It's July and it's 2015 . Two years after the military coup. The weather is the usual sultry heat of Summer and I was going by microbus to visit a sick relative, one moreover that I had not seen in over five years.
The nile was the same azure jewel it had always been, nothing had changed not the green banks nor the peace and beauty of the river. Along the banks of course there were new signs designating parts of that bank to military club after military club, of course.
After all everything was back to the way it was the military had taught the wayward people a lesson, a pretty harsh one 10000 dead civilian strong to say the least and the people had seemingly learnt their lesson.
Along a bridge were the words : the army are heroes, CC Is a hero. The author had seen fit to write this several times across the wall, either to convince himself or passers by I wasn't sure until I saw the white wash that was splashed irregularly all along the street walls.
I smiled, I couldn't help it, it reminded me of something that had been written a year ago" wipe and cross out we'll write again down with military rule".
My relative had strong views about uprisings and people taking to the streets and pushed the blame of all the countries troubles at the doors of these revolutionaries these Brotherhood is. Bad bad people who had caused the Egyptian pound to flop to its current pathetic state.
I changed the subject and let her tell me her views on hospitals in general and doctors in particular, apparently this was also something to blame the Muslim Brotherhood for, after all weren't these people responsible to the medical Syndicate. I said no the Syndicate members were elected and the current ones Christian nothing to do with the MB. But in that I was misinformed.
It's a fact that you cannot continue a conversation in egypt for very long without touching upon politics and the rising prices of everything.
Finally I got up and said "don't forget to pray for -------- that he's released and returned to his family", she answered "if he's innocent he'll be let off."
"You can't seriously believe that I protested you know him, is there any doubt of his innocence, "
Apparently his being in jail was a result of someone wanting his position at work and had laid a false claim against him which the police had seen fit to believe and put him accordingly in jail for ten months until such time as they could prove his innocence.
This convincing explanation probably makes life very comfortable, it removes all blame from a police force that enters a man's home without warrant and without accusations breaks his home, frightens his children at 3 o'clock in the morning, steals all the money and jewellery and electronic equipment in the house, hides him in their secret security services headquarters for two months to finally after two months of torture admit him to a high security prison with thirty no less trumped up charges ranging from terrorist activities and blowing up cars to abusing the sisi.
It helps those who have sided with the military and allowed the media to brainwash them; explain to themselves how a beloved relative could be in jail or accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It was there on the walls fresh and clear the words down with military rule, sisi is a murderer on walls that could not but be passed, how were these not white washed? There had been a protest March on Friday to show the military and the police that even here in Cairo in their sanctum of sanctum where the tightest of forces held sway the protest marches had infiltrated. One boy had been killed in Maadi, I heard that during iftar today and couldn't eat.
As though it was just that one boy.
It looks bleak.
Don't say what you mean in front of a taxi driver because you don't know who will turn out to be part of the security police tale bearing gang of thugs and find yourself in a police station. You don't say what you want in front of anyone for that matter because people find it a public duty to flush out the Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
Witch hunting.
The secondary school finals exam saw the kids handing over their mobiles at the security check point, they got them back but sometimes some foolish boy or girl would find the examination room invaded by police and their being arrested before finishing their exams because they put some prodemocracy pictures or music on their cell phones.
Two years more than 40000 in jail, more than ten thousand dead, and the anti coup movement is as alive as ever. I once in a fit of depression said to someone, why not just give in, they've vilified every beautiful thing the Muslim Brotherhood have done over eighty years, they've falsely accused them of every violent action that has occurred on Egyptian grounds, where does this end? Isn't this like the fifties when they were killed before?
She said no. They've learnt their lesson and they're not going to stop until egypt becomes a democratic nation. I believe her.
wahda misrya
commented on a video on YouTube.
We have lived with the nightmare of the massacres every day and every night for the past 6 months. The Muslim Brotherhood have nothing to do with Afghanistan or Obama or terrorism. The Muslim Brotherhood are the middle class professionals of Egypt, the doctors, the engineers, the teachers, the scientists, the farmers, the lawyers. They want democracy, have always dreamed of democracy, they dream of an Islamic constitution where equal rights and dignity and justice reside. They dream of a freedom of voice and a freedom of choice. They dream of going to pray in the mosque at dawn and not getting arrested. Of a life of equality.
Islam our religion provides all that. For sixty odd years the country has been through socialism-capitalism and now frank bankruptcy all under the umbrella of a secularity that will 'save the day' secularity may work in the West, but it creates corruption in the Middle East.
You wonder when this will end? Not until the army have murdered all 90 million Egyptians. They've killed so far 7000 all of them pro-democracy.
The fight has never been about Morsy, its all about the ability of a people to choose a president and not have the military interfere.
How can we ever trust the army? How do we know that the next president will remain? unless he has blessings from the army.
Backwards? No, we're not backwards. Terrorists? God help me, no, we aren't terrorists, a real terrorist is the police and army thugs who write on their facebook accounts of what fun it is to kill islamists and how many they killed and burned in Rabaa and Nahda.
I don't know what Mubarak did for 30 years to the Egyptian army, but it no longer holds allegiance to Egypt. A general cameout on TV and said, the enemy of the army changes according to changing conditions! What condition changes to change the enemy of the state?
How will it all end? The way Morsi and the rest of the Muslim Brotherhood didn't want it to end. They wanted to finish creating the country institutions before the military struck them, but perhaps all revolutions must go the same way, we have to enter hell drop down to the deepest gallow to rise again.
We're falling now, with the country announcing bankrupticy any day, with the gulf countries hesitant to continue to support the coup, with more and more people realising the truth behind the relationship between the thugs and the police and that the Muslim Brotherhood have never killed anyone, with more and more people taking to the streets, with the kids at college learning absolutely nothing in class but how to stop a gas canister from exploding and how to throw it right back at the police and military. of how to stop the bleeding from bird shot wounds and live bullets, of doctors learning of exploding bullets and how forensic classes failed to teach them the dirty weapons of war. Of the military using the money that Morsi had assigned for Sinai to be renovated and for hospitals to be built, that money has been long spent on bullets to kill the Sinai people because all of Egypt are terrorists and only the elite upper classes are the non terrorists. Why is it that terrorists carry balloons and carry rulers to school with the Rabaa sign on them and are beaten( oh yes, teachers beat up kids at our schools) and then sent to the police to continue the beatings, of how to live with 30 people inside an Egyptian jail and how to get rid of the cockroaches and other insects inside the jail cell.
What fun times we Egyptians are having, but where will it all end? With democracy.
I know it and believe it because 7000 people do not die for nothing.
Islam our religion provides all that. For sixty odd years the country has been through socialism-capitalism and now frank bankruptcy all under the umbrella of a secularity that will 'save the day' secularity may work in the West, but it creates corruption in the Middle East.
You wonder when this will end? Not until the army have murdered all 90 million Egyptians. They've killed so far 7000 all of them pro-democracy.
The fight has never been about Morsy, its all about the ability of a people to choose a president and not have the military interfere.
How can we ever trust the army? How do we know that the next president will remain? unless he has blessings from the army.
Backwards? No, we're not backwards. Terrorists? God help me, no, we aren't terrorists, a real terrorist is the police and army thugs who write on their facebook accounts of what fun it is to kill islamists and how many they killed and burned in Rabaa and Nahda.
I don't know what Mubarak did for 30 years to the Egyptian army, but it no longer holds allegiance to Egypt. A general cameout on TV and said, the enemy of the army changes according to changing conditions! What condition changes to change the enemy of the state?
How will it all end? The way Morsi and the rest of the Muslim Brotherhood didn't want it to end. They wanted to finish creating the country institutions before the military struck them, but perhaps all revolutions must go the same way, we have to enter hell drop down to the deepest gallow to rise again.
We're falling now, with the country announcing bankrupticy any day, with the gulf countries hesitant to continue to support the coup, with more and more people realising the truth behind the relationship between the thugs and the police and that the Muslim Brotherhood have never killed anyone, with more and more people taking to the streets, with the kids at college learning absolutely nothing in class but how to stop a gas canister from exploding and how to throw it right back at the police and military. of how to stop the bleeding from bird shot wounds and live bullets, of doctors learning of exploding bullets and how forensic classes failed to teach them the dirty weapons of war. Of the military using the money that Morsi had assigned for Sinai to be renovated and for hospitals to be built, that money has been long spent on bullets to kill the Sinai people because all of Egypt are terrorists and only the elite upper classes are the non terrorists. Why is it that terrorists carry balloons and carry rulers to school with the Rabaa sign on them and are beaten( oh yes, teachers beat up kids at our schools) and then sent to the police to continue the beatings, of how to live with 30 people inside an Egyptian jail and how to get rid of the cockroaches and other insects inside the jail cell.
What fun times we Egyptians are having, but where will it all end? With democracy.
I know it and believe it because 7000 people do not die for nothing.