Quickly making my way to campus to sign some paperwork related to student internships. The Manshiyyah protest had come together after all and had made its way to the head of Port Said St. in front of the Bibliotheca. I join. It was now 5:00 pm. Still warm and light, no Alexandrian rain that day. Even when it did rain in the coming days, it was always a gentle drizzle, one that we found comforting, an excuse to be quiet for a while. The chants had already changed “The people want to bring down the regime”
Which people? There were so many peoples. Peoples who would change, align and realign. A constant state of flux. Peoples who two and a half years later, cheered or stood silent as the military came to power, as over a thousand people were killed in a few hours, seeing them as the other. As another people.
If I had written this then, I would have written about the…
(To be read out loud like a performance)
Rumble of the ground beneath our feet. Echoes of our collective being, our voices that bounced off each other, off the walls, amplified, intensified, floating, only to return unto us in intoxicating mouthfuls, savouring their flavor. Unbridled sense of joy at the realization that we were not dead. We were not dead. Leapfrogging through hurdles, years of mistrust. You can smile randomly at that man down the row. He will not harass you. Not today. That elusive moment that we are now forever doomed to chase, to try to recapture. Like the centaur, the unicorn, the phoenix.
But I cannot write that now. How can I?
News had reached us that the protest that I had left earlier, had regrouped, made its way finally through the barricades and was now heading towards us. Both protests joined would be U n s t o p p a b l e. Stopped they had to be.
One of my non-Egyptian students suddenly was walking next to me, camera in hand, taking shots, smiling. Hugging, I urge her to go. Go. Go. A few minutes earlier, we realized. What was happening. A row of high ranking police men, most of them in their official uniforms, shiny stars and eagles on their shoulders were behind us. Walking. Trudging. Grudgingly. Police cars and trucks behind them, slowly edging their way. In front of us, at the end of Port Said St, in front of the Jesuit Cultural Centre, row upon row of the lowest ranking security personnel were standing [1]. Black harsh uniforms. No shiny stars and eagles on their shoulders. Used to standing for hours in the scorching sun. Used to following orders. Used to beating people up. A Pincer. They made sure we saw. To scare us. We could still leave if we wanted, via the side streets. Don’t remember seeing anybody who did.
Dusk. We link arms. Need to get past those black rows ahead. Don’t break the line. Hold it. No matter what. No matter what. “If we step backwards, push us, don’t yield” we are told. We push. And push. Batons come down. Gunshots are heard. Panic. Human smell of fear. Everyone yields. Running. Running. Thinking
Please don’t let me fall and be trampled on. Please don’t let me fall and be trampled on.[2]
We all were afraid of something. One thing. Many things.
Scattering left and right. Running into allies. Standing in doorways. I am standing in a doorway in a side street. Turns out it’s a dead end street. Two girls standing next to me. One crying, shivering. Only eighteen. Shshhhh. Look her straight in the eyes, and make half a dozen promises that I don’t know that I can keep. But I make them anyway. We all hold hands quietly. Looking across the other side, another small group, in another doorway. We wait. And wait. They wait. Not going to go away. Want to teach us a lesson. We could wait here all night, wouldn’t make a difference. We look at each other, across, nod our heads, decide we will come out. All together. Line us up against a wall. Raise their batons. Arms and hands raised and crossed to cover head and face. One knee raised across to protect whatever can be protected. Instinct. We brace ourselves. Sobbing is heard. Sounds of feet running, running, shouting. Abracadabra. Men standing in front of us, telling us to crouch. They take the blows. Shouting “You don’t get to beat the girls”[3]. Don’t know who they are, never got to know their names, don’t remember their faces. It was dark. For whatever reason, and in whatever name they did that for, we are grateful. Grateful.
The shiny stars and eagles come now. Make us walk single file. Tell us to get lost, go home. Jeer at us “Hope you are happy with yourselves now, we’ll see if you will ever protest again.”[4] Can’t help giving him a look. Never gave it before. Have never given it since. A look that resounded with years of reading about beatings, forced disappearances, deaths, sodomization of people in the stations, corruption, and abuse of power that they had carried out. A hushed whisper behind me “Look ahead, please for my sake don’t look at them”.
We walk away, away. Some stay not too far off, listening to the shots. Thinking if things calm down, we can regroup. Traces of tear gas seen. Getting late. Nearly 10 pm. A phone call from home.
Ring the bell, walk through the door, tell them “I am famished”. Ask casually if anything was mentioned in the media about Alexandria. Not really. General mention in al Jazeera of protests. No footage. No mention of guns and teargas. Sigh of relief. Will spare them the details.
[1] عساكر الأمن المركزي
[2] On a personal level, more than any other form of violence at that point, I was most afraid of that. Not that I glorified at all being a victim of any other form of violence like being beaten or shot, but for some strange inexplicable reason I felt that being trampled on entailed a certain loss of dignity, a certain denigration of one’s humanity.
[3] “البنات ماتضربش فاهمين”
[4] “اتظاهرتِ يا ماما أنتِ وهي؟،فرحانين بنفسكوا أوي مش كدة؟ عشان تبقوا تتظاهروا تاني، يلا يلا”
People of the World Unite 