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!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

 

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

Depressed in Egypt: the Coptic demonstration.

Everyone, from cab drivers and street sweepers to doctors and professors is depressed about the disastrous demonstration by the Copts on October 9th in which mostly Christian civilians were shot. The violence against both sides was caused by "unknown forces" still unknown to this day which doesn't say much about military intelligence.

One friend, a Muslim supporting the Coptic demonstration got roughed up. She said trained snipers fired on people from the roofs of buildings. A well-known leader/activist was killed.

Doesn't sound random to me.

Some Christians reactions to the military are surprising. Of course, they are officially and rightfully indignant but privately I have heard some criticize the demonstrators for massing at time of such political tension.

The country is becoming chaotic. Everyone is on strike and there really isn't money to meet their demands for a living wage. The police, many of whom are still in hiding and certainly not back on the streets, are now demonstrating against the minister of interior, el-Essawi, demanding he cleanse the ministry of the previous minister, Habib el Adly, a Mubarak loyalist.

Still, 73% of the population still supports the army. I guess when you haven't any other choice you back the one you have. As one friend said, "The relationship between the Egyptian people and the Army is like a wife and her husband. She knows he's unfaithful but she stays because of the children."

I'm afraid that sums it up.

Amal Sedky Winter, PhD