Sonia Farid

On October 6 of every year and for the past four decades, we would be bombarded with a series of patriotic films—the same ones every time—to commemorate the 1973 war in which the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal, restored the Sinai Peninsula, and defeated Israel. In those films, there is usually a love story and the protagonist—a soldier of course—is thought dead then suddenly comes back victorious and is united with his beloved in a “touching” scene that combines passionate longing with nationalistic zeal. Each of those movies would feature this protagonist and his comrades—usually his closest friend dies in his arms to show that war exacts a dear price even if it ends up in victory—crossing the canal in inflatable boats, pulling down the Bar Lev Line with water cannons, and finally raising the Egyptian flag on the usurped land. In the meantime, the lover/fiancée/wife would be glued to a radio that transmits blurred reports from the front and crying and praying and all the works. She might also volunteer to tend to the wounded in the hope of finding her man among them or meeting any of his friends—sometimes one of them would also be in love with her. Have you seen Pearl Harbor? Well, it’s more or less the same thing except that no one beats Ben Affleck’s ability to show no emotion whatsoever even if he is shot at, forced into the trenches, and captured by the formidable Samurai.

To cut a long story short, this was the only channel through which the Egyptian people had any contact—if it may be called so—with the army. It is true that the 1952 Revolution, which toppled the monarchy and established the Arab Republic of Egypt—which is what we are till now—was led by the Free Officers, which made it a military coup rather than a popular uprising, and all four presidents who had ruled ever since came from the army, yet Egypt did not really qualify as a military dictatorship. The despotic regime in Egypt was in no way similar to those of Latin America for example, where a military junta is the de facto ruler of the country and where it was the army that exercised absolute political control on both the domestic and the international levels. Since 1952, Egypt had had military rulers who made sure their authority was derived from their own individual power and not from their affiliation to the Armed Forces, most likely out of a sheer egoistic desire to have their star shine outside any collective entity that might overshadow their desire to remain the one and only symbol of the nation. If we have to give it a name, I would agree with analysts who regarded the system of government in Egypt as a personality cult dictatorship rather than a military rule.

Egyptians, therefore, never had the chance to have a proper interaction with the army and the only source of authority they dealt with on daily basis was the police, which in fact played the role of the junta as far as abuse of power, human rights violations, and suppression of personal freedoms are concerned. January 28, 2011, also called Friday of Fury, featured both the climax and the denouement of the decades-long saga of unmitigated brutality and ruthless repression, for whereas in the morning of that day, all police forces were mobilized like never before to crush the protests at any cost, by sunset not one single policeman was to be seen anywhere across the country. Yet, Egyptians were by no means able to celebrate the vanishing of one of their staunchest enemies because they were starting to realize that they were being “punished” for their “misconduct” and because at the time when cops were taking off their uniforms and heading back home for an “open vacation” as they were told by their superiors, prison cells were flung wide open one after the other and their inmates were given free rein in an abrupt shift from a Police State to a police-less combat zone.

It was then that the army made an appearance and it was also then that Egyptians started to feel they were not totally abandoned. Hence, the emotionally-charged reception of the soldiers who, being suddenly ejected from their barracks to a battlefield that does not in any way resemble the ones they are familiar with, were as baffled as the civilians, who without warning found themselves in the custody of the seemingly untouchable Herculeses they had only seen on screen and who came to rescue them from what appeared to be an inescapable Armageddon. That is why what would generally appear as a frightening spectacle, the country turning into a barrack, was a welcome relief and, believe it or not, a source of entertainment. For what I assume is unprecedented in history, people started mounting tanks and taking pictures with the soldiers and children seemed to confuse armored vehicles with Ferris wheels and donkey carts. Taking it for granted that the army is totally supporting them—therefore, overlooking the fact that the president is also head of the Armed Forces—protestors even felt free to write “Down with Mubarak” on those very same tanks and armored vehicles. And guess what? None of the soldiers intervened to stop this from happening. Chanting slogans that emphasized that the army and the people are “one” and “stand hand in hand” and so on not only revealed the people’s feeling towards their new saviors, but also served as an invitation for the army to quit its so-called “neutrality” and join the ranks of the revolutionaries. When this happened, the Armed Forces became the one and only national icon, in real life this time.

However, a blind date is a blind date and mishaps do happen, for the long time single man is not savvy enough to deal with women and the relationship-weary woman has learned that every man is guilty until proven innocent. Despite the patriotism for which it was hailed when it chose to side with the revolution and aid in the toppling of the regime and despite the magnanimity its marshals displayed when they refused to fire at the peaceful protestors, the army has in many occasions been accused of several offences—complicity with the former regime, violent repression of post-revolution protests, and laxity in penalizing subversive groups being the most prominent examples.

Questioning the army’s loyalty to the people goes back to February 2, the day the bloody confrontations known as “The battle of the Camel” took place in Tahrir Square between the revolutionaries and mercenary thugs of the then-incumbent regime. On that day, the army was accused of its inability to protect the protestors—tanks tightly surrounded the square and it was literally impossible for men armed with knives, whips, and Molotov cocktails to enter on board camels and horses unless the army had made way for them—and of still pledging allegiance to Mubarak’s regime despite “pretending” to side with the people’s demand to topple it. This incident also gave rise to countless apprehensions as the striking revolutionaries wondered if they would one day be the victims of another Tiananmen Square.

Nothing less than the actual toppling of the regime, which took place nine days after the notorious battle, would have quelled the fears of Egyptian youths and it actually did. As the Higher Council of Armed Forces took over and amid talk that it was the army that “forced” Mubarak to resign, another honeymoon started and prospects of a love story were starting to emerge for the newly acquainted couple.

Had relationships been that easy, the words “break up” and “divorce” would not have entered our dictionary. While for a long time the “hand in hand” chants resonated across the country and another glory was added to the army’s honorable record, things started to look bleak again shortly afterwards. While complicity with the regime was no longer a valid accusation, suspicion over the possibility of a deal struck between the army and the Mubaraks started undermining the restored confidence as the progenitors of the revolution demanded a justification for not bringing the former ruling family to justice at the time when dozens of senior officials were being detained pending trial. Even though the arrest of the two sons contributed to clearing the skies a little bit, keeping Mubarak in a hospital for health reasons and releasing his wife after pledging to waive her wealth to the state raised more questions about some kind of immunity granted to the couple prior to the president’s resignation. The announcement in an independent newspaper that Mubarak intends to apologize to the people in return for amnesty added fuel to the fire, and the army was accused of playing games with the people to gauge their reactions and prepare them for the “forgiveness” scenario. The fact that the military council later dismissed the story as groundless did not pacify the public who believed that its members only did so after seeing the furious reaction with which they news was met.

The eruption of sectarian clashes in several parts of Egypt served to further discredit the army, which was forcefully reprimanded by Copts and Muslims alike for its inability to clampdown on those responsible for burning churches and attacking Christians. Activists belonging to both faiths believe that the army is being too soft on Salafi groups, the main suspects in the latest turmoil, not only for not arresting those of them involved in igniting the strife, but also for sending Salafi clerics to places where these incidents took place in order to “pacify” both parties. The contrast between what is seen as “incompetent” or almost “nonexistent” intervention in the Muslim-Christian clashes while they were taking place on one hand and the violent repression of protests staged in front of the Israeli embassy in commemoration of the Nakba on the other triggered strong statements about the army being selective as to when and where it should pull the iron grip card. Speculations have reached their peak as many observers charged the army of dealing with national crises upon its whims and even the personal ideologies of its leaders.

Meanwhile, the army responses are as ambivalent as their actions and as their relationship with the people. While this is understood by many as prevarication, many others see it as confusion. The best description I have read till now about the army’s demeanor—or misdemeanor—since it took charge of the country was one by Egyptian columnist Galal Nassar who summarized the army’s problem in not knowing the difference between “running” and “ruling” the country.

I am not sure if this argument acquits or implicates the army, but it makes sense in all cases. Having been totally detached from the political scene and not going anywhere outside the battlefield at times of war and the barracks at times of peace, they were suddenly required to play president in a country rife with conflicts and plagued by numerous plights, let alone just emerging from a revolution, and were expected to manage civil matters with the same efficiency with which they did military ones. Maybe that was quite a lot to ask, but you can’t blame the people for asking either, and while the army accuses the people of impatience—and sometimes ingratitude even though not in so many words—the people feel that the state—in whichever form it takes—owes them a great deal.

A vicious circle it is. The man expects the woman to bear with him as he gropes his way through a type of relationship in which he has minimal experience, and the woman requires that the man does all what is in his capacity to restore her trust in the male sex, and both think the other is too focused on his/her own needs. She might accuse him of not showing enough interest for a long time and he might accuse her of being too paranoid for pretty much the same time, and while this process of incrimination is going on, they also have to remember that both of them might be knocked down by the hurricane that seems to get more menacing by the minute. So, it’s either they make their priority to take shelter together in some safe place where they can have the clarity of mind to reflect on their situation or they can engage in endless bickering until they are buried under heaps of rubble. Their choice!

Let me first start off by saying that before the revolution, average Egyptians—even a sizable portion of the educated amongst them—hardly knew what was really meant by words like “constitution,” “parliament,” or “elections.” Lest I might be misunderstood, I am not blaming them, for they lived in a country plighted for decades with a chronic political stagnation that made such words absolutely irrelevant to them and of no impact whatsoever on their personal or public lives.

Even for those who understood what they meant, the state of utter despair they had reached made it pointless to discuss them or even refer to them in a casual conversation. As “what articles of the constitution do think need to be changed?” and “What will happen if the Muslim Brotherhood get parliamentary majority?” replaced “Good morning” and “How are you feeling today?” a long list of terms that either acquired new meanings or were resurrected from the dead started self-compiling, walking down the streets of Cairo you would listen to an entirely different language that would make you feel you had just passed by 10 Downing Street or the United Nations headquarters.

For Egyptians, an “agenda” is basically a leather-covered, 365-page book designed for jotting down appointments and day-to-day to-do tasks, but mostly used by students for taking down notes in class, by housewives for grocery lists, household-related budget, and recipes, and is the “dear diary” of teenage girls who like the boy next door. For a few people, usually those who work in the private sector, “agenda” is the list of topics to be discussed in a meeting. “Agenda” became a cuss word right after the protests had started, particularly when it became synonymous to Iran, which, as part of its Shiite infiltration campaign and its determination to see Vilayat-e Faqih rule the region, incited Egyptian youths to stage an “Islamic revolution” modeled after its 1979 role model, to Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah said he wished he were in Tahrir and this automatically meant he was supplying the revolutionaries with weapons, to Qatar, which pressed the protest buttons from the controls of Al-Jazeera.

In the “related words” section, “agenda” was also associated with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and even the United States and Israel. Officials interviewed after the protests broke out used the word “agenda,” always preceded by “hidden” and/or “foreign,” in every answer to questions that sounded like, “Sir, could you please explain why this uprising is happening?” A couple of days later, identifying words were removed as the word “agenda” gained its independence and stood on its own to mean “conspiracy,” “espionage,” “threat to national security,” and anything sneaky, destructive, and with ulterior motives.

So to save his time and energy for more important things like figuring out where to smuggle the billions he plundered from public money or determining who his scapegoat would be in case the revolution works, the minister or MP or governor interviewed would just say, “Those kids out there have an agenda” without bothering to add a description of what it is about. Not only did it become a derogatory term, but it also turned from a noun into an adjective so I would become an “agenda woman” engaged in “agenda activities” and so on.

Directly linked to the “agenda” was Kentucky… yes, the fried chicken. As the regime was desperately trying to present the protestors as mercenaries used by those foreign powers who want to rule the world, it started spreading rumors that they were given a daily meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken—there is a branch in Tahrir Square—in return for continuing the sit-in and insisting on the toppling of the regime. Hilariously, the protestors who went around giving food and drink to their fellow “agendas” started hanging placards over falafel sandwiches bags and juice cans boxes that read “The best of Kentucky.” Even more hilariously, Kentucky Fried Chicken itself issued a statement in official newspapers stressing that all chain branches had been closed since the start of the protests and that no meals were by any means supplied to anyone.

“Masonry” puts “agenda” and “Kentucky” to shame as far as comic absurdity is concerned. When Google executive Wael Ghoneim made his first appearance on TV after 12 days of detention at the headquarters of the notorious State Security on charges of “incitement,” he became the talk of the town. This was not because he left his job in Dubai to see the dream of millions of Egyptians come true and certainly not because he was the creator of the Facebook page that mobilized Egyptian youths for the revolution, but because of something much more serious… he turned out to be “Masonic.”

What really struck me when I first heard this was not the allegation itself, but rather one fact I was sure of at the time: almost 99 percent of Egyptians did not know what Freemasonry was—not that they do now—but it was astonishing how the word gloriously replaced other taboos in Egyptian society like “secular,” “communist,” or “Baha’i.” Ghoneim’s shirts, and those of his kids as well, always sport a logo similar to that on Masonic temples, wears a rubber wrist band similar to the one worn by some White House officials and, like them, makes sure the hand in which he wears it appears in front of the camera, and he has the same hand gestures as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. “Is that a coincidence?” asked hundreds of Egyptians who either invented or subscribed to this theory. “No, it’s not,” was the answer because there are several other proofs like the fact that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are listed as people who inspire Ghoneim’s on Facebook… and worst of all, potential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei.

This kind of unquestionable evidence makes you doubt yourself and start wondering that maybe Giordano is affiliated to some Masonic Lodge in Ireland or maybe cancer awareness campaigns aim at rebuilding the Temple of Solomon or maybe all Americans—presidents, politicians, and IT moguls—are by definition Free Masons. Like “agenda,” Freemasonry, on which apparently all Egyptians have always been experts, became equivalent to those powers of darkness that aim at wreaking havoc in Egypt under the pretext of democracy and civil rights. Consequently, “Masonic” replaced “traitor” and became part of the everyday vocabulary of those who opposed the revolution and all those “accused” of bringing it about.

“Activist” is another word that spread like fire through hay during the revolution, but that, for a change, has quite a positive connotation, though this varied depending on whether we’re talking post-January 25 or post-February 11. I once met a former colleague in Tahrir Square when the protests where at their peak and as I was engaged with some of my friends in a heated debate about whether or not the regime will be toppled. He interrupted us, looked at me, and asked in the most serious tone: “Now that I have come to Tahrir, will I be considered an activist?” I knotted my brows and gave him that “you got to be kidding me” look and, trying to be as composed as possible, asked him, “What exactly do you mean?” Obviously not seeing anything wrong with what he was saying, he explained as if to a stupid kid asking his mother how he was born: “I want to be called an activist because I know how prestigious that is now. Think of how it would look when I write on Facebook that I am an activist. Very cool, right?” I was growing more and more impatient and couldn’t help snapping, “You’re not an activist, ok? So go find yourself something else to brag about.” I could see he was taken aback by my abruptness, but I couldn’t care less. Yet, he managed to make me think about what he said in the middle of that entire ruckus and for a few days I kept wondering if he had ever heard that term before the revolution and if he knows what it means in the first place. After the president stepped down, the label became all the more desirable and the “activism” craze became as rampant as the 12th century plague and people sitting in coffee houses or shopping for groceries—many of them, I bet, had not been aware why the revolution happened—would be seen referring to themselves as activists and enumerating their political conquests.

After the “agendas” turned out to be “patriotic,” Kentucky reopened its doors for newly-liberated chicken lovers, Freemasonry turned out to have been confused with the Klu Klux Klan, and the word “activist” acquired epic proportions. It was then time for the “remnants,” the word that entered the Egyptian dictionary right after the toppling of the regime and which is used to denote members of the formerly ruling, now disbanded, National Democratic Party. The Arabic word used in this context is “fouloul” and that does not simply mean “remnants,” but rather the remaining groups of a vanquished army who sometimes attempt to get back at the victorious one even though they realize their chances at winning are almost nil. This word, found in classical Arabic poetry and never used before in colloquial Egyptian as far as I know, became a household utterance when it started to be mentioned at least a hundred times a day in different media outlets and when it became the magic reason behind any post-revolution unrest in the country. Whether or not there are actually “remnants” of the regime venting their anger and retaliating at the revolutionaries, it doesn’t matter because anyway whenever a disaster takes place it is them we have to blame.

So, you would say, “Did you hear about the church that got attacked last night?” and the response would be, “Yes, these are the ‘remnants’” or “Thugs are attacking people and stealing their cars on the highway,” and you would also get, “None other than the ‘remnants’ would so such thing,” or “Salafis are threatening to destroy Sufi shrines across the country,” and the answer is. “Yeah, that’s typical ‘remnants.’”

Regardless of whether they exist or not, the then soon-to-be “remnants” in one last desperate attempt not to acquire such a disgraceful title had done Egyptians a great favor by enriching their knowledge and allowing them to explore horizons they would have never come across had the circumstances been different. So, now they know the various meanings of “agenda” and realize that you can use it against whichever enemy you’re facing and regardless of the situation and they are fully aware of the role American fast food chains may or may not play in popular uprisings. They are all on the verge of getting their PhDs on Freemasonry and its manifestations in the form of Peugeot-like logos and one-dollar rubber bracelets and, most importantly, each and every one of them is an activist.

Don’t those little sneak peaks into a couple of entries in the latest of dictionaries and thesauri and which shows how amazingly creative as well as hilariously gullible its compilers are? The combination might indeed be lethal, but that one-of-a-kind reference is definitely for keeps and those people have always proven how unique they are even in the harshest of circumstance and the most life changing of revolutions.

The wife’s acquiescence encourages him to take her for granted and minimizes any feelings of guilt he might have for hurting her womanhood. While she secretly hopes he will eventually redress the wrong he has done her and realize that the other relationship is a fling or a middle age crisis or a seven-year itch or whatever makes men assume they’re still high school kids, he keeps justifying to himself that, like all men, he is born polygamous and that one woman will never be able to give him all what he needs. So far, so good… life goes on and the charade seems like an Oscar-winner par excellence, yet tension starts when the wife starts losing patience and the husband starts fearing the day she will pull off the typical “It’s either me or she” act, and when both realize that while a breakup is undesirable, a continuation of the status quo is next to impossible.

I thought I could have made the analogy much easier had I just cited the example of France’s relationship with its former colonies in Africa, but I decided against that for two reasons.

One: the situation is a bit different since the United States did not actually occupy Egypt—we’re talking physical, traditional, invasion-like occupation. Two: the relationship between Western powers and the countries they had once occupied could, I believe, be likened to that of a possessive patron and a rebellious artist. The patron wants to get the best of the artist’s talents, but always tries to convince him that it is his best interests that he has at heart.

The artist knows this is not true and is dying for the day he will not be commissioned the artwork desired by the other people and which usually serve their political ambition and further their financial gains but not fulfill any of his aesthetic aspirations. When that day comes, the patron is infuriated at the artist’s rebellion, but is smart enough not to sever all ties with him and the art he can offer. He, therefore, turns into some kind of big brother, also under the pretext of helping the artist out whenever it is too tough for him to manage on his own and when this happens—and it usually does because the patron is very aware that the artist has not yet reached the degree of independence required to totally do without any external help—the patron would jump at the chance and hurry to “rescue” the artist in whatever ordeal he is facing while deep down enjoying the satisfaction of proving how indispensible he is. Take a look at France’s intervention in the latest crisis in Cote D’Ivoire and you will fully understand what I am talking about.

Being generally an unconventional imperialist power—the conventional type being the French and British empires—the United States’ relations with countries where it exercises considerable hegemony—and these are a lot—is much more complex and hard to define. It also differs from one country to another, so the Egyptian example is not necessarily applicable to other countries whether inside or outside the region. Regardless of the strategic importance of Egypt in the Middle East, whether in terms of political influence or geographical location, the United States’ interest in Egypt has certainly taken a different turn after 1948 and has grown into an obsession after 1979 when the Arab world’s staunch enemy became Egypt’s best buddy. One American administration after the other reiterated Egypt’s importance in maintaining peace in the Middle East—read “with Israel”—yet Obama’s luck has been exceptional—good or bad remains to be known—for during his couple of years in office, he has witnessed Egypt go through the most important transformation in its contemporary history.

When President Barack Obama chose Cairo to address the Muslim world in 2009, many were surprised and many more were skeptical, not out of underestimating Egypt’s impact on regional affairs, especially as far as American interests are concerned, but because other countries might have seemed more “Islamic” for that matter. He could have gone to Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s two holiest sites, or to Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim nation as well as one in which he spent several of his childhood years.

Like many of those skeptics, to whom I obviously belong, I believed that Mr. Obama’s choice of Egypt had nothing to do with Islam or Muslims and that those two words were only used to appeal to a population that is pre-dominantly religious or at least for whom religion is in some way or another part of their daily lives—add to that the fact that Mr. Obama hails from Muslim ancestry. Acknowledging the role of al-Azhar as “a beacon of Islamic learning” and hailing “civilization’s debt to Islam,” stressing that he was seeking “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims,” and quoting verses from the Quran constituted indeed a remarkable departure from George W. Bush’s “crusade” rhetoric—in itself not such a bad initiative—yet for me this did not herald the beginning of a reconciliation with the religion perceived with increasing hostility after September 11, but rather proved how gullible we were.

Sugarcoated with praise of Islam and the principles it promotes, Mr. Obama’s speech offered just a different way of emphasizing the strategic partnership between Egypt and the United States—and when I say Egypt I mean the former Egyptian regime and not the “Muslims” he kept referring to. Obama was just playing it smart by renewing vows with Hosni Mubarak’s regime while attempting to make Egyptians like America a little bit or at least hate it less. Nobody knows what Mr. Obama was thinking exactly, but sometimes I wonder if one of the motives behind the speech was preempting any possible revolt against the despotic government that America wanted so desperately to keep in power. Quite a crazy thought I know, but all is fair in love and war and politics.

The United States’ apprehension about a regime change in Egypt and the possibility of a new government that might be hostile to the West or, most importantly, to Israel was very obvious in Mr. Obama’s confused—and confusing remarks—on the popular protests that started on January 25.

One time Mr. Obama would urge Mr. Mubarak to “live up to promises he made about political, social and economic reforms,” and another time US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would demand “a peaceful and orderly transition”; and between this and that, the Egyptian people were left to guess whether the United States wanted Mr. Mubarak or wanted to see him go.

Of course we all know it was the first, yet we realized that hinting at embracing the second was important for a country that prides itself on being a beacon of democracy. It was the Egyptian people who relieved Mr. Obama of the tough decision he had to make and it was their will that prevailed, regardless of all other political interests and strategic calculations.

It was then that the second speech on Egypt—though not from it—came. Acknowledging the Egyptian people’s “hunger for change,” and admitting that the January 25 revolution is “history taking place,” Mr. Obama has again played it smart by wooing the people instead of wooing the regime—not that he had so much of a choice, though. Mr. Obama did praise the revolution not because he wanted it to happen or was happy that it happened, but simply because it did happen and when he said that Egypt “will never be the same,” he did not necessarily mean that he liked the change.

Again, I am not claiming I could read his mind, but I could see that while delivering this speech, he was still unable to come to terms with what happened and had not yet figured out what he meant by the “assistance” the United States is offering to post-revolution Egypt. He knew one thing: there is an inseparable link that needs to be maintained, a partnership that has to be remolded in light of the new conditions, and strategic interests that cannot be compromised… “How?” is presumably what he asked himself after he stepped down from the podium and was able to catch his breath.

Having had a couple of months to think, Mr. Obama came up with a third speech which was definitely more thought over than its hasty predecessor and in which, consequently, he took more liberty lashing out at the very regime of which he and his country had been staunch supporters, not missing the chance to mention that animosity toward Israel was only an outlet for the anger harbored against domestic tyrants. Knowing that while it was nice of him and all to refer to the revolution as one of the many “shouts of human dignity” sweeping the region and while it might have been touching—maybe more to Americans—to quote the Egyptian mother who said she can “breathe fresh air for the first time,” he had to wrap up the sweet talk and get down to action.

He then reached the most important bit—how will the US “help” in baking—and no doubt eating a big portion of—the cake? Asserting that his country will never be out of any equation by virtue of the power it wields was an attempt on Mr. Obama’s part to restore control in a relationship that took abrupt twists and hazardous turns. Mentioning the killing of Osama Bin Laden as the ultimate proof of America’s ability to eliminate terrorism, reiterating America’s intolerance of Iran’s nuclear program, and again making sure the word “Israel” was inserted in every other sentence, were gentle reminders of who the boss still is even though the balance of power might have been tipped—temporarily he hopes—toward the other side.

“I will go with the flow, but you are not to outsmart me,” Mr. Obama seemed to have been saying.

So after realizing that his wife will no longer tolerate being pushed to the margins, the husband comes back home laden with gifts for the first wife and learning by heart a few promises that might help to nip the nascent rebellion in the bud. However, while taking her in his arms, whispering that she is the love of his life and vowing that this other woman means nothing to him, he makes sure he reminds her how much she needs him and how at times she will have to swallow her wounded pride. The little independence she has started sporting will thus appear contingent upon how far his patience can go before it wears too thin.

At the end, it remains up to him, not to the wife’s indignant fits of anger or even threats to end the relationship, to leave the other woman or not and being sweet or apologetic does not translate into being weak or easy to control.

“I will always be your man, but you are not to twist my arm,” the husband thinks as he begs the wife not to leave him.

I left the exhibition hall gasping for breath. It took me a few minutes to extract myself from this enchantingly macabre world which I thought could have held me hostage for eternity and a little longer to gradually dissipate those inexplicable feelings of guilt that assault my conscience whenever I witness any type of suffering regardless of whether the object of this suffering is alive or dead at the moment. In a desperate attempt to seek some distraction and to recover from such an emotionally draining experience, I went to the museum’s gift shop and up till this moment I regret having done so for I realized I had better stayed entrapped in Kahlo’s thorns and steel corsets. Nothing whatsoever—not even going for a greasy double cheese burger at some junk food diner or shopping for a bathing suit a one of those one-dollar shops—could have been that anticlimactic.

It might sound normal to find a variety of postcards with Frida Kahlo’s paintings, biographies and illustrated books on her work, may be a collection of letters, diaries, or similar things in her own handwriting, and this indeed I found. However, to find Frida Kahlo’s photos and self-portraits on mugs, coasters, kitchen aprons, and even socks, that was quite shocking. That’s not all I’m afraid… there was, in fact, a book of Frida paper dolls with Spanish and English notes on the artist’s life at the back of each of the costumes! I was forcefully and ruthlessly snatched from the captivating world of La Casa Azul to a booth of I Love New York paraphernalia in JFK Airport or a stuffed animals store in the San Diego Zoo.

This is not, as many who are reading this now might think, turning into a Letter from Mexico City for in post-January 25—February 11 to be more accurate—Egypt, Cairo has in record time turned into one huge gift store that sells the most “in” commodity in town, the one and only that guarantees the widest customer base and the most instant profit, one the competes with the most stylish fashion brands, the most delicious foodstuffs, and the most elegant real estate properties—the revolution.

The revolution and everything associated it with have become part and parcel of every billboard, every marketing campaign, and every TV commercial regardless of the product promoted or the service advertised. Suddenly all companies, state-owned or private, have realized that whatever they’re offering to the people has played an important role in the revolution or will at least be of indispensible benefit in building the new Egypt as envisioned by the revolutionaries. This, of course, required an out-and-out change of slogans that basically made all advertised items look like they offer the same thing and you had to make such a great effort to distinguish one from another.

It does look a bit strange when instead of telling customers how fast the connection is, the Internet service provider makes its slogan, “Let us build Egypt.” This patriotic phrase is usually written in such a huge font that it takes a while to know which company is that and for a few seconds you think it might be in the construction industry. Instead of telling you how many calls you get for how many pounds or things of that sort, the mobile service provider seems to have launched a literacy campaign that aims at enabling all Egyptians to read in a couple of year, again for the purpose of building Egypt. There was even an underwear company, known for its cotton products, that replaced its slogan about how comfortable or something along that lines their stuff is with one that reads, “Cotton speaks Egyptian.” I almost got into an accident when I first saw this billboard in Downtown Cairo. A whole range of other companies stuck to slogans like “I am Egyptian”—quite a surprising revelation, isn’t it? —and “because I am Egyptian,” I pledge to do one thing or another—mostly around “will not harass girls,” “will not throw trash in the street,” and “will not run a red light.” These are some behavioral patterns that do require a revolution, don’t they?

If the product is too small for such elaborate slogans, you will now find the Egyptian flag and maybe the word Egypt next to it on almost everything you buy—water bottles, soda cans, potato chips packs… you name it! Only toilet paper seems to have not caught up yet with the trend as far as I can notice… that would be really something, wouldn’t it?

The “a la revolution” craze made a glorious appearance in the media with all those new talk shows named after either the R-word itself or something related like “midan,” Arabic for “square” and used to refer to Tahrir Square, the center of the protests, or “Tahrir,” referring of course to the very same square. The same was seen in newspapers and, ridiculously enough, official ones in specific: one of those even issued a new supplement under the title “The youths of Tahrir,” assuming that people were too excited about the revolution to remember that the February 10 issue made of the president a demi-god and of the protestors a gang of reckless saboteurs.

It was the déjà-vu I got when I walked or drove around Cairo a few days after the toppling of the regime that allowed me to make this connection between the “revolutionary products” and the Frida Kahlo gift shop. I couldn’t help thinking how countries, no matter how advanced or underdeveloped they are and no matter how many thousands of miles separate them, think exactly alike when it comes to making money. Typical of any capitalist society, profit becomes the first and foremost priority and all facilities available are channeled towards that end. I personally have no problem with that when it comes to items that you can actually call a “commodity,” a product made for market consumption and which can be sold in return for a price that is determined based on the “value” of this product.

But what happens when it is “invaluable” and when dealing with it in terms of supply and demand constitutes a direct affront to its worth and a demeaning of the impact it had or will have on the human race. Like Frida Kahlo, the revolution is a symbol that does not take material evaluation and that is not by any means subject to commercial rules or market economies. Trying to get profit out of any of the two is not only a vulgar way of exploiting a noble cause, but is also detrimental to the history and documentation of this cause as well as inconsiderate to all the people involved. Imagine what families of martyrs would feel when they see the revolution their loved ones gave their lives for turn into a consumable good, be that food or drink or clothes or some service or another.

I have always wondered how Che Guevara would have felt about having his picture on zillions of T-shirts, key chains, and bumper stickers across the globe. I bet he would have been extremely mortified by the way he was demoted from a freedom fighter to a pop star. This is of course regardless of the fact that if we’re talking about Egypt in particular, where El Che is also all over the place, half the population does not know who he is and the other half confuses him with Bob Marley

I recall the 1956 movie “Daughters of Eve,” the title being indicative enough of the way all women were grouped under one category whose members are expected to abide by certain rules in order to deserve becoming the daughter of the progenitor of all females in the globe. In this movie, a strong, career-oriented woman is placed in sharp contrast with her pretty, hyper-feminine sister and while the former is constantly reprimanded for scaring away men and not wanting to settle down in marriage, the latter is lauded as the perfect example of the female who does not attempt to surpass the role assigned to her by society. Only when one man decides to take up the challenge of snatching her from that world to which she does not belong and bringing her back to where women should, does this woman become what she is expected to be. The movie, therefore, concludes with the happily-ever-after ending and the moral of the story is too clear to be stated.

More than half a century later comes the movie “Taymour and Shafika.” This time the approach is different for, unlike Eve’s daughter Essmat, Shafika is already attractive and elegant and sexy. So Taymour, who is not very different from Wahid who triumphantly tames Essmat, does not have to go through the hassle of “feminizing” the “unfeminine.” He faces a bigger challenge, though. Ambitious Shafika becomes minister and macho Taymour is appointed her bodyguard, thus dealing a fatal blow to his ego and initiating a flagrant disruption in the globally recognized, Arab/Egyptian-emphasized balance of power. A fierce struggle for dominance ensues with Shafika vehemently unwilling to give up her professional future and Taymour relentlessly opposed to her assumption of a position higher than his. He eventually asks her to choose between her career and their relationship, and they reach a dead end… not quite dead it turns out, for she finally decides to quit her job and the movie ends with the same happily-ever-after scene—the wedding that could finally materialize now that the bride abides by the groom’s rules and wisely decides to recoil back to where she originally belongs. Do you still want me to state the moral of the story?

It saddens me to admit that the change that took place on the ground as far as women’s rights are concerned is as meager as the one you can trace in the two movies and the 51 years that separate them. In fact, comparing those two movies unravels how superficial any improvements in the status of women in Egypt have been. Many people might disagree with what I say and would start citing a long list of the various positions woman are now capable of holding and which were previously reserved for men by way of tradition.

“Women have become ministers and judges,” one friend once told me. “What more do they want?” Forgot to tell you this friend is a “he” in case you haven’t guessed already. “We’re all over state institutions and the private sector,” another friend said in response to my complaints about inequality. “We are much stronger than men now.” That was a “she” of course.

I listened to both of them and to several others who adopt the same view and I wondered how on earth can’t they see that having a couple of female judges here and another couple of female ministers there does not by any means indicate that women have become equal to men and does not make the government very different from the mother who while shopping at the mall buys her daughter a pack of M&Ms to distract her from asking for the more expensive Barbie doll.

This was clearly manifested in the quota system that reserves a specific number of seats for women in the parliament. While the decision to apply this system was hailed as a huge step toward gender equality and emancipation of women, it is exactly the other way round. In fact, the quota system is demeaning for women because it implies that forcing voters to choose female candidates is the only they can ever have access to the parliament. It is also quite intriguing that very few were able to detect the condescending nature of this system in the sense that it makes the political future of women contingent upon the government’s “benevolence,” and gives minority status to a group that makes up more than half the society.

Most important of all, the quota system, like the M&Ms, was supposed to offer the perfect distraction for activists who, like the little girl, keep “whining” about how unjustly they are treated. The kid won’t stay a kid forever, though, and one day she will realize how deceived she was. When that happens, the doll won’t do and nothing less than a tree house would satisfy her.

The controversy that raged last year about the appointment of women judges at the State Council offers a miniature example of how women are still seen as unfit for specific kinds of jobs. I am not going to go through details of the disputes between members of the council’s General Assembly, who ended up issuing a ban on the appointment of women, or of the lawsuit filed at the Supreme Constitutional Court, which eventually ruled that the ban is unconstitutional. I would rather like to take a quick look at the reaction of Egyptian women, yes women, to the issue and I want you to imagine what men would think—I personally did not attempt to find out for fear of the horrendous responses I would get—if they were asked.

“A woman is jealous by nature,” one woman, an academic if that helps in understanding where she’s coming from though I doubt it does, said. “If she is presiding over a court session where the defendant is another woman and this woman is wearing nicer clothes or looks prettier, she will definitely hand her one hell of an unfair sentence.”

“What if she is PMS-ing during one of the sessions?” a friend of mine wondered. “Would she be able to think straight and make wise decisions?”

Now get ready for the most memorable of them all: “What if she has a session and her husband orders her not to leave the house that day?” a female lawyer asked in a TV interview. The host, interestingly a man, seemed so baffled by his guest’s argument that he stayed silent for a few seconds while she stared at him waiting for an answer.

If this is the case with court appointments, can you imagine how it would be if a woman runs for president? In fact, you don’t need to imagine because the case is closed before it is opened. A survey conducted recently by a local NGO revealed that 100 percent of Egyptians interviewed—40 percent women and 60 percent men—were opposed to having a woman for president. The reasons might sound diverse, but they all boil down to one single thing: women are not fit for positions that require strength of character, decision-making skills, and physical and mental effort.

The reason for this is not, God forbid, because women are inferior to men in any way. On the contrary, women are of course equal to men and should have the same rights. “They are just, by nature, too delicate for such tough jobs,” they say. This reminds me of another back-and-white Egyptian movie when two women had to disguise as men to work in a mining site and prove that they are capable of doing the jobs seen as too “strenuous” for a creature that fragile and that incapable of enduring hard work and adapting to harsh environments.

Men who argue that a woman loses her femininity when she takes “manly” jobs have all the right to believe what they want, and women who agree with this argument are encouraged to hook up with these men and they can make the perfect couple for the “just married” postcards you find in Hallmark stores.

As for women who have a different take on femininity and who would rather be independent than “cute,” it is now time for the kid to stamp her feet until she shakes the ground beneath her and to scream at the top of her lungs that she will no longer be fooled with a pack of artificially-colored candies until everybody around runs to see what the deal is.

The mother might finally be convinced and buy the Barbie doll and might only want to avoid making a scene and still buy the Barbie doll. And as the stamping grows stronger and the screams get louder… the tree house it is then.

The news to which I wake up determine to a great extent how the rest of the day—maybe a few days to some, depending on the magnitude or even absurdity of this news—would be like. This morning, I was stunned, with all the feelings of shock, astonishment, and resentment this word could carry, to read in one of the newspapers, and later all over the internet and TV, that our former, in fact I prefer “ousted,” president is planning to give another of his “moving” speeches to the Egyptian people, this time asking for their forgiveness.

It is not only the nonsensical nature of this provocative piece of news that got on my nerves, but also the fact that a rather annoying yet catchy disco/techno song I heard a couple of times on the radio while I was stuck in Cairo traffic one crazy afternoon has been resonating in my head ever since I was made aware of the president’s upcoming feat. The song, performed by some British band, is entitled “Audacity of Huge,” and I think now you might have guessed why, even though nothing gets further from what I call music, this was the first thing that hit my mind upon opening my eyes to such a surprise. The song is basically about a man who has everything it takes to live a good life, yet is unable to grab the attention of this one woman he likes and keeps wondering why is it not possible to get her when he always gets all what he wants. So, he enumerates several of the privileges he has then ends with the refrain,

I got it all,
Yes it’s true.
So why don’t I get you?

Regardless of how different the two situations are, the title of the song says it all and the new version—excuse my lousy rhyming skills—would be,

Screwing your lives is what I’ve always done,
So why don’t you let me get away with this one?

What is it exactly that the president wants people to forgive him for? Let’s see… may be for sucking dry the country’s resources and piling the revenues in Swiss banks and worldwide mansions … or for being the direct reason for making 40 percent of the people live under poverty line and for having Cairo surrounded by a belt of shanty towns that offered a perfectly thriving environment for crime and terrorism… maybe for suppressing freedom of expression, clamping down on activists, jailing journalists, and embarking on elaborate charter assassination processes against whoever sounded the alarm bells over the dark pit into which the country was nose diving with the speed of lightening… possibly for the innocent civilians beaten, raped, and tortured to death in police stations by the Interior Ministry’s henchmen who were given green light to take out any soul that threatened the regime grip on power in one or another… how about for a messed up foreign policy that dwarfed Egypt’s role in the region, created of Egypt the puppet mouthpiece of Israel and the United States and the major hurdle in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and compromised Egypt’s share in Nile water… and don’t forget the dilapidated infrastructure, the soaring rates of unemployment, the deplorable medical services, the rampant corruption in government institutions… Oh! And one more insignificant thing: a dignity-less existence.

I have consciously decided not to include firing at and killing peaceful demonstrators because this requires entire volumes on tyranny, brutality, and lack of conscience.

The next question is: What is he offering to Egyptians in return for their forgiveness? The money he took? Is that a confession to the theft in which he and his family have been involved for decades? Or is he giving this money by way of charity and out of the kindness of his heart?

According to the story that reported the former president’s intention to give this speech, he and his wife will give all “their properties” to the Egyptian people. Do I take it that they still insist they wealth they accumulated is “theirs,” and that it was obtained by legitimate means but that they are noble enough to waive it to the people if that’s what they want? Wait… it gets better… he will also announce that they will live on whatever pension the state allocates to them. A definition of the word “pension” might help to underscore the absurdity of this condescending statement. Based on my limited knowledge of the English language, a pension is the state’s way of rewarding a civil servant for spending years in the service of the country. I guess it goes without saying that this “reward” is not granted to employees charged with graft, corruption, and abuse of power, let alone murder, torture, and slander.

One more question, the easiest in fact, is left: Does Mr. Hosni Mubarak think he will still be able to emotionally manipulate the Egyptian people in a way that makes them give up their persistent demands for having him brought to justice? Well, he tried it several times since the start of the revolution and it relatively worked—on a very small scale though and not with the revolutionaries—not because he managed to play it right, but owing to the fact that it is easy to appeal to the emotions of Egyptians. However, even those who were deceived by the former president’s pledges to introduce political reforms and not to run for another term and were moved by his “deep sorrow” for the way he was being treated by his own “compatriots” and by his reiteration of the “sacrifices” he made for the country, realized the emptiness of his promises and falsity of his pleas.

In fact, it is quite interesting that in all the speeches in which he tried to press the people’s emotional buttons he had only one achievement to brag about when it came to what he gave to the country: being the architect of the air strike against Israel in the October 1973 War. Three little points I would like to underline here: One, Mr. Mubarak’s most outstanding accomplishment—according to him—did not take place during his three-decade presidency. Two, Mr. Mubarak was commander of the Egyptian Air Force at the time, so it was part of his job description—not a sacrifice he offered to make—to carry out an air strike in a war. Three, even the magnitude of the October air strike and its role in granting victory to Egypt are currently being questioned.

Egyptians will indeed forgive their president on one condition… and it’s not if he is genuine in his apology or if he offers the proper compensation or if he discloses any information that might help in bringing down other members of the cartel. Only if he could compile a list of all the crimes he had committed against his people since the day he assumed power till the day he was relieved of his undeserved position—that is exactly 29 years, two months, and 17 days just to save him the hassle of calculation—will Egyptians probably think of considering, not necessarily granting, his request just in recognition of the fact he tried doing some self-judgment, of course provided that the information he submits are accurate. Actually, saying “Egyptians” in the previous sentence is quite unfair and dishonest because that is how I see and I don’t represent all Egyptians. In this case, I have a better idea. Let’s ask what each and every Egyptian would like Mr. Mubarak to offer in order to forgive him. Each citizen is allowed to request reparation for something that he/she suffered as a direct or indirect result of the regime’s despotism or for any of the offences that inflicted damage upon the country and its people in general… or for both!

After collecting the requests and after the president fulfills—for the first time ever— all the requirements of the Egyptian people and after each of them acknowledges that the wrong done to him/her and/or to the country is finally redressed, we can issue one collective statement:

“We hereby forgive thee, Mister President!”

Before the January 25 Revolution, you would only see Egyptian flags on top of a few government buildings, not exactly fluttering, but rather flaccidly hanging there coated with layers of dust that betrayed decades of neglect for their value and that of the country they stood for. Torn at the sides and with the red, white, and black fading into one single pale shade that looked like something between the grey of a thousand-year-old mummy and the yellow of lifeless autumn leaves.

There is no need to mention what this extreme lack of care for the flag signified for a people who might have reached the point of preferring to sing the Barbadian anthem and pledge allegiance to the Sultan of Brunei. There is also no need to point out the reasons behind the stellar change that took place not when Egypt was rid of the despotic regime that rendered everything national bland and colorless as many would like to think, but the moment Egyptians realized that they belong to a country that is worth fighting for and it was time they stop pretending to salute a worn-out rag.

Now, however, you can hardly spot a house or pass by a car or come across a store or eat at a restaurant that does not carry one size or another of the Egyptian flag and display some form or another of finally reconnecting to the long-neglected motherland.

For days and months the fluttering of Egyptian flags, all new and bright and throbbing with color, has become part and parcel of the country’s landscape, but this nationalistic fervor started taking a different shape as the flag of the country that made one of history’s most memorable revolutions made way for another one that so much yearns for the moment it merges with the usurped sky of which it has been deprived for the past 60 plus years. After seemingly sinking into oblivion together with the cause it stands for, the Palestinian flag made a glorious comeback to remind Arabs and the whole world not only that the struggle for freedom knows no limits, but also that gone are the times when the Palestinian cause had no longer become a priority for Egypt and come the times when revolutions prove they can break separation walls, pull down checkpoints, and bid farewell to refugee camps.

After living with the shame of being part of a regime that gave precedence to Israeli interests and deepened the rift between the Palestinian people, Egyptians were once again allowed the chance to bring back to life the Arab dream that they considered clinically dead since the signing of the Camp David treaty, viewed by nationalists as the official abandonment of Palestine that sealed the end to a collective Arab unity against a Zionist enemy.

With the removal of a president labeled as “Israel’s man,” Egyptians were finally able to exercise their right and duty as Arabs to defend their next of kin who are suffering from a kind of oppression—rather a form of genocide—that might not be similar to the one they suffered before the revolution yet can still be eliminated by the same means. Seeing the revolution gaining momentum in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, not wanting to waste more time on slogans and long-term plans, and deciding that tearful commemoration of the Nakba only rubs salt into the all-time sore wound, they made up their minds to take the first step—quite a lot of steps in fact—and march to the land on the day its people were rendered land-less.

Attempting to recapture that moment of Arab nationalism that most of the youths who planned the march had not witnessed but only dreamt of, constituted a reenactment of past glories that are not called so because they brought about any triumph—they were in fact all moments of bitter defeat—but owing to the long-gone values they stood for—a unified cause fought for against all odds. The 1948 War, in which Arabs hurried to the rescue of Palestine, immediately came to mind as the prospect of a similar communal action—a different kind of resistance though—started reemerging as part of the Egyptian psyche.

Stories from the days of Nasser, as controversial as he was and still is, are now being retold to younger generations and the spirit for which he stood are becoming an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Egyptians nostalgic for the long-lost Arab dignity. He might have been a dictator—indeed he was—and he might have dragged the country to the most horrendous defeat by flexing his muscles in the 1967 War—indeed he did—but, they argue, he loved this country at least. Nasser, who was the only Arab leader to have an ideology named after him, inspired nations across the world, not because he was an ideal ruler, but because he came at a time when countries struggled to assert their independence and fought to regain their nationalist pride, and he relentlessly and unflinchingly supported that cause with all his might.

It is this cause that made so many world leaders label themselves “Nasserites” till the present moment.

For me, it is neither the memory of 1948 War nor the spirit of Nasser that are summoned up with the calls for the march towards the “promised land.” My mind has made a longer journey back in time as the image of Saladin—interestingly not an Arab—presented itself to me, and suddenly I envisioned the Kurdish warrior mobilizing his troops to liberate Jerusalem.

The May 15, 2011 march was called by its organizers as the day of “zahf,” an Arabic word that literally means “creeping” or “crawling” but that is usually used to denote the slow, yet determined, movement in the direction of a much-coveted place, in many cases a holy land unjustly usurped by powers seen as formidable or invincible. Saladin had done what Nasser failed at despite the centuries that set them apart: he combined the soldier with the sage and never allowed ardent faith in the cause to miscalculate his careful moves towards an all-sweeping triumph. He knew what he wanted, but also knew when he could get it… he was a man of war and an epitome of peace… he was what Egyptian perpetrators of the revolution and the initiators of the march aspire to be as they set out to prove that history can, in fact, repeat itself.

The analogy between the Egyptians’ march to Gaza and Saladin’s liberation of Jerusalem might not have escaped the Israelis who have been attacking the strip and obstructing humanitarian aid heading its way since they got wind of the approaching earth-shaking treads of a once crippled opponent. The threat they perceive in a group of peaceful activists embarking on a symbolic act of conquering—they were not planning to besiege Israel with catapults nor expel its “crusader” inhabitants after all, were they?—is quite indicative of the power inherent in the Palestinian cause and the victory it can accomplish once Arabs are no longer drained by fighting tyranny at home.

To those, both average citizens and state officials, who had objected to the march on the grounds that more pressing issues are more worthy of the energy and effort of Egyptians and under the pretext that the country is going through a critical phase in which any distraction, no matter how minor, is not welcome, I say one thing. Those Egyptians who managed to uproot a regime as deeply entrenched in its soil as its most ancient obelisks and who did so without shedding one drop of blood are capable of all sorts of things.

This might sound pretty naïve and a little bit dreamy slash idealistic slash romantic, but it is equally true slash possible slash bound to happen: those very same Egyptians are capable of reconstructing the country they have just liberated while not allowing themselves to indulge in border-confined dreams that exclude those whose destiny has always been intertwined with theirs or to fall into the same moral abyss in which their previous despots felt so much at home.

Forgot to tell you that the word “zahf” also implies movement toward different directions and penetration of several fronts. Who on earth charted one single, straight-line path toward freedom? What course would history have taken had Saladin not braved the hazardous terrain from Tikrit to the Levant? What could have happened had Che Guevara remained a medical student in Argentina?

When Jewish Alexandrian writer André Aciman released his memoir Out of Egypt, he was not only telling the story of his and family’s “exodus” from their birthplace at the time when his likes were no longer wanted at the city that once housed the largest Jewish community in the world, but he was also speaking on behalf of all those who lament the loss of the Alexandria they have either seen or dreamt they would see.

The once cosmopolitan city which had for decades been home to Greeks, Italians, Armenians as well all Egyptians of all faiths and denominations, the center of the Hellenistic civilization and the seat of one of the world’s most venerated ancient wonders, and the hometown of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, is no longer any of those. Forget about the Pharos, the Roman amphitheatre, the necropolis, and the catacombs and never mind the Bibliotheca Alexandrina—the old or the new—for now Alexandria is all about two totally different things: mosques and churches.

For some strange reason Alexandria was thought to have remained different from other Egyptian cities, so while Islamic fundamentalism and sectarian tension were starting to gain ground in different parts of the country, there was always hope that Alexandria had all what it takes to emerge unscathed. Maybe it was its history of religious tolerance and multicultural coexistence, maybe it was the popular concept that port cities, owing to their location, are always less prone to those inland prejudices that result from too little exposure to the outside world, and maybe it was just a last straw that we all needed to cling to… well, a straw is a straw, after all.

While nothing has remained of the polyglot society Alexandria once was except restaurant signs and some street names, and even though increasing conservatism had started taking over the city whose beaches were once the destination of vacationers from all over Egypt, how ugly things turned was still utterly shockingly and absolutely unbelievable. I had personally thought blind fanaticism had left Alexandria since the killing of Hypatia. Nothing wrong with admitting that you were naïve… rather stupid!

“I Was Blind but Now I Can See” was a play performed at the Saint George Coptic Church about a Christian student who converts to Islam and is later bullied by the same Muslims who paid him to convert when he decides to go back to Christianity. The CDs of the play are rumored to have been sold in the neighborhood. Muslims demand an apology; the church issues none… to the Bastille, citoyens!

The attempt by Muslim protestors to storm the church in retaliation for the staging of a play that “defamed Islam,” and whose only proof of existence was a sensational story run in some tabloid, served to reveal the unfortunate fact that Alexandria is not immune and that the last fortress of coexistence in a country that has been swiftly eaten up by extremism had actually fallen… and with it fell all our hopes at regaining our old selves.

When 2011 was inaugurated with the blast that hit the Two Saints Church, also in Alexandria, that fortress was buried six feet under the ground. When the revolution toppled the regime that was always charged with sowing the seeds of sedition between Muslims and Copts to guarantee a conflict-ridden population that is too drained by strife to challenge its power and with the honorable contribution of Alexandrians to this historic achievement, much of the fortress’s rubble was unearthed and seemed ready for reconstruction.

Seems it was too soon to jump to such idealistic conclusions. Tuesday night’s clashes, which broke when thousands of Christians took to the streets in protest of the attack by Muslim fundamentalists on a Coptic church in Cairo, alerted us to the fact that the ailment of this beautiful city is far from cured and that the wound is much deeper than we had thought and that we have to stop thinking of Alexandria as a special case because it is not. In fact, it all depends on how you define “special.”

For me, yesterday’s incidents were not that shocking and wouldn’t be for most Egyptian if they just went back in time a little bit and thought of another piece of news that had unfortunately gone unnoticed or was intentionally overlooked by the media and the state. A few weeks ago, social networking Websites and a couple of independent newspapers and private satellite channels reported that Salafi groups in Alexandria distributed flyers ordering female residents of the city to wear the head scarf on going out and threatening to “assault”—some said “kill,” others said “burn with acid”—women who did not comply.

Regardless of the fact that a senior Salafi cleric from Alexandria dismissed those reports and stressed that his group only uses peaceful means of preaching, letting this pass makes us accomplices in the crime and holds us accountable for the darkness Alexandria is slipping into. Suppose we believe that these reports were totally baseless, what about the posters put in several neighborhoods in Alexandria with unveiled women surrounded by insects and fiery statements condemning all those who dress “indecently”?

This is the same city where 15 years ago I saw women in their bathing suits sitting next to their “decently clad” counterparts on the beaches of Alexandria. This is also the same city were now you can see the “us and them” look from eyes peeping behind a black face-veil and you can’t help asking yourself, “How does she see me?”

It is indeed very intriguing that the most liberal of Egypt’s cities has now become one of its most conservative and I sometimes think it is the former that led to the latter.

A city as diverse and multicultural as Alexandria was an ideal battleground for all those who took it upon themselves to eliminate “vice” and promote “virtue” and erasing a centuries-long history of tolerance and coexistence was the only way to do so. I am not going to go about babbling again about the role the regime played in fostering such bi-polar animosities throughout its 30 years of “leave them breathless” policies because this has now become quite ipso facto.

I would rather trace the whole thing more than 50 years back when the post 1952 Revolution regime embarked on what seemed like a purging campaign that might have had Jews as its main target, yet by doing so managed to undermine the basic social structure upon which Alexandria was based. Whether on purpose or unintentionally, the Nasser government established a direct link between the creation of the state of Israel and the presence of Jews and acted accordingly, announcing, “All Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state.”

As Jews, born and raised in Egypt, suddenly became a threat to national security and consequently expelled and having their property confiscated, the first nail was driven into the coffin of Alexandria’s religious and ethnic makeup. The disappearance of the Jewish community in Alexandria heralded the city’s fall as a model of diversity and shortly thereafter other communities followed, not necessarily because they were persecuted or kicked out, but simply because it was no longer the friendly homeland it had once been. The black-and-white era had begun and their “grey” identity had no place in it.

They are gone, but the purge is not over… only the target changed. And don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the Coptic community is the only opponent because all Egyptians who strive for a civil state are. It is a long process of alienation that ascribes to the same dichotomy promoted by former regimes and that aims to alienate any party considered “other,” be that Copts, Seculars, Leftists, moderate Muslims… you name it!

When and if this happens, can we blame the Mediterranean if it divorces its once-beautiful bride and all-time beloved?

In fact, political life in Egypt used to remind me of “The Bold and the Beautiful,” an American soap opera in which it would take a dozen episodes for one of the characters to explain to his girlfriend why he cheated on her and another dozen for her to explain to him why she left him at the altar, and might in the process dedicate a couple more episodes to another detailed account of the time he cheated on her since it was related in one way or another to her decision not to marry him. You were, in short, given the privilege of skipping thirty plus episodes and still not missing out on anything.Now, after three decades of yawning in front of “The Bold and the Beautiful,” we are panting as we follow “The Fast and the Furious.”

Having already had a hard time trying to follow the breakneck speed at which things have been developing since January 25, you can imagine what a torture it is not only when you are away for a couple of days, but also when all hell decides to break loose in those very same couple of days and you are left with the excruciating task of trying to figure out what was and is going on.

Suddenly, you are sitting at the edge of your couch, breathlessly trying to look for a rerun of the previous days while quickly flipping to today’s episode and worrying about how much you might miss in the few seconds between this and that.

While the pace at which things have happened since January 25 hardly left Egyptians a chance to catch their breath, and forcefully snatched the population from a state of utter stagnation to one of unprecedented action, the way events are unfolding now is an entirely different story.

Throughout the 18 days of protests, we were all waiting for the regime to fall and fearing what might happen if it didn’t, may be occasionally coming up with alternative scenarios that in most cases seemed bleak and unpromising.

Yet, as anxious and apprehensive as we were, we understood what we wanted. We had a clear vision, a well-charted path, and one common dream… now we are left wondering if we still retain any of those.

After February 11, when the revolution seemingly came to a glorious closure with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, a communal sigh of relief shook the entire country only to be cut short by the realization that while the regime might have fallen, the fruits of its relentless “divide and rule” tactics are now rising; and instead of trying to work on figuring out how to build a post-revolution Egypt, our one and only preoccupation has instead become understanding the pre-revolution Egypt.

There is not a more mind-boggling example than Saturday’s attack on a Coptic church in Cairo over some interfaith love story/marriage—the on-vogue trigger for most of the latest sectarian clashes in Egypt. Tension between Muslims and Christians is not new to Egypt and occasional majority-minority strained relations are quite common in different parts of the world, yet the case now is absolutely different as the specter of a nation-wide civil strife looms over the newly-”liberated” people.

I am not generally a member of the camp that easily adopts conspiracy theories and that is why I am not going to point fingers at “remnants” of the old regime as most Egyptians automatically do when similar conflicts break out and which I personally view as the easy way out of those crises that have befallen the country since the toppling of the regime.

In fact, I view the matter in much simpler terms: the former government had raised a few monsters and while the former departed, the latter stayed. Now, we are left to deal with them.

For decades, the regime has been playing a “dirty”—excuse my French— game with Islamists and ultraconservatives, a.k.a. Salafis, in order to maintain a web of extremely intricate power-relations between Muslims and Copts, and between the regime and its subjects. There is an Egyptian saying that best applies to the strategy the government followed with Islamists—giving something with your right hand and taking it back with the left one.

Islamist-leaning factions—moderate or extremist—had always been suppressed on the grounds of the threat they posed to the “civil state” the regime claimed Egypt is and in order, of course, to allay the fears—be they justified or not—of the United States and Israel as far as the Iranian model is concerned.

Yet while Islamists were hunted down, persecuted, and put to jail, they were in other ways encouraged, empowered, and assigned a major role in the country’s domestic policies.

Islamists were given free rein in poverty-stricken districts throughout Egypt, where they brainwashed the people into believing that Islam forbade rebelling against the ruler, and that whatever misery they were suffering was a test from God and that passing this test is what would grant them a place in heaven after death.

They were occasionally, and rather implicitly, given the green light to bully or publicly condemn Copts so that the latter would resort to the government for protection and, therefore, never strive toward a democracy that might bring to power the potential perpetrators of a Coptic holocaust.

The same Islamist card was used by the former regime with the West to guarantee remaining in power and to evade any pressure for political reform, which indeed worked at the beginning of the revolution when several Western heads of state stated, even if not in so many words, that Mr. Mubarak could be a dictator but was indispensible for his outstanding record of keeping religious movements at bay. Islamists were vital for the survival of the regime, which derived the biggest part of its internal and external support from fighting the monster it created.

Now that the regime is gone, the “monster” is able to break all the shackles and all geared up for making a full reality of what has until recently been to a great extent a legend. No longer under the mercy of a government that pats on its shoulder with one hand and slaps it on the face with the other, they are now more eager than ever to abandon their mortifying place as instruments and assume the new role of masterful players in the “It’s our turn” orchestra.

Let’s just hope we don’t end up listening to our requiem and let’s not leave the concert hall for a split second. This is a performance that allows no intermissions and missing one single note might very well herald our perdition. Let’s not go anywhere for only then can we be the tenors of our own fate and the vocalists of the new anthem for the new Egypt.