Pictures from the Revolution

These are some pictures I took at the end of November when there were protests in the week before scheduled parliamentary elections (and dozens of revolutionaries were killed and maimed). In the background you can see the wall that was constructed to keep demonstrators away from the Ministry of the Interior.



You can see the tanks and barbed wire that blocked the building where I had my Arabic lessons.

Tents in Tahrir

Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 4:30pm

Interpellated Subjects in Tahrir Square

All of this week, Tahrir Square has been under civilian control and revolutionaries have shut down the streets around the square. Over the past few weeks, there have been camps set up, and there were attacks on protestors last week, but people came back stronger and more determined than ever, which has been very impressive. People are extremely angry at the failure of the government (the PM’s office and the military) to enact the promised and demanded changes, and by all accounts things have a much different, and more tense feel than they have for some time.

I want to explain, briefly, what civilian control of Tahrir Square means from my point of view. This week, when I arrived downtown (for my Arabic lesson) by Metro, as always, I exited onto the Square. This is a huge Metro station, probably the largest in the system. It includes a maze of undergrounds tunnels and, I am guessing, between 10 and 12 street exits. So, as I approach the street exit, there is a group of young revolutionaries who are checking ids and bags and patting people down. Men and women. Often I am struck by their youth—many teenagers. Always, I have been struck by their professionalism and politeness.

At the start of the week, I only had my university id, which I showed them. They preferred a passport, but were fine with what I had. They seriously searched my bag. And offered an extremely friendly, “Welcome.” Then I came up to the street where you can see hundreds of tents and thousands of people gathered around and a couple of stages. Last week, when there were tents and demonstrators in the Square, but the streets were still open, there were civilians directing traffic and providing security inside the Square. There are also checkpoints at all of the streets that lead to the square. It is, as I said, tense in many ways, but I am impressed by the efficiency and sophistication of such an extensive operation. Their goal is to keep out thugs and police (sometimes one and the same) to prevent attacks on protestors. There have been a few, but they have done their job and held the square. It is not clear what the police will do, which is, I believe, a cause of the tension.

Throughout this week, I was also struck by a relative normalcy on many of the streets around the Square. Many businesses were open and people were doing their thing. (KFC and Arby’s were closed; McDonald’s looked open; there was a cadre of street vendors there to fill the void.) The revolutionaries had blocked the Mugamma government building for several days, but I was really struck, in a good way, with the ability of the revolution to coexist with a certain normalcy. I am not sure if this makes sense, or if it somehow represents a failure in that the goal may be to create a certain abnormalcy. Certainly the activists have effectively disrupted things. The area of the city they control is really the epicenter of the city (and I think few cities have a single epicenter that would be the equivalent to Tahrir).

So why are people carrying on with their lives and business? Perhaps it is because a certain fear is gone. Perhaps it is replaced by a newfound fearlessness. Does this coexistence constitute a sort of tacit or passive support for the revolution, and if so is this a good thing? I like the way that it draws everyone in, whether willing, as in my case, or not, as in the case of my Arabic teacher for example.. (I am much more trusting than I am when uniformed people check me elsewhere.) Everyone needs to show id and have their bags checked. Or follow civilians directing traffic. In doing so, unavoidable though it may be, we are accepting the revolution. It may be Althusser’s idea of interpellated subjects (I should probably be reading his essays on ideology now!)... The conditions produce the subjects.

Football and revolution

As folks may have heard, there were major demonstrations last week after police attacked a gathering of families of the martyrs. Tahrir Square was retaken by demonstrators on Tuesday night into Wednesday. Since it received a good bit of media coverage (and I was not there), I won’t go into the details of what happened, but I am intrigued by a sidebar related to a big football scheduled for Wednesday.

On Wednesday night, there was slated a big football match between arch-rivals Ahly and Zamalek, with the season nearing the end. I can’t think of an appropriate comparison for folks in the US, but this is a huge rivalry and this was the first match between the two sides since the end of the revolution. Ahly was up a few points up in the standings with the season nearing the end, so Zamalek was in a tough position to catch up.

Relatively early in the day on Wednesday, it was announced on Reuters and elsewhere that the match was postponed. I understood why the authorities wished to cancel an event that had the potential to destabilize things further. But they changed course and it was announced that the match would be held Wednesday evening.

I was confused at first, but came to understand it through some conversations with friends. First, the background is that the ultras, militant groups of football fans, had organized in January and February to defend the revolution and, along with younger members of the Brotherhood, were on the frontlines. By all accounts, their role was heroic (and partly inspired by their own experiences of police brutality). There was some coverage of the ultras on CNN recently, so you can get some background. Frankly I myself had not fully appreciated their role though it has received some coverage.

On Wednesday morning, it looked like demonstrators, with the support of the football ultras, had control of Tahrir Square. If the match were cancelled, demonstrators would have probably stayed in the square on Wednesday and Thursday, and probably been joined by others on Friday. But with the match on, the ultras left the square (disappointing some activists).

This morning (Sunday), when I came downtown, there is a small encampment in Tahrir, but traffic looks to be flowing freely.

The match was a 2-2 tie (which amounts to a victory for league leaders Ahly).

Reverse osmosis water filter

The water in Cairo is very heavily treated and chlorinated. There does not seem to be a problem of parasites and bacteria in the city water supply, but the result is not so tasty. It is probably not immediately dangerous to drink the water, but the consensus is that over time it may be unhealthy due to the high chlorination levels. (If the fading colors of our clothing are any indication of what our insides would look like, I would be concerned.) So since we moved here, we have been drinking mineral water.

First, we bought cases of large 1.5 liter bottles. Then, frustrated with all of the plastic we were consuming (even though disposed bottles are often reused by someone in the city), we upgraded to refillable 19 liter jugs which were less expensive and better for the environment.

We paid a little bit more than $2 for a bottle. At first, we operated it with a basic hand pump which never worked especially well.

Then we hit the jackpot. A friend who was leaving sold us a water cooler—office style—shown here.

This worked great—it was hot and cold

Over time, however, there is also concern about the mineral content in drinking water, also with regard to long-term cumulative effect. A few friends had installed filtration systems. We have a small shower-head filter that we to soften the water for bathing. When the plumber was here installing it, we talked about it, particularly with regard to an infant. The conversation shifted to drinking water, and he pointed out the mineral content, which was labeled on the water we were drinking. Many of the minerals are very hard for a baby to process (and possibly for an adult as well.)

So our latest, and perhaps final, move is a reverse osmosis five-stage water filtration system, connected to the faucet, which you can see here. It is quite impressive. And the water tastes great. One of the filters is visible, and you can see the color of it after a little bit more than two months of use. We are due for our first filter change in a couple weeks, so I will be interested to see what everything else looks like.

On police and security

Over the past few months, there has been a lot written about security and safety in Cairo after the revolution, mostly as a result of the disappearance of the police (or their reduced numbers or their decreased effectiveness for a range of complicated reasons). Even the New York Times got into it about a month or two ago, and people feel insecure, mostly with good reason. In these situations, it is hard to distinguish fact from impression (people’s fear of crime, and the state’s response often has very little direct relationship to the actual crime rate), but things have changed here in a way that legitimately make many people feel unsafe. In our well-to-do neighborhood, the concerns are different than those in other, often more vulnerable, areas, but there are extremely legitimate concerns.

Very basically, under Mubarak, there was a corrupt and brutal police force. During the revolution, the police disappeared completely (and in many cases instigated violence and looting and other destabilizing things) and then gradually returned, in fits and starts. During the revolution, neighborhoods took it upon themselves to set up patrols and provide security, essentially civilians providing a necessary service that the state neglected to provide. This was all remarkably well organized, especially considering how rapidly communities were forced to organize (literally over the course of couple hours). Often civilians also took up traffic posts during rush hour.

Today, the police are not present at their previous level, and, for those who are on the streets, the kind of attitude that dominates many police departments is gone. It is no longer clear that they can behave with impunity, or are even the ones in control. For me, all of this came to the forefront in something that happened in New Maadi, near where we live, about two weeks after the end of the revolution, as police were slowly beginning to return to the streets.

In Algiers Square, a microbus driver was stopped by a police officer who was known in that area for harassing drivers. (At this point, I should add that my understanding of what happened is not very authoritative—it is compiled from what I remember reading in several newspapers at the time and online since, and from talking to people, so my understanding of the facts is limited.) One driver stood up to him, in a way that seems like it would not have happened before the revolution, and in an ensuing scuffle the cop shot the driver. Then, the crowd came to the driver’s aid and attacked the cop, beating him up pretty badly. The initial reports were that both were killed, though I don’t think that either one was. The crowd, led by other microbus drivers, burnt a few police vehicles in the area and even ran up on the cop’s home though they did not do anything (which I initially took as evidence of how this cop was familiar to people though I think they may have found his id card). This cop, it was also either known or learned, was the son of a well-known high-ranking officer. Eventually the military came into to rescue the police, who stayed away from all of Maadi for at least a week afterwards as I recall, which resulted in the cancellation of the rest of the public school week (or delayed its resumption at least). With the police gone, the youth directed traffic. Lots of ramifications in the short term.

In the long term, this seems to be one incident among many, but it looks like part of a very messy, and occasionally violent, transition from a system where the police act with impunity to a system where they are held accountable. Part of what is described throughout the city are examples of police becoming increasingly passive, unwilling to get involved as they do not know if they will have appropriate support, or if the people will turn against them. So they are much less effective. Yet, despite the chaos of what happened in New Maadi, it does seem to suggest the possibility of an alternate order that does have accountability built into it. And ultimately I think that is what people want and what people deserve—security with accountability. My sense is that the overwhelming majority of Cairenes want an increased effective police presence, without a return to the old regime. Accountability has to involve meaningful legal and other processes. (What about democratic elections of police officers by the communities they serve?) I also think the combination that emerged—citizen security, other private measures, a moderated police force—can achieve a certain kind of effective balance. Something that allows us to imagine a system other than one where all security is handled by the government. I certainly hope so.

In events like this one, a new dynamic is being formulated. The re-formation of security apparatus can result in its reformation, as everyone learns and understands the new roles that are expected of them. While I am not sure my optimism is warranted, I do believe that an effective system of accountable policing is being formulated (inevitably perhaps, through events like Algiers Square) and hopefully will take hold.

Street Lights

Since we have lived here (three years now), the street lights have not worked. Some of the individual buildings have lights and there are some stores at one end, but the lights on the lamp posts have not worked. Some of these lamp posts were taken down during the revolution for use as road blocks by people in the neighborhood to block cars from driving down our street. Since then, they have laid by the side of the road.

Now, people in the community have apparently gotten together and fixed them— rewired and remounted them without the government. And just a couple of days ago, they were working again* (presuming that they did work at some point in the past) for the first time in at least three years. Here is the view from our balcony.