For 18 days in early 2011 the world watched from far away as the common Egyptian fought against the repressive system in the hopes of creating a brighter, freer Egypt.
I had been living in Egypt prior to this for about a year and a half. We always “joked” that the country needed a revolution and although we laughed it was actually a real desire any compassionate person wanted. The common Egyptian didn’t live, they survived.
When rumours that a large protest against the repressive government were being planned for January 25th 2011, we all believed it would be a day of active protest until the police violently broke it up and then everyone would go home and life would continue as it did before. Us foreigners and the rich 1% of Egyptians would continue lives of comfort. The majority of the 90-or-so-million people would continue struggling with day to day life.
I want to talk about that day and the crazy journey I experienced. The beginning of a forever changed Egypt and a forever changed me.
Despite our pessimism about the outcome of the protests and the fear of police violence my partner Lara encouraged me to attend the protest with her. In a country where any planned gathering of more than a few people was supposed to receive prior government approval, a large scale protest was a very rare and unique event.
So on the morning of 25th of January 2011 we left our house in our tree lined suburb of Maadi, 8 miles from Central Cairo, jumped in a Taxi and asked to head downtown. The driver didn’t want to go the normal way along the River Nile, due to road closures related to the protest, so he dropped us off on the back route at a place called Midan Opera (Midan is Arabic for square). It was around midday.
The sun was shining as per normal and life was bustling as per normal. All seemed well, as well as it could in the overcrowded neglected capital.
We learned from Twitter that some of the protests were set to start at the High Court and then people would be marching down towards the now famous Midan Tahrir for the main event. Nothing was out of the ordinary as we headed down the bustling and crazy streets towards the High Court. Then we turned the corner from Sharia Talaat Harab, in-front of us gathered a few hundred Egyptians, mostly young men but a peppering of women and children. A police line stood firm and the crowd chanted against President Hosni Mubarak and the Regime. Of course, at this point the general noise of the 25 million strong city had hidden this little corner of resistance from us, we didn’t hear the chants or have any evidence that a crowd of joyous discontent that was building.
The air had a tingle to it, just like the feeling before an electrical storm. This feeling charged Lara and her excitement was being worn for all to see on her face. For me, I was overcome with fear. An ominous feeling that the Regime would not be shown up like this.
A few back and forth tustles started with the police while we stood on the sidelines and occasionally had to run down a side street away from mini stampedes. Nothing particularly different from a heated protest back home. After a while, we tried to get ourselves away and up into the Carlton Hotel that overlooked the area. A worker in the well-known drinking establishment told us nonchalantly that they would not open until five, as if everything was normal!
So, we started to walk with the crowd. The march to Tahrir had started. For the next few hours we moved in and out of a few marches, heading down various streets all towards the Midan.
The crowd could have been demanding a banana for president and you would have felt pride for their passion. The electrical in the air was heightening and the numbers were swelling. Pride for Egypt standing up for itself and pride for the normally fearful public taking a very direct stance. The message was clear: Hosni Mubarak must step down.
As we approached Midan Tahrir we could see plumes of water rising into the air in front of the famous Mogamma Government Administrative Building. The police were shooting water cannons. The Mogamma is symbolic. A place where you wait and wait and wait in lines upon lines in front of tiny little windows for all manner of bureaucratic reasons with no certainty that your needs will be addressed. Have you ever seen the movie Brazil, when Arthur visits the ministry to try and correct a spelling mistake on a form marking him as a terrorist? That is the Mogamma, but with the same thing happening to thousands of people all at once. You can understand why this imposing building, sitting on the edge of Midan Tahrir was symbolic. Midan Tahir is not only the central Cairo square, it was also renamed after the 1952 revolution and in English translates as Liberation Square. How fitting!
The numbers were really starting to grow. Shock, fear and amazement all rolled together in not just me, but each and every person in the area. Carried along like leaves flowing down a river we floated on down to the midan.
The above video shows one of the small marches in the early afternoon heading towards the High Court from Talaat Harab Street.
We finally accumulated into Midan Tahrir around 16:30.
If the feeling in the air back at the Court House was electric than Midan Tahrir felt like I was receiving constant electric shocks that I learned to enjoy. Men, Women, Children, Egyptians and bewildered foreigners chanted, drummed, shared food and all dreamed together. The people had spoken. The Regime must go.
Organised chaos ensued as people milled around rolling in and out of chanting groups to sit down and refresh as the police battled on the frontline with young men trying to break their barricades to reach Qasr El Aini street towards the central parliament and government buildings. The injuries were increasing, the batons were swing. However, at this point, the shocked and much under-trained, underpaid police were showing surprising restraint.
To our amazement, we bumped into someone we knew. A young 20-something fiancé of one of Lara’s friends. He was exhilarated. He felt change was coming for his country and he actively wanted to be a part of it. We meandered back to the relatively calm part of the square and in an unbelievable turn bumped into others we knew, friends and colleagues. We ended up hanging with a 50 year old man whom I had shared beers with on a few occasions. He had worked much of his younger life in the tourist zones and now made a living renting out various apartments he owned. In Egyptian terms, he was comfortable but he still felt the pressure of the Regime and was down in the midan to join his people for the occasion.
He explained to us in a very matter-of-fact way (the way Egyptians often explain things) that the protests would stay strong for a few more hours, then people would return home after the police clear out the midan and life would be back to it’s depressing norm tomorrow.
I was starting to wear my anxious fear and Essam suggested we get out of the action and make our way to the top of one of the buildings.
This was our first visit to Number 1 Midan Tahrir.
Essam helped us into the entrance to the huge 10 story building right on the corner of the midan next to the American University’s Palace and with clear views of all the action.
We talked with the bowab (doorman) who was oddly named Mubarak. Essam arranged for him to take us up in the elevator. On the way up he joked that Gamal, Mubarak’s son, and he were in business together and were striking it rich with land deals. No matter what is going on, Egyptian’s often keep their sense of humour, something I sorely miss!
Most buildings in Cairo and across Egypt have a bowab and his family. The bowab is first and foremost a doorman, but they deal with so much more. Often living in cramped conditions on the ground floor they are the security, building maintenance, delivery service, and general help. Bowabs have intricate networks often hanging outside chatting with each other during downtime and are often in the know about anything and everything that is happening in their neighbourhood.
We arrived on the roof and joined the company of around 20-30 others. Some journalists, a few protesters relaxing from the excitement below and some bewildered tourists and expats, like ourselves.
From the roof you could really see the whole picture. The clear lines of police arranged (I remember counting 8 strong lines) all the way down Qasr El Aini Street. The mass crowds covering every corner of the square. The calm Nile with it’s picturesque sail boats flowing along in the distance.
We watched for a while as the frontline faced off against the police. The chants could be heard as if they were being blasted into our ears through speakers.
The resilience and bravery of the largely unarmed protesters against riot police was astounding. I managed to capture the power of the people in a video below.
The call to prayer started and throughout the day the police had been allowing the protesters to stop and pray out of respect. This time though they disrespectfully used it as a time attack.
Police began shooting tear gas canisters directly at the crowd. They beat and chased people away from Qasr el Aini street back into the main square and then regrouped to form a solid line. This is when the people struck back, shouting ‘Allah Akbah’ (“God is great”). They pushed the police back several blocks past their own water cannons. It was a truly amazing moment.
Essam noted that with the rising aggression from the police, the clear out had begun and all would be done and everyone at home in a few hours. The tear gas eventually rose up 10 storeys and hit us hard. It was time to leave.
That was my first tasted the bitterness and burning sensation of tear gas. My eyes streamed. The pain was calmed only by sniffing onions handed to us by caring residents as we descended the stairs. We also discovered a new use for Coca Cola as soaked rags also helped tame the burning and bring us back into the real world. I have no idea how people stayed on the frontline with this stuff being fired directly at them.
Along with Essam, we slipped away from Midan Tahrir through the back streets. We decided to grab a quick beer in the famous El Horreya bar on Midan Falaki. This is where I had first met Essam through a mutual friend. It seemed appropriate before we parted ways.
Located about a mile East of Midan Tahrir El Horreya is a well know expat haunt. It’s been in that building for around 100 years serving up juices and beers to many a traveler and local. The place is brash because of it’s strip lighting. If you look up you’ll see the ornate plaster work on the ceiling and around the walls vintage (and likely genuine) drinks adverts. Branded throughout with the famous Egyptian Stella beer insignia that is the most common drink of choice, although to be honest there isn’t much more choice in the beer department. The only other choice is Sakarra, also made by Stella’s parent company Heineken! One half of the cafe has large open windows and serves juices, the back half, the busiest part, has big blocked off windows and is hidden from view via a screen. Here you’ll find beer and conversation flowing all hours of the day and night. This cafe / bar, and the others like it, seem to be very unique to Cairo. It wasn’t uncommon to see Muslim men and women, not drinking due to their faith, sharing time and conversations with drinking friends.
It was 22:00 when we finished. Essam couldn’t hold his curiosity and said he wanted to wander back down to the midan and just take another look. We left towards the Tahrir with the belief that the protests would be more or less dispersed and over.
When we arrived back, the numbers were down but the noise louder. Essam lit up. Pessimism left his body like an exorcised ghost. He was beaming from ear to ear, full of excitement, off he ran into the crowd. We then amazingly bumped back into the same friend from earlier. Hurt, but not deterred. He received a phone call and when he hung up, he told us we should definitely leave. The rumour mill had spoken and the police were gearing up to use live ammunition.
Lara and I agreed to go back to Number 1 Liberation Square to watch things unfold away from the eye of the storm.
Mubarak, the bowab, was dealing with a crowd at the elevator, he acknowledged us, extending permission for us to head up via the stairs. So up we went.
At this point there was still around 10-15 people on the roof, some familiar faces from earlier, some new. I got talking to a man with impeccable English, a man named Mahmoud. He didn’t really agree with the protests, but found himself stuck on the roof because he needed to go to his office in a language school he owned which was in the building. He only came to grab his CV for a meeting and intended to be 10 minutes. I can’t help thinking of the line from Kevin Smith’s movie Clerks, “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today”.
The night was drawing on and the protest just kept raging but in essentially in a very peaceful fashion, the overwhelming majority of violence and force was coming from the police side of the barricades. It seemed like every time the police showed more aggression, 1000 more people flooded into the square. Each push by the police sent a wave of phone calls out to friends and families calling for them to re-join, or join for the first time. The people were angry and the veil covering their fear had fallen off.
Then about Midnight, the familiar warning sirens boomed once again. Plain clothed men fell back from the crowd and lined up behind the police. They stood in rows warming up as if ready to fight for the heavyweight boxing title belt.
Many of these men sported a Sadaam Hussein mustache, a leather jacket and an impressive belly. They were the Baltigaya, the thugs, the secret police. Hired by the government to mostly watch over Egyptians in day to day life, they were present in every coffee shop, every town square and anywhere where people may have been capable of deviance against the Regime. Today, they had been in the crowds inciting violent behaviour, throwing things at the police in order to justify any brutality the police threw back, a common Regime trick.
However, this was the last push. Hosni must have waved his arm and made the order. The people have had their fun and they must go home.
A forward sweep of police cleared the square within what seemed like minutes. Any straggling protesters were repeatedly beaten and thrown into meat wagons. Rubber bullets, batons, tear gas and even fast moving vehicles were used directly on the people.
By around 1am the square was completely clear and in came the little bugs.
The square buzzed with little bugs, these bugs were little cleaner vehicles, cleaning up the square as if to polish over the ‘little’ protest and return Cairo to it’s normal self before the dung Beetle rolled the sun up for yet another day. Another day in paradise, another day in Regime imposed obedient paradise.
Then all was quiet.
The silence, utter tiredness and waning adrenalin was hitting us. As the police were still hanging around the edges we thought it best to wait. Being mistaken for a protester and carted off to a Egyptian police station to have a metal bar rammed up our (i’ll let you imagine the rest) was not on any of our agendas.
So we waited for 15-20 minutes and then decided it was time to go home back to our cozy tree lined suburb. Back to Mohammed, our bowab and his smiling little girl who would scream ‘Hello’ at us. Back to our life of Western priced restaurants that would charge us a weeks Egyptian wages for some wine and pasta. Back to the security and first class citizen status enjoyed at that time by each and every Foreigner in the sandy city. We were foreign, so the likelihood was that the police would have let us pass without trouble at this point.
We descended down the stairs with the remaining roof top viewers. I don’t remember how many of us exactly.
We arrived at the fourth floor. Hurried ‘shhhh’ sounds quietened us. A crowd of battered looking men and women were huddled on the stairs under a window. A whispered announcement informed us that Mubarak, the bowab, was dealing with a few policemen at the main door, telling them the building was empty. No protesters hiding on the stairs four floors up, no people on the roof. Lying to the police was a very very brave act in that Egypt.
So we waited again. My survival mechanism was starting to cough off it’s dust and whirl into action. Plans and scenarios were rushing through my head.
Mahmoud, the man who didn’t even want to be there today, spoke. He said it was God’s will that he was there today and we must all head up to his school and hide until it was safe. He could not let the police get a hold of us or the protesters on the stairs. He could not be responsible for what the police would do to them when he had a chance to save them from that fate. It was very likely that us foreigners in the group could have slipped away unharmed but that would have called the bowab out as a liar and opened up the possibility that people were indeed hiding in the building.
So we crept up to the fifth, slowly in silence, and Mahmoud opened up his school for us.
We sat, shattered and whispering. Arabic, Spanish, French and English could be heard amongst the tense group. Some chatted, some tried to sleep, some made tea. The group was varied including young fired-up Egyptians, mothers who wanted a better future for their children, and journalists. For all our different backgrounds and different reasons for ending up huddled and stuck behind school desks, we all shared emotions. The overriding being that we all wanted to go home!
Mubarak, the bowab, knew we were up there and sneaked up to inform us that the police would soon be searching the building, going door-to-door and searching any properties that displayed signs of life.
As we sat frozen for what totaled 4 hours, we could hear the boots of the police clicking up and down the stairs fading in and out. They swept up and down the buildings 10 floors, knocking occasionally. In one room Nuria, an Independent Spanish journalist, sat in front of a glowing screen filing her exclusive story of the day’s events. Her story of our night, stuck in a language school at 1 Liberation Square, was published the next day and can be read here: The 20 Club. This was my first and maybe only ever mention in a Spanish newspaper!
As the morning light started to peak over the horizon, Mubarak, the bowab, came knocking on the door. The police presence had dwindled and a few people were back on the streets for another normal day. He arranged for us to leave two-by-two to avoid attention. We arranged a lift home from a fellow accomplice. Lara left with his friend and 10 minutes later I left with him.
Before we departed, a photograph was arranged and 16 of the 20 participated. It can be seen below. Nuria (the Spanish Journalist) is missing as she took the photo. Her partner Miguel, an amazing photographer (see an article about his pictures in the NYT), is seen top right . I’m the guy in the front row sporting the ‘I really need to sleep’ eyes and blue shirt. Lara has her best ‘badass’ mouth curl in the green behind me. Mahmoud, the man who owned the school, is 2nd from the right, at the back, looking dapper and trimmed in black.
Class of January 25th!
As we left the building, police dressed in full riot gear were fast asleep on the floor lining the back streets, the only real hint at what had happened the night before. The streets were actually cleaner than normal. The bugs had swept in and erased all traces apart from a few smashed windows and trashed chain restaurants!
We met near our new friend’s car. He drove us home and we fell into deep sleep.
Of course, the next day was not just another day in Cairo, another day in Regime run Cairo. The peoples’ spirit had not been swept back under the carpet, even if the surface evidence of the protests had. For the next 17 days, they fought to overthrow the Pharoah. Ultimately after much blood shed, death and pure people persistence (plus a little help from the army), President Hosni Mubarak stepped down.
How I think the revolution changed Egypt and changed me
The overthrowing of Hosni Mubarak was monumental. The self imposed Pharaoh ruled with an increasingly strengthened iron fist for over 30 years as the rich got richer and the poor had to work harder to survive.
Eventually the middle class were dragged into the game of survival. Hosni’s pseudo democracy run by greased palms wasn’t very sensible with it’s people management skills. He brought the uprising on himself.
Sadly, the army had to be a part in his stepping down. Chants of “the people and the army are one hand” and even people getting married on tanks were common after the 18 days, but that dwindled as many felt that the army carried on more or less where the Regime took off.
Some freedoms have come from the tough times and it is apparent that the once banned Muslim Brotherhood is a very popular choice with the majority seeing as the elected a former member as the new President.
Whether we like it or not, as foreigners, we need to respect the majority and allow Egypt to choose it’s democratic future.
However, Egypt and Egyptians have changed. Although many are sick of the revolution and the even harder hardships it has brought, many young faces are still ignited by the glimpse of change they’ve made. I believe through small movements they will keep the fight up and change will improve over time.
I take away so much from my time in Egypt, and particularly this day. I saw and felt the lifting of fear from a repressed mass of people. The realisation that they could help shape their future despite the forces against them. My troubles in life are like a grain of sand compared to all the sand in Egypt’s black and white desert, but I know the same rules apply to me in every situation life throws at me.
People are the same where ever you step. Some good hearted, some twisted with pain and seemingly bad, many not clear cut in their intentions but almost all just want their freedom of expression, freedom to believe what they want and freedom to wake up without a day of hardship ahead. If we can’t connect on anything else, we should be able to connect on that one will.
Everything you believe in is worth fighting for and you can make a difference, often small but sometimes overwhelmingly huge.
Let’s all remember what Egypt did and celebrate that. Let’s wish them well with their future and overcoming problems with the current presidency and hope they continue the fight for genuine change.
- Please do take the time to comment and thank you so much for reading this lengthy post.
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- Was you in Egypt during the uprisings, have you written about it? I would love to read your accounts.
This post was originally published on my site FrugalZeitgeist.com but I felt it was better placed here as it relates largely to travel and the stories it brings.
The post How I Ended Up Back In School On The First Day Of The Egyptian Revolution appeared first on Everyday Nomad.