. We had to get our very own generators and gasoline to power up any equipment we had in there. With small numbers in the Square during the day and many during most of the night, so far the response of the Government has been far less than satisfactory, with different cabinet changes and sacking of police officers in different provinces in Egypt, many have not found such changes to be enough for #Jan25 and are demanding that Sharaf would descend to Tahrir Square and stand with the people instead of keeping his post and serving as a puppet for the SCAF.

Today was another march to honor the death of another martyr of #Jan25, after months of lying down in a bed in the hospital, along with several marches that were calling for the sacking of the public prosecutor due to knowledge of his corruption.

So what is next for #July8?

#July8 was declared an open sit-in and that is the case so far. However, with the scorching heat of the day and Ramadan coming close, the SCAF and others are predicting that the heat would kill the sit-in slowly with the number of protesters thinning out every day. The exhaustion from the sit-in along with the disorganization that has been seen in Tahrir Square is making the sit-in not appealing to many people, even though we are there for the right reasons, to bring justice.

Justice, which is the foundation stone of ‘kinghood’ as many believe, and yet people walk through Tahrir Square every day, seeing the sit-in and all the people sleeping on the ground, or inside their tents with their demands held up high in banners all over the Square, and they ask the same arid question, “Why are all these people here? Haven’t they had enough ‘ruining’ the country? What more do they want from the present Government and the Army?” others would say the most negative comments, “Get a job!” During my days in the Square, I would see people getting taunted into a fight over such comments.

It is a sad thing to see so many people not understanding the plight of the families of the martyrs or the injured protesters of the Revolution. For most people, they would not tend to feel the suffering of others unless it becomes their own, only then do they get to experience such an awakening and start supporting the others, but why?

Me, Myself and I; it’s that philosophy of ‘every man for himself’ that had put us in such disunity and dismay for many years during the Mubarak regime. It was only when people stopped saying ‘Ana el awwal’ and started looking out for the person next to them that people had the strength and courage to take to the streets in protest and unite to eventually overthrow a dictator so powerful that nobody would have thought it to be possible. The conviction and pursuit of justice and hope was the idea that kept the people strong and banded together. An idea, with enough people can simply change the World.

Today, the idea of pursing justice however isn’t strongly sought by everybody in Egypt, only the people who are out there right now in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and many other cities in Egypt, just staying there day and night, their spirits up high and their resolve unmatched for justice to happen.

Egyptian expats and internationals, who have come halfway across the World to join us, sleep, eat and remain with us and many who live in close proximity never even bother to spare even if at least an hour or two to join us and see the sit-in for what it really is. The ‘keyboard warriors’ that we see every day on Facebook and Twitter who find it too easy to blabber out all sorts of revolutionary slogans and statements but never bother to put the effort and join the sit-ins is but another phenomena that is quite disappointing.

[Impressions From Tahrir square after July 8th sit-in, as documented by Ganzeer]

Did people already forget what #Jan25 stood for? Did they already forget the demands that we had? Did they forget about the value of justice and pursing one’s rights? Do they not see how the SCAF and its ‘damage control’ policy to its own interests and trying to get the revolutionaries to compromise with the excuse of stability and the ‘wheel of production’? Are people still that naive to believe that all of a sudden now, the Egyptian media is still telling the truth and everything the SCAF says is true beyond any doubt?

We are doing this because it is just. Blood demands blood. Justice needs to be done as a first step towards reform; the system has to be cleansed from the roots of the corruption that was rampant during Mubarak’s regime. And we will stay and remain in protest until all the demands are met. You cannot compromise in the middle of a Revolution.

 “Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood. All that spirits desire, spirits attain.” – Khalil Gibran. 

Surveying Tahrir by Shahinaz Nabeeh

While volunteering to help out with a questionnaire made by Ganzeer, to document, with physical evidence, the common demands and concerns of the people, with the intention of creating a concise booklet with the results, I had an epiphany. Making the decision of leaving my life in England and everything I had known from a very young age to risk losing it all for the romantics of a revolution that had for recent months become the only thing I believed in; I have since visited Tahrir on my own terms. My time there had been spent with groups who share my fears and concerns for the people, but who haven’t necessarily experienced anything close to what they have. It wasn’t for lack of want, but an inherent fear; a fear that comes with over-protective parents (the same parents who allowed me to move back to Egypt during a revolution, alone), the fear of not being accepted amongst those who endured what I was spared, that same fear that drove me guiltily away, to safely mourn injustice from a distance. 

What I found last night was beyond what I had ever expected; aside from the few who assigned themselves to help us after filling in the questionnaire and liking the idea, there were many others who simply continued milling about in the space we occupied, watching us explain the idea to others, and fervently joining in our debates and discussions. And for a few hours, that space seemed to have the power to transform me into an oracle of knowledge. Men with eager eyes came to ask me of things I could hardly explain in Arabic, stoic women called me over for whispered questions about Fangary and his now infamous finger, and 15 year old Mahmoud who pulled on my sleeve, scolded me for smoking and asked me to teach him to write his name. A moment I shall never forget. 

I had an overwhelming sensation that most of these people simply wanted a podium to express themselves; something Tahrir had first provided, but quickly took away as soon as the real stages were built and the segregated spaces were set. One man told me that this was his first visit to Tahrir, “I started trusting you when I saw your dissatisfaction with the people you chose, and I started believing you were doing this for us too.” Touched as I was; the words ‘you’ and ‘us’ reaffirmed my innate guilt. He assured me he won’t be the only one, but that there’s a whole other, previously skeptical movement on its way to join Tahrir. I handed out a questionnaire to the tea vendor and his companion sitting near us and never expected an eloquent essay on the back of the paper detailing his dreams for Egypt. His companion couldn’t fill anything in, because he couldn’t read. Others, at first dubious of our intentions, later came to thank us for giving them, the ones without the stage space or public speaking skills, the opportunity to take part in something other than adding numbers to the square, with most even eager to write their names next to their answers to prove it.

What I found in one night were a people flourishing amongst the ruins, poised for dramatic change, yet incredulous of anyone who tells them how to do it. A nation that for so long believed that only god could hold the solution to their plights, and that the natural order of society was as unchangeable as the government that created it. In the real Tahrir I saw last night, I realised that there is hope.

From Protesting To Policy-Making by Ganzeer & Islam Mohamed

Do you still trust the government, or those who are still floating at the top? pulling all the strings and quashing those who oppose them through farcical trials and trumped-up charges?
 
Are you still hoping to raise either your hand or your voice high enough with a list of demands that they would listen to? or God forbid, embrace? Do you think they’re even concerned about what ‘we demand’?
 
Why honor an illegitimate authority placed there by Mubarak himself, one that refuses to honor our demands, listen, or even refrain from all the shit we’re fed up with. Instead they create a fertile ground for counter-revolutionary strategies and situations to thrive.
 
We should stop giving legitimacy to a goverment and powers that have stopped listening to the people. It’s the people who ARE the omnipresent legitimacy to any governing power at any point in time.

Instead of begging them to hear us out we should instead take our strength from our own numbers, formulate a roadmap for the Egypt we would love to see, and then order these ‘civil servants’ to honor the wishes of the People.
 
We propose creating a well-rounded questionnaire that covers the majority of our common concerns, and distributing it in Tahrir as an initial mass data collection process to document the major concerns that we as a people stand behind and demand- and thus forming a sound basis for possible policy formulations.

Example Questions:

هل  تحب أن يتخذ عضو مجلس الشعب قراراته دون مشاركة أبناء دائرته؟

هل لرئيس الجمهورية حق إتخاذ أي قرار دون الرجوع لمجلس الشعب و/أو القضاء؟

هل يتم إنتخاب وزراء الحكومة أم تعينهم؟

Do parliamentary members make decisions with or without the involvement of the neighborhoods they represent?

Can the president make decisions without the involvement of Parliament or the Judiciary system?

Should ministers be elected or hired?

[example questionnaire.]

 
These questionnaires can be distributed to Tahrir-goers as they enter the square, with ballot boxes placed centrally in plain view to deposit your filled out questionnaire. At the end of the day of protest, we would have won more than our angst and dissatisfaction with the powers that be, and would have gained valuable insight that may very well change the course and direction of our revolution.
 

[Civilian cordons giving out questionnaires.]

[Questionnaire should be articulated and designed in a very simple way.]

[Ballot boxes should be distributed around the square, guarded by individuals and made visible with a powerful fluorescent color and/or visual identity.]

[Transparent ballot boxes made out of tupperware.]

A policy booklet will then be compiled using the data gathered, entirely based on the input of a wide spectrum of Egyptian people who usually show up at Tahrir: different ages, classes, educational backgrounds, cultures, etc. 
 
And if the concept proves a success, it can be replicated throughout other cities, villages, and towns in Egypt.
 
Our revolution is not only backed by the voice of dissent & feelings of dissatisfaction, but it is also backed by hardcore knowledge and understanding. This in time will inevitably win more people, who may have not trusted the revolutionaries before, to our just cause.

Tahrir Square: The Strengths & Weaknesses of a Nation

“Y’see that fucker?”, says someone to me as he points to a young man on a Chinese motorbike powering a horribly wired stereo. It’s 4:00 AM in Tahrir square, Thursday, July 30. After a 2-day confrontation with hordes of aggressive and provocative riot police, a group of victorious revolutionaries call for a sit-in at Tahrir square and camp out for the night. And it’s here where the revolutionaries may no longer have the upper hand.

That “fucker” on the motorbike, along with a few others like him on motorbikes, was at the front lines of the epic street-battle between revolutionaries and riot police only a few hours earlier. Together with the rest of the gang of bikers, he whizzed through the rocks, bullets, and tear gas, risking his life to collect the injured and bike back to the makeshift clinic set up by pro-revolution doctors at the center of Tahrir square. This incredible feat of close-to-sacrificial duty was performed non-stop throughout the 2-day battle royal.

No one other than That Fucker could’ve assumed the position of front-line ambulance, for That Fucker is the only person equipped with the right vehicle, one that can move fast, take sharp turns, and avoid getting hit. That Fucker also has years of experience in stunt-like maneuvers, because getting around in Cairo traffic on a motorbike everyday involves just that. That Fucker is even used to having up to four other people on that bike with him, because sometimes you just need to give your homies a lift somewhere. Without anybody knowing it, for years That Fucker has been brought up to be the stealthiest, front-line ambulance motorbiking master. 

[Revolutionary Amublance-Biker courtesy of Reuters without permission.]

A little while later, another man strikes a conversation with me, and asks me about “the girls who look like foreigners, smoking cigarettes, and speaking perfect Egyptian Arabic.” I respond with a question “What about them?”

He says he finds it peculiar, that’s all. That he just wonders what they’re doing around the square after 4:00 in the morning. I tell him they’re doing what everybody else is doing. They’re doing the same thing those men over there, smoking and hanging out in the square at 4:00 in the morning are doing. They’re joining in solidarity. They’re Egyptian like you, they’re smokers like you, and they believe what you believe in. They’re just not being passive about it in the comfort of their homes.

The man then proceeds to apologize for being nosy and tells me that although he’s been living in Cairo for over 15 years, he is at his heart a Saeedi man from the village and can’t help but think like one.

At that exact moment, a boy, a little rough around the edges, runs past us, chased by half a dozen men. One of them shouts “get him!”

They do get him, and upon investigating the situation, it becomes apparent that the little kid stole something off of a dude who was, well, a little more well off. Another young man then gets into an argument with one of the many tea vendors already laid out around the square to serve (make profit off) the few remaining revolutionaries camped out for the night. The young man shouts at the tea guy and accuses him of caring about nothing but taking advantage of men who risked their lives for a great cause. The tea guy shouts back in response, and claims that his life, too, was in danger.

The differences between these Egyptians are the cause of problems and disputes amongst themselves, even though only a while ago, it was these very differences that helped them overcome riot police’s brutal attacks. For without the tea guy, the injured would not have anything to drink, and without the motorbike gang, the injured would not be immediately delivered to the clinic, which would not be equipped with medication if it hadn’t been for the involvement of the well-off man who almost got robbed, who might’ve gotten injured had it not been for the young boy’s sneaky rocks hitting riot police officers from out of nowhere. Egyptians are different; some are internet-savvy and act as instant Twitter reporters, others tear out sidewalks with their bare hands to make little stones for the revolutionaries to fend themselves against attacks.

[Man tearing out sidewalk with bear hands, courtesy of @TravellerW]

In the presence of a common enemy, the differences between Egyptian people compliment each other to form a perfectly functioning fighting machine. In the absence of a common enemy, Egyptians are left to pay a little too much attention to these differences than necessary, and the differences start to become points of conflict. Authorities pick up on these points of conflict and use the media to juxtapose and induce fear.

Nobody has sat down to think about how our differences may be put to complimentary use post-protest or post-revolution. Instead, most people are concerned with how the interest-group they are associated with can gain more ground at this possibly life-determining phase, when in fact knowing what to do with our differences may be the salvation of this good nation and its magnificent people.