here on the ground  

18 feb 2011

It’s hard to know where to start with a discussion of brutal attack on Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who was beaten and sexually assaulted the night of Feb. 11 in Tahrir Square.  But a few things come to mind.  First, a great percentage of the reaction in the blogosphere has been predictably shameful – early comments along the lines of “she’s hot and blond and likes to go to hot and not-blond places,” and thus probably deserves it in some way, have laid off a little (along with one horrendously offensive man who should have been fired before he had the chance to quit).  But the corollary of these comments went in the direction of “all Muslims are disgusting animals, foul adulteress-floggers, who are trying to impose sharia throughout the Middle East, and while they’re at it, in every Main Street, USA.” Such comments are not limited to websites such as creepingsharia.com (headline: “CBS News’ Lara Logan Brutally Raped by Egyptian Democracy Seekers”) or Now the End Begins: End Time Bible Prophecy, but appear with varying degrees of virulence at well over the 50% mark in the comments section of any article on the subject.  And, yes, when these barbaric, misogynist adulteress-floggers are confronted with a blond lady, who apparently was attacked by a 200+ swarm while being called out as a “Jew” (if you buy what the NY Post is selling as coming from an anonymous “network source”), well, they sure know how to celebrate their twisted backwards version of “democracy….”

We know very little about the actual attack.  Personally, I find it chilling not to know exactly where or when it happened, because I spent much of that evening making my own way through the crowd in the square, doing interviews, meeting friends and soaking up the generally euphoric atmosphere.  But one thing I am sure of: the anti-government protesters did not do this.  Along with the commitment to nonviolent protest, one of the great principles of the Tahrir movement was the full participation of women in actions in the square.  Women worked in the temporary clinics, some even fought at the front lines, they slept in the square, they brought food and water in, they spoke with the press and sent out calls to action via social media and with megaphones.  More than that, the protesters worked aggressively to make the square a safe space for women, to fashion a new Egypt in harmony with their ideals.  There is no way that these protesters were swept away in some frenzy of blonde-lust at their moment of triumph.  And the protesters’ response to the attack on Logan has been overwhelming: via Twitter and interviews, they have condemned the attack.  Of course, part of being a revolutionary is the ability to imagine the world as the world is not – and Tahrir was an artificial (if organically created) microcosm of a new and different society.  Where reality reconverges with uprising remains to be seen, and it has already been observed that women are not among the top ranks of opposition figures.

There are two possibilities here.  The first is that Logan was targeted.  In an an interview with Charlie Rose done on 7 February, before Logan returned to Cairo, she talked about how she and her team had already been detained (in blindfolds) by the army, held for some sixteen hours, and accused of being Israeli spies (at minute 3:50).  It was a disturbing enough experience for them to return to the US. She told Rose she felt like “a failure” for not having been able to complete her job, and said “it’s in my blood to be in the streets talking to people” (minute 14:40).  So she went back.  In an interview with Esquire, she said “Part of me feels like it’s really insane, but the other part of me made a very considered, rational decision with my teammates.”  She also said that the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, DC had been made aware of their plans to return to Cairo in order to work as journalists.  The New York-based nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists reports at least 141 acts of violence, intimidation and detention of journalists during the Egyptian revolution, generally understood to be the same brand of paid thugs who rode into Tahrir on horse- and camel-back to try to break the resolve of people in the square. I’ve gotten word of other attacks on journalists the night of Feb. 11.  And there is the aforementioned report from the NY Post that the mob identified Logan as Jewish while they were attacking her.  This is not inconceivable, especially given the earlier accusation that they were Israeli spies, but it is far from proven either.

However, the main point does not have to do with Muslims, protesters, or blonde foreigners. Egypt has always had a problem with sexual violence against women.  There have been numerous instances of violence against women in times of celebration: during the festival of Eid in 2006, dozens of men and boys attacked women in broad daylight in downtown Cairo, as they were waiting outside a cinema; many injuries were reported, but ultimately none of the offenses were prosecuted, as women are discouraged by authorities and their families from reporting attacks and bringing shame on themselves.  Harassment is also a daily phenomenon, with almost 90% of Egyptian women reporting physical or verbal assault.

On the night of Feb. 11, many people who had nothing to do with the protest movement came out for the celebrations.  Beyond the anti-government protesters who were celebrating their moment of triumph, there were many on the scene who just wanted to be out in a crowd with other people – and among those, there were definitely some who were not thrilled about Mubarak’s departure.  I know this because I spoke to some disgruntled-looking people, who said they weren’t happy and they didn’t want to talk about it.  The volunteer civilian checkpoints which had been in effect from Feb 1 were abandoned or loosely staffed that night – meaning anyone could come in, and could possibly bring weapons in with them.  Among the protesters, young men formed cordons around groups of women to keep them safe from “bad people” who might be out in the crowds.  In fact, they did this so vigorously that I had trouble getting out of one such “lady line” to meet a (male) friend.  I saw it happen that night, as well as on many other occasions, that the appearance of a camera, lights and a reporter would cause a crowd to swarm around, mainly just wanting to talk.  On nights when Mubarak had given one of his disappointing speeches, there was a lot of anger in the crowd, and people wanted the opportunity to speak their minds – such conversations often became heated, and sometimes degenerated into shouting matches.

I think it is most likely that Logan and her team were targeted because of their earlier problems, in which case it is a story of paid thugs trying a last ditch attempt to stifle the story, preserve the old regime, or simply express their frustration at being unable to do so.  Otherwise, it seems they were just caught unawares by the “bad people” that the victorious protesters kept warning me about – that is to say, the reckless elements that come out to play in any society, of any religion, in a volatile situation.  In neither case are those responsible part of the revolutionary movement.  And in either case, we know one thing that we knew already: Egyptian society has a problem with sexual harassment.  It shouldn’t take the experience of a “blonde” or “foreign” or “attractive” reporter to make clear what has been so obvious to Egyptian women for a long time.  This revolutionary moment has a chance now to push strongly forwards with all the work that is already being done on the ground here by people who are striving to make Egypt a safer and more comfortable place for women.  But as long as sexual harassment is so widely practiced and tolerated within Egyptian society, Egyptians themselves are complicit in allowing such hateful and ignorant portrayals of all Muslims to flourish on the Internet and in the minds of people who maintain a willful ignorance, and know only what they choose to know.  I appreciate that there is a certain insensitivity in demanding Egypt punish those responsible for an attack on a foreigner which happens to Egyptian women everyday, as if there is something exceptional to this particular suffering.  But if the assault on Logan is the thing that pushes men and women here keep talking more and more openly about the endemic problem of sexual violence against women in Egypt, and doing more to combat it, well, there is no time like the present.  Otherwise the brief and happy safe space that was occupied Tahrir will remain an exercise in imagining the world as the world is not.

Among the many shops and restaurants that have reopened in the past few days is the infamous Kentucky Fried Chicken at Tahrir.  This was the physical site of a temporary hospital (the “KFC clinic“) which remained busy throughout the occupation of the square.  But it was also the imagined site of largesse distributed to miscreants who insisted on holding Cairo hostage to the demands of the US, Israel, Iran, Hamas, Westerners in general, Western journalists in specific, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and/or also Islamofascists of all stripes…for 50 bucks and a bucket of the Colonel’s finest.

For those of you who missed the story the first time around: before the military takeover, Egyptian state media regularly misrepresented the situation in Tahrir. They ran old footage of the square which showed either only several thousand people, or even empty streets or ones filled with traffic.  Also you could catch laborious hours of Mubarak in negotiations with his new cabinet.  But the strangest misinformation they planted was that the demonstrators were being paid off with cash and a Kentucky meal.  That was the official story coming out of the state media building, which for the past weeks was and remains even now completely encircled by tanks and razor wire and has riflemen stationed in the second-floor windows.  But residents of the square, many of whom had been living there for weeks, had limited direct access to media, and would use their opportunities to consult Al-Jazeera rather than catch up on government mendacity.  So the street version of what was already misinformation became more and more exaggerated, the dollar amount starting at 50 and going up to 100 or 150.  When I was doing interviews, protesters would jokingly call out to me, “hey, where’s my Kentucky?”  “And my hundred and fifty dollars!” someone else would reply. 

Chicken goes both ways though.  Another set of rumors I heard from numerous people was that the Mubarak supporters had been paid 150 EGP (or dollars) and given half a chicken, possibly also an apartment.  Possibly also 1000 EGP to stay the night, or 5000 EGP if they killed a protester.  “But don’t quote me on that last one,” said the person who repeated to me the word of bounty killing.  Everyone is certain they were paid, though confirmation and specific figures are hard to come by.

Western media also have a checkered reputation, and why shouldn’t they. Everyone I talk to in the street asks who I work for (they seem to distrust CNN in particular) and insists that I tell the truth, no more, no less.  I don’t think Glenn Beck, or for that matter Anderson Cooper, are the problem though.  Many distrust the US because of the US government’s support of Israel, which has long been the decisive factor of US policy in the region.  It is this policy, and Mubarak’s willingness to make Egypt a “friendly Arab regime” in partnership with the US and Israel, which is largely responsible for having kept him in power so long.  Some think I am Israeli, and those are the ones who don’t care that I’m from the US.  “America- Israel, same same! brothers!” said one old lady to me one morning.  The guys I was talking to said “no, no, don’t listen to her, she doesn’t understand the difference between an individual and a government.”  And the assumption, in the older generations or the less educated and internet-savvy population at least, is that Western media are as willing to distort the facts to serve their ideological purposes as the Mubarak regime was.

Living in a police state might make it seem that there is actually no such thing as “facts” or “the truth.”  In Syria, Mubarak’s Egypt, Iraq under Saddam, the old German Democratic Republic, even when someone speaks to you with apparent frankness, there is always the suspicion that they are trying to get information from you, or trying to disseminate misinformation on purpose – because so often that is the case.  People feign sympathy for your cause in order to get you to say something nasty about the president/ king/ dictator, or they inform on their neighbors to prevent secret police scrutiny of their own actions, or just for the baksheesh.  So a habit of thought can develop where there is only information-with-a-purpose, and never an honest statement, subject to some kind of empirical test.

I adopted these habits of thought myself to an extent: one day last week a few men came up to me on the square, asked if I was a journalist, I said yes.  They explained that they were private citizens trying to get Western journalists to go on the record saying that they were not paying protesters to stay and demonstrate (that is, to refute the misinformation given by the state television station), but that everyone they had approached had suspected them of being police and so hadn’t given a photo or contact info.  “Why are they so worried?  we are just normal people, we want to tell the truth, but everyone is suspicious of us,” one of them said to me.  “Well, of course they’re suspicious,” I said.  “They’re getting beaten up and detained and their equipment broken, and you have our information but we don’t have yours.”  They showed me their identification cards (Egyptian cards list profession, which is why civilians were checking them at the borders of occupied Tahrir).  My Arabic isn’t great, but I know how to spell shurta “police.”  The one who said he was a pharmacist was indeed a pharmacist.  In the end I decided not to be the exception to the rule of no journalists giving their information to these guys, but who knows?  Maybe they were just private citizens trying to tell their countrymen the truth.  We may never know.

Within the academy we challenge the apparent simplicity of facts or objectivity all the time; no matter how truthful any statement is, it is always marshaled by someone, for something, in order to serve a particular purpose.  But in this case I’m not talking about monolithic ideas about the “Arab world” or how Western scientific method negates and obstructs voices which don’t fall into pre-existing categories….I’m talking about, for example, “I saw that guy throw a rock at the other guy’s head,”  I’m talking about “I saw an anti-government protester with a bullet hole in his hand from the alleged Mubarak supporters who were in fact police” (civilians in Egypt don’t have firearms).  Today, I am talking about the many Egyptian workers who have been protesting for better wages and better working conditions for the past two days.  There is a difference between these kinds of truth. Participatory politics require citizens to make choices based on information which can be held up to some kind of standard, and found to be true or false.  And for that to happen, truth has to be an actual possibility, not an empty or arbitrary category.

There are encouraging signs of reform within Egyptian state media, which continues to be the main source of information for many here.  After one prominent anchorwoman quit NileSat last week because she couldn’t disseminate “propaganda” anymore, others have followed suit, staging their own protests for better wages and demanding the resignation of some editors.  No time like the present – they are barely within the margin of error for being on the wrong side of history (arguably they are already well beyond it).  They have joined the wave of post-Mubarak protests by professional and vocational groups – bank workers, police, employees in tourism and transport, textile workers, etc. – that continue today.

I am heartened by the persistence and spread of the protests, less so by the army calling for an end to the strikes.  Of course, the army is right – strikes now are not going to help the already disastrous state of the Egyptian economy after 3 weeks of turmoil.  But it doesn’t look as if the pent-up rage of the people can be suppressed by force again.  If the people want to talk now, let them talk.  The Tahrir movement, while talking about economy frequently, focused more on dignity and personal freedom.  Now that people are stepping up whose main complaint is wages, especially the income disparity between common workers and their bosses, we see who comes over the barricades after the vanguard.  A serious dialogue with an information flow going in both directions – the process of establishing the possibility of “facts,” perhaps – is no doubt the first step towards realizing the ideal that government should reflect the will of the people.

If the new regime satisfies even some of the people’s demands, perhaps the bucket of KFC will start representing less than an average day’s (or week’s) wage for many Egyptians.  And it won’t be able to serve as a symbol of something that a citizen would believe others would actually endanger themselves to get a taste of.

13 feb 2011

The army is throwing bread to the masses today, and in return they get their own circus.

They cleared the tents from Tahrir this morning from about 8-11am, without too much resistance for the most part.  By noon, nearly every trace of tent city was gone, and cleanup was carried out by a combination of demonstrator-volunteers and the actual uniformed Cairene trash collectors – visible here for the first time in 18 days.  Cars stop and go around the traffic circle in Tahrir, blaring their horns in a continuous stream.  During the day, there was a celebratory crew of about one or two thousand protesters, ringed by a cordon of red-hatted military police.  By 8pm the crowd has swelled again – maybe 5 or 10 thousand, though numbers aren’t my strong suit – truly a lot in any case – and cars pass more slowly.  There’s been a steady stream of firecrackers all evening until the curfew starts at midnight, when the army tells people to leave and they actually just leave and go home. 

Many of the protesters sleeping in the square had already departed upon the military takeover, because their main goal was that Mubarak leave.  But the others wanted the system itself to change, not just see the head lopped off.  Yesterday saw a number of confrontations between those two groups.  The ones intent on staying said they wanted Parliament and the Shura Council dissolved, as well as justice for the martyrs of the revolution.  So guess what, the army gave it to them (at least the parts that were easy to do), and also suspended the constitution.  In return they get crowds cheering all day and into the night “the army! the army!  the people and the army together!”  Something about this situation makes me nervous.  Probably it is the fact that, technically speaking, this is a military coup: the army is now the sole authority and, with the police still off the streets, the sole peace-keeper.  They plan to hold power for 6 months, or until it is possible to hold free and fair elections, and they have not said anything about integrating an interim civil authority.  This is a military takeover by one of the largest standing armies in the world, and they are not trained to govern, even provisionally.

In a surprising turn of events, policemen, viewed by many as part and parcel of the old regime, began their own protests today.  This afternoon, about a thousand police guards chanted in front of the Ministry of the Interior while tanks protected the building.  Police guards are low-ranking members of the police force who, in contrast to the officers, did not attend the police academy.  While police officers did protest as well in Dokki and other places in Cairo, the crew at the Ministry of the Interior was composed solely of guards and many of their demands had to do with their inferior status within police ranks.  They want higher salaries, health care, pensions, and a representative to the High Council of Police (now composed only of officers), among other things.  A soldier in one of the tanks stood and announced that salaries would be raised.  Though he gave no details, the statement was met with a great cheer.  This promise doesn’t quell the anger of the crowd though: many of these guards make only 500EGP (100 USD) a month and have to work a second job just to have enough food to eat.  Also, they feel they have been set up as scapegoats for the deaths on Jan 28: they claim officers gave them orders to shoot and then stepped off the scene.  Those who refused the orders to shoot were fired.

These policemen are riding a wave of protest energy from Tahrir and now feel justified in stating their grievances.  They’ve adapted some of the slogans from the Tahrir movement: “the people and the army together” becomes “the people, the army and the police together.”  Signs are being scrawled with ballpoint pens and markers by the moment.  I started talking to people at the edges of the crowd and soon a man came up to me speaking so fast and with such heat it took me a minute to get my bearings.  “These people are not officers! They’re guards! with small salary! no health care! they have to work two jobs just to survive!  They are humiliated by the last weeks, they have no safety!  People attack them in the streets!  I’m speaking to you for them because they can’t speak English, they need someone to speak for them!”  Sure enough, they all start shouting at once.  One man with tear stains on his cheek explains that his heart was with the people in the violent police crackdown on the 28th of January, but couldn’t disobey because he would have lost his job.  Before I can ask what orders exactly he wanted to disobey, someone else jumps in with a draft of their demands.  Others point and shake their heads in disagreement, and continue the heated argument until Zidane, their self-appointed spokesman, takes out a blank sheet of paper and starts taking dictation furiously from the dozen men standing around.  Maybe it is just this simple – people see how something is possible, for example, presenting a list of grievances and getting some satisfaction, and they start doing it.

So perhaps I am just being cynical with my distrust of the army.  Walking from the Ministry back to Tahrir, I saw soldiers riding in a plain blue Jeep, one of them sitting on the roof making an announcement with a bullhorn: they just wanted to thank the demonstrators for doing such a great job cleaning up.  This too meets with loud cheers and handshakes from the young people.  It continues to be peace and love all around between the army and the people.  Something has certainly changed in Egypt in the last days: the peaceful insistence of the protesters has set an example for how people can construct their demands for the future government, and they have sent the message that they won’t tolerate dictatorship and corruption in the future.  In itself this is a revolution in the culture and in the political discourse.  But in the meantime, the army is the only formal government in the country, and it is also the institution here which demonstrates the most continuity over the last sixty years.  So I am still not sure exactly what we should call this change: but it is not a political revolution yet.

So…for the third time, Mubarak has acknowledged that something is deeply wrong in Egypt, but has refused to step down.  He has transferred certain powers to Vice President Suleiman, but remains the head of state. The NYT and The Guardian published reports today that the army was in a position to take over, but they certainly have not as yet.  Apparently Mubarak taped the speech beforehand: the editing shows a gap at some point, which I’m told is visible if you’re not watching it projected on a handmade screen at Tahrir which is basically giant sheets of plastic taped together and strung up between lampposts.  And the rumor is that he is currently in Paris, or Dubai, having turned away from what many view as a very reasonable option: pleading health concerns, stepping down and fleeing to Germany.  Twice in the speech he said he refuses to endure foreign interference, which I suppose means the Obama administration has been trying to do something.

Tomorrow is Friday, and of course the protests will swell after the afternoon prayers as they have in the past.  There is word that a march on the Presidential Palace is in the works…as an Egyptian-Canadian I spoke to this evening says, “that will be a bloodbath.  Within 100 meters, those guys just shoot.”  I was next to the medic station at the conclusion to the speech and watched thousands of shoes shaking furiously in the air.  “Son of a bitch!” someone called out.  Tahrir was more packed than I have ever seen it and the people are angry, pissed off now for the third time.

Again, I am concerned about the role of the army in this situation.  They have managed to become heroes to the people by refusing to fire on them (“the people and the army hand in hand”) and this puts them in a good position to take over and present it as a popular revolution.  They are playing their cards perfectly right now by doing absolutely nothing.

last minute addendum – as of 3:20am, there are about 2000 people outside the Presidential Palace, with the guard under orders to shoot at 100m.  I am on tenterhooks but too exhausted to wait up for something to happen.  See you tomorrow.