"Egyptians are rarely in a hurry, but they should get busy now."

I'm feeling especially historical today (let's study!), hence the following post's plethora of links (the only thing better than footnotes!).

Wall near Tahrir.  The Arabic literally says "live the revolution."

Yesterday an article by long-time resident of Egypt and British* American correspondent, Maria Golia, was published in what is quickly becoming my favorite english-language news source about Egypt, called "Responsibility in post-revolution Egypt." I wanted to talk about it here because the article strikes me as such a dead-on analysis of what needs to happen in Egypt. It's an apt analysis of Egyptian affairs on the macro-level--something we all know I love writing about, but which I am sometimes hesitant to do as an amateur observer--so I felt like I found in this piece both a confirmation and an elaboration on a lot of things I have been thinking about post-revolution Egypt.

*(Note: I originally misread Ms. Golia's bio on Al-Masry Al Youm to mean she was British.  I have since been informed, she is in fact American.)

The article's thesis might be summed up in the author's remark about an oft-heard motivational saying repeated throughout the revolution:

"The popular slogan ‘raise your head, you are Egyptian’ sums it up, but only works if it’s examined and expressed not just in Friday demos but every interaction."  

The phrase, "raise your head, you are Egyptian" not only invoked Egyptians' sense of tarnished pride in their national heritage, but, more importantly, it does so inclusively.  "Egyptians" were all those people whose heads had been held down by the oppression, complacency and nihilism of the Mubarak era.  Muslims and Christians, aetheists and agnostics, extremists and moderates--all had suffered under his rule.  It was in that unity that the revolution ultimately succeeded.  In short, it is this inclusivity--or really the lack of exclusivity--that is the responsibility that Golia is calling for in the article's title, and it is this above all that resonates with my own beliefs and observations about Egypt.

The demonstration last Friday.

My unmistakable affection for this country has long been tempered by the contradiction in the ways Egyptians treat those around them.  There was always a huge divide in how they treated those around them and those unfamiliar to them.  Egyptians are incredibly warm and unbelievably generous with those they are close to, and the thing that many foreigners are completely unprepared for is how quickly and easily one can achieve that closeness with Egyptians.  In shops for instance, with only the slightest of conversational overtures, I have time and time again gone from being just another target for swindling to favored customer being shown great respect as I sip tea and engage in conversation about heavy political and religious topics.  Similarly, the first times I meet Egyptians there is often just the slightest air of disdain detectable in their demeanor towards me, not because of some prejudice or anti-Americanism, but because quite a few of the American tourists most Egyptians meet are, frankly, uninformed, to say the least.  I'm no expert on all things Egyptian certainly, but I'm working on it, and after a short conversation or a second meeting, that wall quickly drops as they see that I am not just another condescending tourist passing through what I see as a faded civilization.  But Egyptians do not just treat tourists and foreigners with this default sort of disdain and distrust, so too with their fellow Egyptians at times.

Indeed, I recently read another story by an Egyptian whose friend in the Egyptian army claimed neither he nor his fellow soldiers could allow themselves to have political opinions.  The soldier explained this by saying, essentially, "if I am a member of the Wafd party, and the soldier next to me is a National Democrat, how can I trust him to guard my side?"  Now, as I've said before, ideally, I'm one who believes that we ought to be able empathize with and trust our fellow human beings simply for their being our fellow human beings blah blah blah.  In practice, I certainly have not always succeeded in that, so I can easily understand how that might not be the case here either.  But just as the author lamented, one can't help but read that anecdote and wonder how a society could be so divided by its beliefs that its citizens could not overcome their differences to protect their countrymen's lives in battle.  It is just one story, but it is indicative of some, if not all Egyptians' feelings.

Nationalism can so often be an artificial and dangerous motivation, but there is something undeniably valuable about sharing a cultural milieu that brings people of the same country together. (I know from experience, being able to make jokes about Glenn Beck or hyphy ghost-riding the whip can be a relief when living abroad.)  But for as much as Egyptians pride their country's history and culture, there are differences that still seem insurmountable to them.*  Indeed it was this default distrust that led some now repentant baltageyeen (Mubarak's paid thugs, in this case of the word's use--see this for a great article on how this title really refers to some undefined group that have become the go-to scapegoats for anything in Egyptian politics) to actively fight against the revolution.  Instead of trying to understand what was happening in Tahrir, they assumed the demonstrators were just lawless trouble-makers.

*(For the record, I am not trying to argue that America, on the whole, is actually much better.)

Part of what made the Egyptian Revolution such an amazing event in human history was how it brought this stratified country together.  Such overwhelming national unity is so rare to see anywhere in the world, and it was all the more powerful for this country's size and influence.  But the recent months in Egypt have seriously challenged the inclusive, universalizing spirit of "raise your head up, you are Egyptian."

The Libyan flag flying in Tahrir last Friday. Plenty of Syrian,
Yemeni, Saudi, Palestinian and, of course, Egyptian flags
were seen all over the square that day.

Different groups are now coming forward every day it seems (this site is trying to keep track of them), stepping into the political void trying, indistinguishably, to either jockey for power or be compensated for past wrongs.  The country has been rocked by supposedly Salafist (slash baltagee, of course) attacks on Coptic churches who have supposedly been preventing their followers, on pain of death, from converting to Islam.  At the same time Copts have been protesting almost non-stop against what they see as the government's continuation of a policy of willful ignorance of Muslim persecution of their minority group.  Both religious groups have put forth political parties of a sort to compete in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.  Distrust seems on the rise with some.

At the same time, there is growing tension between the military (which produced Mubarak's regime in the first place) and the people.  The cries of "the army and the people, one hand" now erupt more hesitantly, with less certainty.

This huge sign translates "The people want the opening of
the Rafah crossing, permanently and completely" referring
to Egypt's border crossing with Gaza that has been closed
for much of its 32-year history.

What's more, the cries for solidarity with the region's other revolutions in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen, mixed with Egyptians' long pent up urge to support Palestinians more substantively have also led to greater divisions among Egyptians.  Just last Friday I went to Tahrir for Nakba Day protests which had ostensibly been scheduled to celebrate Egyptian unity, but which I saw turn into a disturbingly violent-leaning anti-Israel rally. There were more pro-Egypt and pro-Arab revolution chants than anything else to be sure (like the ones I tweeted), but interspersed with many of them were chants like "defeat Israel," "we will never recognize Israel," and using the exact same phrasing as the recent anti-Mubarak chants, "down with Israel."*  Certainly, this should not be taken as a sign that Egypt wants to attack Israel, nor that most Egyptians would even support violence toward it, but the very fact that they are divided on this is just the point.  Some would, and some wouldn't.  Egyptians are bleeding outside the Israeli embassy when their own revolution is still unfinished.

*I don't want Israel to be the focal point of this post, but I feel like I should say, for clarity's sake, that I am by some people's definition,"anti-Israel" in that I do not support almost any of Israel's policies.  BUT, regardless of Israel's continued atrocities perpetrated against Palestinians on top of what I find to be a really horrendous, disturbing history of Israel's founding that leaves the Jewish state completely in the wrong, I do not support the abolition of the country by violent or even peaceful means.  It is established there now, for better or for worse, and Israeli sons should not be made to pay for the sins of their fathers.  Or, put simply, two wrongs do not make a right.  I just think Israel needs to change just about all of its policies, especially towards Palestinians, and that if it does not, that there should be greater consequences than it has been made to face so far.  Phew.  Ok.  There's that.  Back to Egypt now.

By letting old sectarian differences and foreign policy disagreements linger, Egyptians are giving an opening to forces they may not like to be led by any more than Mubarak.  It is in light of this worry about Egypt's fractious state leaving the country open to something worse that I titled this post with another quote from Golia's piece.  Egyptians need to hurry up and get together again.  Specifically, it's the Egyptians who believe in the need for civil discourse and who would eschew their old differences that need to kick their efforts into high gear.  Not because the Muslim Brotherhood are going to sneak into office and install all of Hamas' most violent members, but even worse: because Egyptians may find that the new leadership is really more or less the same as Mubarak.  It has to start in the everyday interactions, creating a new default where Egyptians treat all of their compatriots in the beginning as generously as they treat those close to them.  This started with the Revolution, and it's from there that Egypt has the chance to set a whole new revolutionary paradigm.  Then Egyptians can go back to not hurrying.