Normalcy's Floats: They're cruising the Nile again, but Cairo isn;t quite the safe city it once was. (John Moore/Getty Images)
We haven't paid much attention to Egypt lately, not since the culmination of that country's revolution in the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in mid-February. In the Middle East these days one has to do attention triage. Too much is going on to let focus linger anywhere too long before a flare-up somewhere else commands attention--or despair or hope or disbelief.
In Syria this weekend (on Friday and Saturday) Bashar el Assad's thuggish forces opened fire on protesters in several cities. Some 37 people were murdered on Friday alone, making it
Syria's bloodiest day since protests there broke out in late February. The next day Syrian forces opened fire on funeral marchers, killing some of those as well. The same day, the editor of a Syrian newspaper, Tishrin, which is state run, was fired when she gave an interview to al-Jazeera and blamed government forces for the killings.
In Libya, forces loyal to Muammar el Qaddafi have pushed rebels back to the gates of Ajdabiya, not far from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Hundreds of people have reportedly demonstrated in two Shiite towns of eastern Saudi Arabia (in Qatif and in al-Awamiya), where the Saudi King's $91 billion bribe, offered last month to shut protesters down, may be wearing out already. There's only so many bribes the Saudi king will be able to float before Saudis tire of the ploy.
In Yemen, Friday yielded another day of rage with competing demonstrations for and against the rule of Yemeni tyrant Ali Abdullah Saleh.
And in Egypt?
Let Catherine Manfre fill us in. Manfre has been living iN cairo for several years. She wrote a piece for Middle East Issues some time back--a piece that continues to be quite popular with readers--on Egyptian jokes and humor. She was able to leave the country for a few weeks during the worst of the demonstrations. She has just returned. Writing today, she described new subtleties about life in Cairo. It's not quite what it was:
My initial reaction to being back - after being in Dubai during much of the "revolution" and then being home in the US - was that nothing had changed. The road back from the airport hadn't changed, people still hassled at the airport for a taxi, all the familiar landmarks that make Cairo home were still there, and even Tahrir Square was almost completely back in order.
The only major change was the near complete removal of the Mubarak posters and images that used to pepper the city. My personal favorite, was the larger than life-size picture of Mubarak (taken most likely 30 years ago) in a pair of aviator sunglasses on the side of the Ministry of Social Solidarity on Qasr Al-Aini. No more.
This is why it has been hard for me to realize that Egypt is in flux. Cairo is no longer the safe city it once was, with numerous reports of petty theft and heated arguments between police and civilians. It's necessary to be much more cautious.
Then Friday we had heard there was going to be a big protest. I think many people brushed it off initially. However, by the next morning we heard that the military had used force/violence to try and break up the protest. On Saturday, April 9, more people came to Tahrir Square to renew their call to prosecute Mubarak and his family and for the military council governing the country to act more swiftly.
Today, Tahrir Square was again closed to traffic, upending traffic patterns in the city.
I think that there is a high possibility right now that things may get bad again - and by bad I mean not being able to leave the house for fear of safety. Right now it's just a matter of avoiding a specific area and I of course hope that the movement will find a way to continue peacefully and that the army once again shows restraint.
There are many different opinions in Egypt right now (which will wait for another blog post) but one thing is for sure - the revolution was not just about ousting former President Hosni Mubarak. The revolution in many Egyptians minds' is about overturning an entire way of life, one that revolved around corruption and extortion.
I hope that Egyptians can continue struggling onwards until they have created the country that they want and will be able to create a future for themselves and their families. This passed weekend has proven, that this is a revolution unending.
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