Eye On Egypt Blog

Election Day in Egypt!!!

Cairo, Egypt
November 28, 2011

They said we should delay elections because with all the demonstrations there was bound to be violence. They said that people would stay away from the polls. They said the Islamists would jam things up and no one else would get to vote. The warnings were just as wrong as wrong can be!!!!
 
I SMSed a simple number, with my name and ID #. Within minutes I got a return message with the address of my voting place, my room number and my number on the voters list. I live in Old Cairo which meant I had to go to a school in Fustat—a lower/lower middleclass neighborhood.

Last night it rained so today its roads were covered in slippery mud. Although it was only one district, it looked like the entire country had turned out. The soldiers guarding the entrances were not only friendly, they were well informed
 
There were several hundred women in line at one of the doors to the large complex of different school. I was the only without a headscarf. (Men voted at one school, women in another and there were more the latter than the former!!)

I looked for trouble—there wasn’t a hint of any. To a person, everyone was solicitous—helping me find the right door, walking me to it, offering me a chair although my particular line was only five women deep!
 
The women were quiet. They were serious. They were proud. And I was one of them.

Amal Sedky Winter, PhD
www.myeyeonegypt.net

PS. The demonstrations against military rule continue—participants taking turns leaving Tahrir Square to vote!!!! Way to go, Egypt!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

 

Egypt's Revolution: SCAF's apologies not enough

November 25^th

Physicians, clerics, high school girls in their school uniforms form cordons to separate the army and police from the protesters.

A friend’s photojournalist husband was at an ad hoc meeting where the unschooled men insisted that  they be on the front lines because while they were "dispensable" the country needed to keep educated people safe to lead Egypt into the future.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) called off the tear-gas and bullets yesterday.  SCAF also apologized for the deaths and injuries (taking implicit responsibility), accepted the current government’s resignation and is shopping around for a new prime-minister.

I doubt that will do it.  

Friday’s noon prayers are winding down. Today’s "millioneya" is gathering in the Square.

Amal Sedky Winter PhD
Cairo Egypt
www.myeyeonegypt.net

 

Egyptian revolution: Now what?

Cairo, Egypt
November 22

100000 people are said to have filled Tahrir Square on “Million Man Day.” Whatever the number, it was a lot.  Eventually Field Marshall Tantawi, speaking for Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) gave a speech that sounded to many like the same one Mubarak gave in his first response to protesters in January.

He said “unforeseen forces” were working behind the people to destabilize the nation and that accusations made about their administration were unacceptable.

Many thought his concessions, just like Mubarak’s, were too little, too late.

But it’s not January anymore and the military, though not swept up with visions of democracy, is not Mubarak.

SCAF has now promised:

o      The 28 November elections for parliament will be held as planned
o      Arrested activists will be held and tried in civilian courts rather than military courts.
o      The resignation of the interim cabinet was accepted.

o      The date for the Presidential election will be rescheduled and held before June, rather than much later in the year as they had earlier announced.To withdraw its proposal that SCAF maintain veto power over a future elected government and have advisory status instead.

 

In his televised speech today, Tantawi did not respond to activists demands for his resignation and the people, unsatisfied, have remained in the Square.

Hold everything for a minute

The question is, what should they ask for?

Suppose Tantawi and all of SCAF resigns, then who runs the country while it gets itself organized into some kind of democracy? Without an answer to those questions, all is gesture.

Or maybe it’s another necessary step.  Even thinking of the resignation of Tantawi and SCAF dramatizes institutional for protestors unaccustomed to thinking about managing their government.

And that forces a look into a deeper question: Are people really changing? Are they genuinely outgrowing the dependency that years of authoritarianism has ground into them?

A New Egyptian?

Are Egyptians changing in some profound way?  Has the lifting of the rockslide of an authoritarian government revealed an underlying progressive spirit?

Not very likely, but something is afoot.

Islamists have lost support.  People of all religious and political shades express a gut dislike of the conservative Salfists.  Support for any kind of over-religiosity is becoming fragmented.

Has their rejection of an authoritarian government forced them to rethink all their cultural systems?

Maybe.  I can say that they have shifted their attention from religion – which used to be the major topic of conversation in this country – to politics.  Maybe this temporary, but it’s a shake-up nonetheless.

Maybe I’m taking too much of a cue from the man who drives me around Cairo.

A year ago he was as close to being a Salafist as he could be without actually becoming one. Believe me, I’ve listened to a lot, a very lot of imans’ intoning of God’s will on my car radio.

Now my driver talks politics.  He’s changed from being a supporter of an Islamic party to an advocate of a liberal one.  If he hears a newscaster say something on the radio that he feels is incorrect, he picks and his cell and calls the guy – or gal – and lets them know about their error.

I still can’t quite believe the change.

 

Amal Sedky Winter PhD
Cairo Egypt
www.myeyeonegypt.net

Egyptian revolution: Now for the real thing.

10:30 pm
Cairo Egypt.

It's a real revolution.

• The square is beyond packed.
•  More experienced political leaders are emerging.
• Specific demands are being articulated, e.g. resignation of Field Marshall Tantawi.
• A million man protest has been called for tomorrow.
•  The civilian cabinet just resigned.
•  Rumors are afoot that younger members of the army are leaking information to protestors on how to protect themselves from a new version of tear gas.
• People are being killed left, right and center.
•   Martyrs accumulate.

What can the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) do?  How do you repress this size and this ignited  of a protest if you're not a Gaddifi or an Assad?  If the United States has provided you the arms that you'd have to do it with?

 

Amal SedkyWinter PhD
www.myeyeonegypt.net

 

Egyptians rise again

20 November, 2010
Cairo Egypt

It’s violent out there.  Much worse than when the people were fighting Mubarak. But then everyone was expecting a bloody bash sooner or later.

The people were so proud of their peaceful removal of Mubarak.  They were proud of having an army they felt they could trust.

They gave the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) the benefit of the doubt. They waited.

 And they got Maspero.

When the military turned on peaceful Coptic protestor, the people lost faith.

SCAF’s done nothing but block movement. The old emergency laws are still in place. Government indignities still punctuate daily life. Most of the old regime guys are still in positions of power; only a few of the most publicly reviled have been prosecuted.

How insulting can you be?

I’m inspired by these protestors.  They don’t want dictatorship, military or otherwise;  They don’t want a Islamist state and they’re standing up for themselves.

Dark maneuvers

 One theory is that Islamists set this protest up.

Maybe the scary, radical islamists cut a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood.  After all, the Brotherhood, while moderate in recent years, has a well-known practice of political opportunism. Together they could agree to incite the protest, thus scaring moderate people away from the polls on November 28  and leaving the islamists to win a majority in parliament. 

In another theory, the military allowed the first day of the revolt to go on without their intervention so they could claim the people weren’t ready to rule. 

In either case, the strategies failed.

The square is now filled with people of every persuasion.  They want Field Marshall Tantawi to resign and immediate transfer of power to the people as well as other things that are unrealistic.

That’s what people want.

Amal Sedky Winter, PhD
Cairo, Egypt
www.myeyeonegypt.net

November 20, 2010