Nocturnal Cairo

After midnight, the city is transformed. One of the world’s most nocturnal metropolises, late night Cairo bears little resemblance to its daytime counterpart. On an August night, I visited this city with A., my oldest friend in Egypt whose love for nighttime Cairo is matched only by his affinity for epic walks.

We set out from A.’s apartment near the Ministry of Interior at 2am. The ministry complex, a light pink fortress surrounded by tanks, barbed wire and black-uniformed police, was the site of some of the worst violence during Egypt’s 18-day revolution and subsequent street clashes. Usually buzzing with the deployment of foot soldiers across the city in blue cage-like trucks, the area is mercifully still as we walk away from it down a narrow alley.

Most shops and restaurants are closed at this time, but on nearly every block a kiosk is still open to sell packaged snacks and drinks. A recent shortage of bottled water has led to price gouging, so I pay almost double for a small bottle. Hours after sunset and despite the occasional breeze, Cairo is still hotter than I care for. Bits of ice floating in the water soothe my dry throat.

There are a few other shops open as well. Barbers in Cairo often keep late hours, so when we pass a storefront window, I’m not surprised to find fluorescent light illuminating a couple of middle-aged men getting shaves. At one corner, a young storeowner sits in his eyewear shop; it’s not clear whether he expects to do business at this time or is just taking refuge here from his parents’ home.

A half hour into our walk, we turn down a wide boulevard lined with shuttered shops. Blissfully quiet in the middle of the night, A. reminds me that this is Cairo’s main market for used electronics. A few hours earlier, vendors were hawking goods that were stacked on tables spilling from the sidewalks into the road. Now it is so desolate that A. recommends we not linger; people don’t come here to take walks, so someone might think we were trying to steal something.

We walk down the middle of the road, cars passing occasionally until we reach Opera Square. Cairo’s opera house was built here by Khedive Ismail in 1869 but burned down a century later. An ugly parking garage stands in its place. This square is the intersection of several busy downtown streets and neighborhoods, and I’ve never seen it this empty. Groups of people spot the square, some sitting by a statue in the middle, others walking across to the far side. Without the burgeoning crowds, this place I’ve been dozens of time seems enormous. I snap a few pictures, pleased to do so without attracting the standard overdose of attention.

A. and I walk through the side streets. Though we pass people nearly every block—a shop owner tending to his bodega, a pair of security guards dozing off in plastic chairs, groups of men at an outdoor café—it’s the quietest I’ve ever seen Cairo. A motorcycle carrying three young men—a common appearance in Cairo—whizzes by us and the driver asks us directions to a 24-hour fast food restaurant without stopping. An ambulance passes in the other direction; unnervingly, its driver also asks for directions.

Eventually, we wind back towards the Nile. Before the river comes into view, we notice the neon lights on its bank and the electronic music pulsing from boats docked there. The crowd is smaller than usual, but horse-drawn carriages are still parked in the gutter and the sidewalk is full of young people: vendors of roasted corn on the cob, juice and popcorn; night revelers who take refuge from Cairo’s strict social norms on floating rule-free parties; and curious onlookers. A. and I strain our necks to catch a glimpse of the female dancers employed on the boats to attract customers, but every time we look we see only men dancing with each other.

Passing by dozens of nearly identical boats, we climb to the top of a bridge, passing two street children sleeping on the stairs despite the clamor of music, honking and yelling. From up here, the boats’ lights reflect on the river’s dark surface. The sun is not yet visible, but its proximity brightens the sky slightly, highlighting the layer of smog that hangs over this city, both day and night.

Sin City: Cairo

The past three days have been full of revelry as Cairo marked the end of Ramadan in typically loud and rambunctious fashion. Many Cairenes often escape to one of Egypt’s many beaches for the holiday, and those who don’t leave spend the afternoons at home with family before descending on the downtown neighborhood where I live. It was a relief when I remembered that all these people had come out in celebration rather than protest.

On the last night of Ramadan, young men waited—queued would be too generous a description—one block down from my building for the local liquor store to open. For a reason unknown to me (infant industry?), imported alcohol is not easily available in Egypt. A few local beers that taste equally bland, a couple of overpriced Egyptian wines, and homemade liquor known for its tendency to cause blindness are available in outlets spotted across the city. The shop on my street made the shrewd business decision to open at midnight on the last night of Ramadan. Closed for a full month, none of the beers were cold but that mattered little to the desperate customers.

I discovered the results of that decision when I woke up the next morning (afternoon, actually) and left my apartment. On the gray cobblestone sidewalk outside of my building, I stepped on the shattered remnants of a green beer bottle, part of the Stella brand label still distinguishable. The neighborhood was quiet for that time of day, as people slept off the previous night’s outing and sat at home with family. Crossing the street, I stole glances at a teenager on the opposite sidewalk drinking from a brown paper bag. At the end of the block, a small truck had backed up onto the sidewalk, replenishing the local shop’s beer supply while a line of customers streamed out the door.

Where the heck am I, I thought. This isn’t the ultra conservative behavior one might expect from a country now ruled by the “extremist” Muslim Brotherhood. And alcohol was not the only vice in ample supply this weekend; I caught more than a few wifts of hashish in the streets. Maybe that explains why on the second night of eid (holiday) I saw a guy lying calmly on the roof of his friend’s car as he drove around downtown.

End of Ramadan

Mostafa only ever calls to ask one thing: Are you going out tonight?

I knew to expect that when I answered the phone yesterday just after dusk, but then he added: It’s very important that you come out with us tonight and tomorrow.

Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan, the month of daytime fasting and nighttime revelry celebrated each year by a billion Muslims around the world. For four weeks, most Egyptians keep the following schedule: sleep for as many hours of daylight as possible (work days are reduced to six hours and productivity falls sharply), break the fast as the sun dips under the horizon, quick nap, eat some more, go out shopping or to cafes, eat as much as possible before sunrise, head back to sleep. I’ve been back in Cairo for the last few days of Ramadan, and my sleeping schedule has followed the Egyptian norm but my eating and drinking habits have been a bit different (more on that in my next post).

The fasting ended yesterday at sunset, as I was riding on the back of my friend Travis’ motorcycle from the gym (where Travis and I were the only ones sneaking in sips of water in the bathroom). On Qasr al Aini Street downtown, people handed out dates to passing cars and cyclists. The skies filled with the call to prayer as the last rays of sun leapt up from the horizon, and the city breathed a sigh of relief that it had survived another Ramadan.

After eating and showering, I went out to meet Mostafa and his friends, who have become my friends in the past six months. Downtown was bustling with families out shopping and young men taking refuge together from spending time with their families. Despite the helicopters circling above the city for no apparent reason, the night was marked by an air of pure joy, rare in Egypt during the past year and a half of political instability and economic uncertainty.

I found my boys on a side street that is usually quiet, but tonight people spilled over into it from the main avenues. They were standing, six of them, against a parked car drinking soda and smoking cigarettes. I kissed everyone hello on both cheeks, sharing in the holiday spirit. We talked for about an hour before meeting up with a few more guys on the corniche to ride a felucca (a small sailboat) on the Nile.

One of the guys bought warm beers from a local shop that had just opened, and we began drinking as the boat pushed away from the dock. We were not alone, though, as dozens of other feluccas passed by as well as the loud, tacky flat bottom boats that blare electronica across the calm, dark water and sometimes feature female dancers. Getting onto the Nile provides a refuge from the crowdedness of Cairo as well as many of its social restrictions.

We sailed about for several hours, often circling around a defunct fountain in the middle of the river that we briefly considered trying to climb onto. We drank and smoke and ate snacks as conversation ranged from favorite Ramadan television series (most popular seems to be about an Egyptian who robbed an Israeli bank, then got into misadventures in various Arab countries as he tried to make his way home) to inside jokes I didn’t always catch.

Our boat’s captain, an old man from southern Egypt dressed in traditional white galabiya and turban, supplied the background music of Um Kalthoum, Egypt’s beloved singer of long, drawn-out poetry. Unhappy with that selection, Mostafa took my phone and played some other Arabic music before settling on a playlist of the top 500 rock n’ roll songs. Song after song, the guys sang along to the Who, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Dylan, the Stones, the Kinks, the Doors, Tom Petty, the Beatles. Beautiful songs about drugs, women, liberation in a time and place where those things are in relatively short supply.

We finally returned to the dock at 3am and went on to a street cafe downtown. I left the boys drinking tea and smoking shisha there at 5am, and I lied in bed listening to the eid prayer, a particularly long one, envelop the city.

Here are some pictures from the second half of our evening, at the cafe.

Mostafa 

Vibration and Beshbeshu

Lashiin the machine

Faisal

Maged

Foreign Policy: Little solace for Syrians in Egypt

By Stephen Kalin

Abu Baraa knew it was time to leave Syria in June 2011 when state security asked him to become an informant against the revolution. To refuse that offer, he reasonably feared, would invite imprisonment and torture if not certain death. Abandoning his home in the suburbs of Damascus, the site of the harshest initial fighting, he shuttled his wife, Um Baraa, and their two children onto a plane to Egypt and joined them there after a month in hiding.

Days later in Cairo, the family attended an anti-Assad demonstration at the Syrian embassy. "It was the first time we felt comfortable enough to participate," said Um Baraa. "I wanted our chants to reach Syria." More than a year later, the fighting back home persists while she and her family continue to wait in Egypt for the day when they can return safely to a free Syria.

Thousands of Syrians have come in the past year to an Egyptian exile that is safer than their war torn homeland, but still full of hardship. Intensifying violence in Syria this summer has accelerated that forced migration -- the United Nations counts more than 1,300 registered refugees while unofficial estimates exceed 10,000. This is smaller than the diasporas in the countries bordering Syria where unofficial estimates exceed 200,000, but for many Syrians who can scrape together the money for a flight, Egypt is preferable to crowded refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey or the sectarian streets of Lebanon.

However Egypt's government, mired in its own tumultuous political transition, has been able to do little for these refugees. Instead, Syrians rely on the charity of others and their own ingenuity to survive. They have banded together to form small communities that secure basic needs like food, shelter, and medical attention. Yet while they hold out hope for the situation back home to improve, and sometimes even participate in the opposition from abroad, their collective frustration continues to mount. more

A Museum Fit For Kings: A Business Today exclusive on the construction underway on the Grand Egyptian Museum — the newest addition to the Pyramid Zone

By Stephen Kalin

The construction of Egypt’s newest engineering and architectural marvel began recently just steps away from the oldest and largest of the ancient pyramids at Giza. Set on a massive track of land measuring nearly 500,000 square meters next to Remayah Square, the Grand Egyptian Museum is set to open to visitors in July 2015.

Tasked with housing the most important and representative artifacts from Egypt’s Pharaonic history under one roof, the Grand Egyptian Museum will eventually display 100,000 artifacts in 32,000 square meters of exhibition space, making it one of the largest museums in the world. 

Advanced information technology will deliver audio visual presentations to visitors in multiple languages, facilitating their journey through thousands of years of Egyptian history. In addition to the spacious galleries, the museum is set to include a library, a theater, lecture halls, classrooms, shops and cafes.

The Grand Egyptian Museum will take over for the Egyptian Antiquities Museum in downtown Cairo’s Tahrir Square, which has become notorious for its overstuffed and disorganized viewing galleries. The early 20th century landmark building will eventually be repurposed, possibly as a cultural and advanced research center. more

PolicyMic: Mohamed Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood Face Challenge From Egyptian Military

By Stephen Kalin

Soon after the Egyptian election commission’s unendurably long press conference on the results of the country's presidential election, the White House released a statement congratulating President-elect Mohamed Morsi. Similar announcements poured in from around the world, cementing the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory with the seal of international recognition. Notably absent from the cacophony was the Israeli government.

Morsi is posed to become the first Islamist head of an Arab state and Egypt’s first non-military president. His victory is a mixed bag for many Egyptians as well as many foreign countries. The victory of a former Mubarak-era political prisoner is Obama-esque in its symbolism, but less rosy are the implications of an Egypt governed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been compared to Mubarak’s former National Democratic Party for its strict hierarchical structure and refusal to accept criticism. more

Business Today: Daily Deals Hit Egypt: One of the biggest internet commerce trends reaches Egypt

By Stephen Kalin

It took nearly 24 hours after deadly football clashes in a Port Said stadium in February before thousands of mourning Egyptians amassed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest police negligence. But Abdellatif Olama, CEO of a new internet-based consumer discount website, was able to observe the public’s negative reaction in real time. “On that day,” he says, “we were having record sales until the moment when it happened, and then the day ended sales with the same number that it had at 6 pm.”

At the helm of Dare’n’Deal, one of the four major daily deal websites in Egypt, Olama can track consumer spending habits closely. Egypt has witnessed healthy growth in this industry for several years, and the so-called ‘Facebook revolution’ in 2011 led to a more than 30% increase in the number of internet users, according to the Ministry for Communications and Information Technology. E-commerce companies wisely regard these new users as a huge growth potential.

Daily deal, or group buying, sites are currently one of the hottest segments in the industry. They were pioneered and popularized by Chicago-based Groupon, which was valued at $12.7 billion (LE 76.69 billion) when it went public last November, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The model is simple: These websites offer customers vouchers for highly discounted services from local merchants. The offer is advertised for a limited period and once a minimum number of consumers express interest in the deal, it becomes active and available to all. Consumers enjoy steep discounts, retailers get new customers and risk-free advertising, and the website takes a hefty commission.

Since its founding in late 2008, Groupon has reaped tremendous profits and expanded rapidly to cities across the US and around the world. Simultaneously, it has witnessed a plethora of copycat sites, chief among them being LivingSocial, which calls into question the sustainability of a business model that seemingly lacks any meaningful barriers to entry.

Fearing economic instability as a result of the Arab spring, Groupon’s global expansion has largely skipped over the Middle East. However, Living Social arrived in Egypt in mid-2011 on the heels of a several regional and domestic Groupon duplicates. more

PolicyMic: Egypt Presidential Election Results Delayed: Is the Army Complicit to Blame?

By Stephen Kalin

CAIRO – The announcement of the final results of last weekend’s presidential runoff elections between Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and former Mubarak prime minister Ahmed Shafiq have been delayed, according to Reuters. The election committee was supposed to declare a winner on Thursday, but now claims that it needs more time to consider appeals from the candidates.

In polarized post-revolutionary Egypt, the announcement of either candidate as the winner has the potential to stir unrest and possibly violence. Anxieties about the return of the Mubarak regime’s brutal repression are just as strong here as worries of the implementation of an Islamic state. While it’s far from clear that the election of either Shafiq or Morsi would lead to these respective scenarios, speculation and fear about them characterize much of the popular discourse. more

PolicyMic: Hosni Mubarak Dead or Alive? The Saga Continues in Egypt

By Stephen Kalin


CAIRO – For the second time in less than a week, rumors are circulating tonight that former president Hosni Mubarak has died in the south Cairo prison where he is serving a life sentence for killing protesters during last year’s January 25 uprising.


Within one hour, Reuters reported that Mubarak’s doctors declared him clinically dead and then that security sources denied that claim and indicated that he was merely unconscious and connected to a respirator. (One might wonder if that’s so much different than the ill 84 year-old’s health condition for the past several years.) more

Post-Mubarak sentencing Tahrir sit-in (photos and videos)

Crowds on Saturday afternoon, hours after the Mubarak trail sentencing was announced:

Protests continue the following day with a symbolic graveyard for future martyrs:

Abu Time: "Excuse me. There are no seats in revolutionary Egypt for those who wants to sit in the shelter of a corrupt regime. Political rights should be denied for life to those who worked in the presidency, any minister's office, the National Party, the Parliament, a political office or committee since the beginning of the previous presidency. We will not accept patching up."

A march on Sunday coming to Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the sight of deadly street battles in November and February, memorialized on the right hand side wall:

Sunday night, cotton candy vendor in the center.

The three banners in Tahrir (no stage this time until the end of the week): 1) Remove the public prosecutor immediately.

2) Implement the political isolation law and stop the elections:

3) Revolutionary trials for the Mubarak regime and the killing of the martyrs.

Tuesday afternoon, the supporters of God arrived. What took them so long?!

The last statement of the military council: Don't dream of a happy life because behind every Caesar who dies...is a new Caesar. And behind every martyr who dies is meaningless sadness and useless tears. (I love the frowning child.)

"Tantawi and Mubarak are one hand" - the picture is based on that which appeared a few months ago on the army's tanks of a soldier precariously carrying a baby and proclaiming the people and the army are one hand. As someone once remarked of the original picture: if the army is the soldier, then the baby is the people.

One of the many vendors in Tahrir, this guy selling SpongeBob SquarePants t-shirts:

"Boycotting (the elections) is treason to the martyrs' blood" - heated discussions ensued as several men with these signs entered the square from Qasr el Nil bridge.

Panorama video from the center of the square:

At the Mohamed Mahmoud entrance to the square, the soccer hooligan Ultras had gathered to protest the sentencing, Shafiq's inclusion in the elections, and the 74 people killed at the Port Said football massacre in February.

Part 2 of the Ultras cheer...sheer electricity!

Nonviolent, Leaderless and Unsuccessful: The False Promise of Egypt's Tahrir Square

CAIRO – Since its beginning, Egypt’s January 25 revolution has been hailed as a model of nonviolent resistance to oppression and also as a portrait of popular, leaderless action. But the most recent Tahrir sit-in, which began last Saturday in response to the sentencing of Mubarak and his top aides, highlights that this tactic is no longer successful — if it ever was at all. more

PolicyMic: Mubarak Arab Spring Trial Result Sparks New Wave of Protests in Egypt's Tahrir Square

CAIRO – Tahrir Square closed to traffic Saturday, as protesters trickled in during the hottest part of the day. By nightfall, numbers swelled to the tens of thousands chanting for the fall of military rule and the cleansing of the judiciary. Groups of disgruntled citizens gathered spontaneously here and in squares across the country in response to the sentencing of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, his sons and his closest associates. more

Leaving the sixth floor

Today I left my sixth floor flat in downtown Cairo which I have called home for the last 11 months. A year ago to this day, I was packing up my room in Vienna and celebrating with a party in my flat there as I prepared to make my move back to Egypt. This time, I’m moving just across the Nile to a friend’s apartment in Dokki, where I’ll stay for three weeks before a summer holiday in the States. I’ll be back in Cairo at the end of August to continue writing and studying Arabic, hopefully in an even grander downtown apartment.

The “view from the sixth floor,” which was the original basis of this blog, has been rendered less literal by today’s move. But it is still figuratively expressive of the goal of my writing: to provide a reflective insider’s view of the significant events and issues taking place in Egypt less than a year and half after the popular uprising that removed Hosni Mubarak from power. I have begun supplementing these blog posts with contributions to PolicyMic, an online news platform, and I am also working on a few freelance pieces which I will post once they are published (inshallah!).

Election graffiti

Replacing the whitewashed walls in Tahrir Square on the corner of Mohamed Mahmoud Street:

PolicyMic: US Should Cooperate with Muslim Brotherhood Candidate Mohamed Morsy If He Wins

Mohamed Morsy’s presumed first place finish in the preliminary round of Egypt’s presidential election paves the way for the most substantial democratic victory for the Muslim Brotherhood, and the entire Islamist movement, since its founding in 1928. As the successor to ousted president Hosni Mubarak comes into slightly more focus, many are wondering how a Morsy victory would affect U.S.-Egypt relations. more

PolicyMic: Egypt Presidential Elections 2012: Results Still Unpredictable

For the past two days, millions of Egyptians have flocked to local schools to cast their votes in the first free and fair presidential elections in their country’s history.

Now that polls have closed, citizens are waiting with baited breath for the results that could determine the success of the revolution. The atmosphere recalls, but certainly surpasses, the national mood of anticipation accompanying the release of thanawwiya amma exam results, which students take in these very schools to determine their academic and professional futures. more

PolicyMic: Islamist or Mubarak Regime? Egypt Presidential Elections is About a Vision, Not a President

When Egyptians go to the polls today and tomorrow, they will vote not so much for a president as for a set of ideas. Among the five candidates with a reasonable chance of victory, there are just two clear and viable visions for the new Egypt — Islamist or felool (former regime). Thus in many ways, this race can be seen as a judgment of the former regime and a trial for the untested Islamist paradigm. more

Graffiti Update: Can't Touch This!

You've got to be quick with the camera in Cairo these days. Beautiful graffiti goes up one day and is painted over the next. Check out this election-appropriate artwork which I saw for the first time six days ago. It depicts  an anonymous general with a sinister grin and a skull and cross bones insignia pulling with his bony, claw-like fingers the strings of the presidential candidate marionettes who are depicted wearing suits, waving their hands and without heads!

This image is on the wall of the American University in Cairo campus, across the street from Hardee's and on the corner of Tahrir Square. To the right of the main image, there still appears the split faces of former President Hosni Mubarak and current Field Marshall Tantawi below the sarcastic phrase, the revolution continues. That image has been around for months. And just around the corner, there is an epic mural depicting a battle scene from ancient Egyptian mythology and meant to be a metaphor for the turmoil and struggle that modern Egypt is undergoing.

All these images, however, were removed recently, as can be seen in the image below which was taken yesterday. I didn't see who repainted the wall, but word has it they were on the government's tab, as has happened before on this street.

Optimistically, the street artists have not missed a beat as they returned to the now fresh canvas with more critical imagery. The image below is in the place where the battle scene once was.

The images are caustic, the artists resilient and the metaphor poignant. Use your weapons of oppression, we will use our tools of expression. Tell us no, we will say why not? Whitewash our art, we will paint something new. It's certainly not every Egyptian's attitude--and there are definitely those who despise the graffiti on this street--but it's one of the voices of the ongoing revolution striving to hold on to the dream of a free society.

The first round of presidential elections begins tomorrow, and it's all anyone can talk about. I'm collecting my thoughts for a pre-election post tonight, and then I'll be in different neighborhoods tomorrow and the next day getting a sense for how the first competitive elections in this great civilization's history will go.

The First Presidential Debate in Egypt!

A week ago, the two candidates polling the highest in Egypt's upcoming presidential elections faced off in the first ever televised debate of its kind in the nation's history. Former foreign minister and Arab League president Amr Moussa barbed with former Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh for nearly four hours on a range of mostly general issues. I watched the debate in downtown Cairo's open-air Borsa cafe, a few hundred meters from Tahrir Square, and contributed reporting to this New York Times piece by David Kirkpatrick.

The debate started half an hour late--Aboul Fotouh was reportedly held up by Cairo's notorious traffic--and followed nearly two hours of pre-debate commentary by a handful of Egyptian media personalities. A comparison was drawn to the first televised presidential debate in the United States in 1960 between Kennedy and Nixon, and of course as a political junkie, comparisons to other debates in the America and Europe were at the back of my mind all night.

The Borsa Cafe--named after the stock exchange which is located beside it--is a maze of pedestrian walkways twisting between beautiful Belle Epoque apartment buildings. Cafes on the ground floors serve outdoor seating areas that blend seamlessly into one another. Dozens of young Egyptian men skirt around the tightly packed plastic tables to bring guests non-alcoholic drinks and water pipes to patrons who range from large groups of young shabab to middle aged couples to old men. The cafe is liveliest on evenings like this, after a hot day, and especially when there is a big event like a football match.

I pulled up a plastic lawn chair in front of a 40 inch flat screen TV and huge speakers rigged up in the middle of a cobblestone path. Seated behind a 30-something year old man and his veiled but opinionated wife and beside a group of university-aged men, I listened as much to their commentary as to the debate itself. Similar crowds had gathered around other television sets nearby, and the difference in timing between one channel's broadcast and another's created an echo of the candidates' speech. It was easy from this perspective, though, to gauge the reaction of a large audience.

Though there are about five top tier candidates, this debate featured just two of them. A young man in my seating area didn't mind much. Asked if he would prefer to see more candidates on the stage at the same time, he said he was satisfied for now with the fact that there was any debate at all and expected to see other candidates pair off in future debates. He's right to be modest; the idea of two people debating in public their credentials for the top job in the nation and thousands of others watching and commenting was unthinkable two years ago. Despite the shortcomings and false promises of the revolution, the barrier of fear has widely been broken.

The debate was split into four quarters, each one featuring three questions addressed to both candidates and then an opportunity for each candidate to pose a question directly to the other one and a response. Most of the pre-arranged questions were soft balls that gave the candidates the opportunity to expand on their stump speeches. The fun came with cross examination!

The sharpest and most repeated points of contention were Aboul Fotouh's claim that Moussa was part of the old Mubarak regime (he endorsed Mubarak for reelection in 2010) and Moussa's claim that Aboul Fotouh was a double personality--a violent Islamist and a peaceful liberal. Aboul Fotouh painted himself as a true opposition figure who was imprisoned and tortured under Mubarak's regime, in whose service Moussa was an employee for several decades. Moussa said he set his own policy as foreign minister, boasted his extensive experience in government, and accused Aboul Fotouh of duplicity. Aboul Fotouh also hits Moussa for having a weaker sense of Islamic law.

After an hour and a half of what had become a tedious back and forth, there was a merciful halftime break during which many of the viewers in the Borsa left. Most people cannot bear to watch more than half an hour of any political debate, so I give credit to the folks who watched the entire first hour and a half. They didn't end up missing much, as the candidates kept hammering home the same few points. By the time the second half ended at nearly 2am, Borsa was nearly empty with just a handful of men still gathered around the televisions. One TV had been switched back to the regular programming of scantily clad women in music videos.

Though there were a few questions on important issues like minimum wages, the debate focused largely on values issues: who's more revolutionary and who's more Islamic? There are major challenges facing the country right now, but the matter of national identity is still crowding them out. The revolution didn't settle that identity issue and it's unlikely that the election will either, but it's still all anyone seems to want to talk about.

As I was leaving the cafe, I asked a few of the stragglers who they thought had won. They both lost! one man responded. Another viewer, a student in Al Azhar University's journalism school and an Aboul Fotouh supporter, said he thought his candidate had done well but not as well as he expected. A third guy told me the debate hadn't resolved much. Whoever was going to vote for Moussa still would, and whoever was going to vote for Aboul Fotouh still would. Those who were undecided might lean more towards Aboul Fotouh, but there's still so much time to decide.

It seems most people are waiting until the last minute to make up their mind. The clock is ticking...

Are Egyptians forced to protest?

It's early Friday morning, my favorite time to be awake in Cairo. The streets are empty, the birds are chirping (yes, there are birds even downtown), and the air is cool and breezy. I've opened the doors to my shallow balcony to let in some fresh air while I write a final paper, and then I wondered how long I have until the chants from Tahrir become too loud for me to ignore.

The past week has been marked again by excessive violence and death in Cairo. Last Friday night, I watched from the sidewalk of Talat Harb Street as protesters from Tahrir (mostly supporters of disqualified Islamist candidate Hazem Abu Ismail) marched to the Ministry of Defense in Abbasiya. A few hours later, they arrived and, according to reports, were attacked by neighborhood thugs and plainclothes policemen. Revolutionary youth soon joined their Islamist compatriots in solidarity.

This has happened before in this same location. According to an account by Ahdaf Soueif in her new book, Cairo: My City, Our Revolution, protesters went to the Ministry of Defense weeks after the fall of Mubarak to protest SCAF. There they were met with rocks, bottles and clubs from angry residents and government-funded thugs. Soldiers looked on passively as Egyptian killed Egyptian, intervening only days later.

The story this week seems much the same, except for the first time the majority of the protesters are Islamists and the Islamist politicians (Brotherhoods, Salafis, etc) are for the first time condemning the violence and the state neglect, whereas they turned a blind eye to the same conduct for the past year when mainly secular Egyptians were dying in the streets.

The military intervened the day before yesterday, and within minutes the violence stopped--which begs the question why they didn't intervene earlier. (Perhaps they adopt the boys-will-be-boys approach to nation rearing.) There is a clear pattern to these extended violent episodes. A peaceful protest turns to an exchange of rocks and tear gas. The ante is upped by protesters with Molotov cocktails and by police with bird shot and eventually live ammunition. Infiltrators attack protesters with clubs and knives before protesters detain them (somehow, mercifully, without killing them). News of the violence spreads, disrupting traffic and local business, stealing from ordinary Egyptians any dwindling hope for stability, and often attracting apolitical sympathizers to the protesters' cause. After a few days, the military rolls in, arrests a few civilians for instigating violence, talks about the foreign hand, and warns anyone from attacking the army.

When these things happen, the next logical question is, what will happen on Friday? Since January 28, 2011, the first Friday of Rage that sparked the Egyptian revolution, Fridays have been the most common day for protest because the country has the day off and most people gather at mosques at midday. Often, the big issues of the week will hang around to be resolved by the size of the Friday turnout in Tahrir. After the army cleared a three-week sit-in in Tahrir last summer, Friday protests became irregular in occurrence and size. But they still play an important role in the mostly peaceful resistance to the military regime.

What strikes me today is whether Egyptians are protesting of their own volition or whether they have been overtaken by the political momentum of their actions. SCAF announced yesterday their continued intention to transfer power to an elected president by July 1 (or the end of May even, if someone wins 50% of the vote in the first round) and warned anyone from approaching their headquarters in Abbasiya. Granted, protesters have no reason to trust SCAF given that they have amended decisions like this in the past and have just spent the week passively watching Egyptians kill each other.

Nonetheless, the talk on Twitter this morning indicates that protesters will gather (not clear yet whether in Tahrir, Abbasiya or somewhere else) to demand that SCAF stick to its July 1 timetable. The question thus begs to be answered, why protest in demand of something that has already been conceded, promised and re-promised? The only explanation I can reason is that an expectation has been set in these sorts of situations for massive popular turnout, and if that is not achieved, the opposition movement is weakened in the face of the regime.

Many Egyptians are rightfully upset by the week's events, worried that the past year and a half of violence and instability might come to naught, and doubtful of SCAF's true intentions; they are, of course, entitled to protest. But do they really want to, or are they being forced to by circumstances?

As I finish writing, the chants in Tahrir have begun: "Revolution! Revolution!" "Down, down with military rule!" "The people want the implementation of God's law!" From my balcony, they are interspersed with occasional car horns, the sound of early bird shopowners rolling down the metal doors of their storefronts, and the calls of the junk man: "Bikya! Bikya!" (From the Italian, vecchio, or old stuff!) The Friday routine begins...

Don't blink!

Don't blink, or you'll miss at least a dozen major changes to Egypt's presidential race!

When I wrote about this topic earlier this month, the issue of Abu Ismail's eligibility to run had just surfaced. A few days later, I listened to him speak to supporters at a local mosque as he denied in absolute terms the veracity of the election commission's claim that his mother had held American citizenship, and accused the Egyptian, American and Israeli governments of conspiring to prevent Islamists from coming to power.

A week later, the election commission announced that Abu Ismail was officially being disqualified from the race along with nine other candidates including former Vice President Omar Suleiman and Muslim Brotherhood-backed Kheirat al Shater (both of whose candidacies came as a surprise in the first place!). Disqualified candidates had 48 hours to appeal the decision, but none of the rulings were changed. Most candidates resolved themselves to this fate, but Abu Ismail has continued to fight it.

Since that initial ruling, Abu Ismail supporters began a sit-in outside the electoral court in Heliopolis, which some reports claim forced an early adjournment of the court to protect the security of the judge. The Abu Ismaili chants are partisan and/or religious: "the people want Hazem Abu Ismail," "the people want the application of sharia Allah," but also popular: "down, down with military rule." Perhaps most discomforting, some of them have been waving the black "flag of jihad" and some leaders have made and then retracted statements to the effect of: we have tens of thousands of supporters willing to die for us. Most of this is posturing, but it's still unnerving.

A year ago, these Salafis were condemning the revolution as an immoral act of rebellion against the ruler (they're very big on obedience) and defaming elections as forbidden because they place the people's will above that of God. Then they started forming political parties like Al Nour and Al Wasat, which won a significant number of seats in the parliament. Seemingly pleased with their electoral success, two Salafi candidates for president emerged.

More than their radical positions on Christian and women's rights, the peace treaty with Israel, tourism, etc, most people seem frustrated with this blatant hypocrisy, which can also be found in the Muslim Brotherhood. Wisely fearing a backlash from liberals and foreign governments, the Brotherhood promised early on not to field a candidate for president and even kicked out a member for declaring his candidacy (Aboul Fotouh, who is now a front runner). Then it decided to run not one but two candidates (one of whom has since been disqualified)! Now everyone is questioning the Brotherhood's true intentions, and the tide may be turning to the ousted Aboul Fotouh or Amr Moussa, a former Mubarak minister.

At the same time, nearly all the political forces have rallied around what might be considered the most significant achievement of the post-revolution era thus far: the political disenfranchisement law, which prevents top members of the Mubarak regime from running for office for 10 years. This should have been in place from the beginning, but the straw the broke the camel's back was the entrance of Omar Suleiman (former VP and intelligence chief) into the race. (It seems he entered the race in response to the Brotherhood's entrance, to combat the "Islamist takeover.")

For the past two Fridays, thousands of people filled Tahrir to protest the candidacy of Suleiman as well as Ahmed Shafiq, a long-time minister and the prime minister during the revolution's deadliest battles. While both Fridays' protests had a mix of the political spectrum, the long beards, galabiyas and niqaabs of the Islamists dominated the square. They have begun a semi-sit-in, with part of the square blocked from traffic by a huge stage that chants day and night in favor of Abu Ismail and sharia Allah. The atmosphere is quite different from last July's sit-in which was dominated by liberals, secularists and more generally, Cairenes.

More on that atmosphere in my next post tomorrow, the day that the final, definitive list of presidential candidates is announced.

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's Super Hazem!

Taken yesterday heading south on the Corniche towards Maadi. I guess the Lazim Hazim love fest in Tahrir had just ended...

Identity in Egypt's Presidential Elections and Abou Ismail

David Kirkpatrick at the New York Times published this article yesterday about the speculation that has been flaring for the past week about a candidate for the Egyptian presidency and the possibility that his mother acquired American citizenship before her death. The irony is that the candidate, Hazem Saleh Abou Ismail, who officially entered the race just a few days ago, has used populist, Islamist, anti-American rhetoric to propel him to the front of the pack in this presidential contest that still hasn't officially begun yet. Moreover, an Egyptian election law requires all candidates for the presidency as well as their wives, parents and grandparents to hold an Egyptian passport only. A stipulation that was expected to encumber liberal candidates, who often hold dual citizenship, is now coming around to haunt Abou Ismail supporters and affect the race in a major way.

The Abou Ismail campaign acknowledged that the candidate's mother held a green card and spent some time in the US, but denied that she ever acquired citizenship. They sent a delegation to the US to investigate claims that she was registered to vote in California, and the internet has swarmed with conspiracy theories that the US was doctoring documents to disqualify Abou Ismail. Earlier today, Egypt's election committee announced definitively that Abou Ismail's mother held a passport thus disqualifying the candidate. And today, Friday, Tahrir Square and the surrounding neighborhood was filled with bearded men carrying signs with Abou Ismail's face and wearing stickers that read: We will not allow manipulation.

This all makes for some very exciting electoral political drama, and it is illustrative of a growing plurality in the Egyptian political scene which has been dominated by one towering figure at a time for the past 60 years. But regardless of one's political orientation and how the law in question either benefits or harms that position, the law raises some interesting questions about identity.

Egyptians often say that they have been ruled for foreigners for thousands of years, as warring tribes, dynasties and later European powers conquered and reconquered Cairo (whose name means 'the victorious'). The 1952 coup against the British-backed King Farouk (who was of Albanian descent but whose mother was Egyptian) put an Egyptian in charge of the country for the first time. In the wake of the pan-Arab experiment led by Abdel Nasser, Egyptians are very sensitive that they be self-governed. But what does that really mean?

To understand self-government in Egypt, one must first determine what qualifies someone as Egyptian which people have been trying to do for centuries. The electoral law requiring that presidential candidates as well as their wives, parents and grandparents have never held anything other than Egyptian citizenship is one attempt to do so. It makes sense that a country's leader hold no other citizenship, to prevent conflicting allegiances. I can see the argument for the same requirement being applied to his wife as she would be living with him and have a strong influence on him. But to require that a leader's deceased parents or grandparents never have held any other citizenship has seemingly little to do with safeguarding a country's national interests. The thinking is more parochial, along the lines of: if he comes from the sort of family that finds value in societies other than his own, he cannot be trusted.

Certainly this type of thinking is not unique to Egypt, but I would venture to say that in this period of national soul-searching, it appears quite often.

Opening car doors for babes

It's well known that walking the streets of Cairo can be treacherous if you don't watch out for the cars, buses, microbuses, motorbikes, bicycles, donkeys, etc.

Tonight--on my way to a bar to meet up with friends--I came across a car idling in the street and blocking my way. Expecting the male driver to get out, I walked around the passenger's side only to find two women about to enter. Both were shrouded in loose, black cloth. The elderly one struggled to move from the curb to the car, while the younger one--perhaps her daughter--hand her hands full with an infant in swaddling clothes. I reached out like a gentleman to open the car door for the elderly woman, and the younger one thanked me. But then I hesitated for a moment too long and felt as if I had violated some private domain relating to visual and audial contact with two strange woman as well as the proximity to the closed setting of a private car.

I continued on my way, ever more satisfied with the prospect of a beer, and not one block away, I came across an almost identical situation! A car blocked my way, I passed around the passenger side, and found myself opening the door for a young, modernly-dressed woman carrying an infant in swaddling clothes! She thanked me (Merci!) and sat in the car, so I closed the door and, now really feeling like a chauffeur, managed to go one more block to the bar without the same thing happening again.

This will be a sign to you: You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes...

A Wall Crumbles

The Qasr Al Aini wall coming down--the first stone has just fallen from the right side
(a video taken from a friend's camera to be posted ASAP)

The ground under my feet shakes for a full second, maybe more, as one of the giant concrete stones tumbles to the asphalt. On this Friday afternoon, a few dozen young men gather (many at the bidding of a Facebook event page) to tear down one of the seven ad hoc walls that the military installed in downtown Cairo to protect its Interior Ministry headquarters after several bouts of street fighting since late November. For more than three months now, this particular wall on Qasr Al Aini Street, combined with several rows of barbed wire on the other (non-Tahrir Square) side, has locked down a half-kilometer stretch of what was until recently one of the busiest streets in Cairo.

The wall stands next to the Egyptian Institute, which used to hold invaluable manuscripts from Napoleon Bonaparte's three-year scientific expedition/colonial invasion of Egypt at the end of the 18th century. The building was torched during clashes in December resulting from the breakup of a sit-in in front of the cabinet building. Some artifacts were saved, many destroyed. The building is now covered by metal scaffolding, presumably to facilitate repairs, but I only ever see construction workers on the roof pushing around dust and rocks.

Around 5:15pm, the first block falls from the western side of the wall. Men and boys have scaled the 4-meter high wall and push from different directions, while others work on the ground with the help of two long prying sticks and a cloth strap--all improvised tools for this unusual task. The guys take turns explaining to each other the best method for moving the stone, and onlookers chime in their advice from a safe distance below. The stones must be immensely heavy, since young men thick with muscle huff and puff as they try to move just one at a time.

With success in sight, the guys count to three in Arabic and make a coordinated push/pull. The block falls to the ground as if in slow motion, sending bystanders scattering and a cloud of dust pillowing into the air. As the ground shakes, the men leap with satisfaction and a leader among them begins a chant against military rule. The crowd, which is beginning to grow, erupts in cheers and applause, while the guys atop the wall stare down the police standing 100 meters away on the other side as if to say, Whatcha gonna do about that?!

Before long, the guys are back to work on the next stone block of the top row. When I return to the scene three hours later, the top row is on the ground and the second row is on its way. The crowd has grown to about two hundred people, including some women and children. I jump up on one of the discarded stones to watch the men at work. It's a group effort with more than a dozen people aiming at the same goal, but they have a strategy down and each stone takes about 20 minutes.

I spot some friends on the other side of the wall and we trade notes about what's going on. Nobody is quite sure who is actually doing the physical work of disassembling the wall. Some of the guys identify as Ultras, Egypt's notorious football hooligans who played an important role in the revolution and in the February street clashes and who are currently protesting outside the cabinet building. Others deny association with any group.

We're also not sure what to expect from removing the wall. On the other side there are police, and unless they move there could be a violent confrontation. The point is proven immediately when the appearance of reinforcements send the people near the wall scattering back to the safety of the other side. It's a false alarm--nothing to fear right now--but a discomforting hint of what may be coming.

When I pass by the street again around 1am, the wall is now completely horizontal--3 rows deep instead of 3 rows tall. The blocks will have to be moved to the side if traffic is to pass, but perhaps this is a solution--take down the wall to resist the military, but leave it in the street to prevent renewed clashes with the police. The people on the street at this hour have clearly been distracted from removing the wall. There are a few groups of young men talking/arguing and one group seems particular rowdy. Avoiding their heated exchanges, I weave through the discarded stone blocks and peer over at the other side to find just a handful of police talking in groups. If it weren't for the uniforms, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two sides.

A Syrian face in the Egyptian crowd

The Khawaga Experience

Most foreigners, even those who stay for a while and learn the language, have similar experiences being treated as Khawagas (the Arabic equivalent of gringo) in Egypt. You get stares everywhere you go, often peppered with a healthy dose of English phrases ranging from the innocent (Welcome in Egypt!) to the amusing (How can I take your money? and I love you! are my personal favorites). As a Westerner in Egypt, it's assumed you're made of money (which, comparatively, is often close to the truth) and so are constantly offered opportunities to rid yourself of your burdensome cash.

Often the first line in a conversation with a stranger on the street here is, Where are you from?(Sometimes I answer this and then ask, And where are you from? to which they laugh and say, Egypt, of course!) In America, this question is often considered impolite because everyone in America is from somewhere else and the assumption that someone looks different and so is not from here is unacceptable. Not so in Egypt. While the Egyptian identity is complex and multi-faceted, there seems to be an inherent concept among many Egyptians about what an Egyptian looks and sounds like. Some of my halfsie friends (half Egyptian, half American or European) are infuriated when they don't fit seamlessly back into society here and have to explain that they are, in fact, Egyptian.

Personally, I've begun to blend in pretty well. My Syrian, Lebanese and Italian pedigree gives me an ambiguously Mediterranean complexion. I've grown a light beard. I've learned not to overreact to unusual sights like a family of six on one motorbike. I've picked up some of the subtle non-verbal sounds and signals that Egyptians use constantly. And my Arabic has improved to the point where I can navigate almost any situation.

Sometimes--when I'm in a particularly touristic location or with one or more foreigners--all of that means nothing and people just know I'm not from here. But more often these days, I am taken for an Egyptian until I open my mouth. At that point, people ask directly, Where are you from? to which I vary my response depending on the situation. With authorities or people I'm likely to meet repeatedly, I respond with the truth and indulge in their flattery of my Arabic skills. With others--sometimes for fun, other times for the sake of privacy--I switch between two adopted nationalities: Spanish (I lived in Madrid for four months and speak the language) or Syrian (my grandfather's original nationality). Recently, however, people have begun to preempt me with the simple question, Syrian? to which I happily respond affirmatively. I'm not sure whether it's my appearance or accent or what, but every time it happens I become more confident in the Syrian part of my identity!

Being Syrian in Egypt

Being Syrian in Egypt has several effects. First, it makes people speak to me exclusively in Arabic rather than try out their English on me when they know I am coming from America. The Syrian dialect is considerably different from Egyptian, so Egyptians often take my poor pronunciation and limited vocabulary as a manifestation of that difference.

Second, my Syrian self is welcomed much more warmly than my American self. This is a matter of culture, history and politics. Arab culture, though modern in many ways, still values close personal ties as it did a few hundred years ago when tribes were the primary form of organization. There's a saying that goes something like: Me and my brother against my cousin; me and my cousin against the stranger. In my experience, there is an unspoken hierarchy of preference: Egyptians, then Syrians and other Arabs, followed by non-Arabs (and within that last group probably non-Arab Muslims and Westerners first followed by non-Western non-Muslims). When I introduce myself as American, Egyptians are almost always warm and welcoming, responding with the customary compliment The best people! There is then invariably discussion of US foreign policy, Hollywood blockbusters, or work visas.

As a Syrian, though, I am embraced as brother. Part of this is simply that Syrians are Arabs and most of them are Muslim. But Syrians have a special place in Egyptians' hearts. The two countries were united for four years back in the 1950s under Nasser's pan-Arab project, and during protests in the past year, the unifying chant of Egypt and Syria are one hand has been heard often. Both countries have traditionally been centers of power and learning in the region. An Egyptian once even told me that Egyptians think Syrian women are the most beautiful and Syrians think the same of Egyptian women. I'm not sure about that last one, but it does seem to be true that Egyptians have a stronger affinity for Syrians than for any other one people in the world. Lucky me!

Finally, being Syrian in the current political climate elicits sympathy and discussion of the revolution in that country. This has created some challenging linguistic situations for me, as I'm not certain of the most convincing and authentic way to express grief and hatred in Egyptian Arabic, a language that is big on phrases. (A quick example: when somebody dies, the traditional term of consolation in English is I'm sorry, which Egyptians find very strange--unless the person offering condolences was responsible for the death. Instead, they use a call and response that translates roughly to you May your life be long.) So when Egyptians learn I'm Syrian, they usually say what I assume is something nasty about Assad and then I feel unable to respond appropriately. Or they start talking about the details of recent events, which I usually don't follow very closely, and so I become lost.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in one of the more difficult of these situations. I asked a stranger on the street about a protest down the street, and before answering he said, You're not from Egypt, where are you from? I told him I was Syrian and to my utter surprise he responded, Me too! Where are you from?! Shit! I thought, but I recovered and told him Aleppo where my grandfather was born and where I visited relatives two years ago. It turned out he was from Homs, and he had left two months earlier. We talked a little about the events there, about which again I was inadequately informed for a good conversation, and then he asked, So where exactly in Aleppo are you from? I rolled off the name of my cousins' neighborhood, and then found an exit from the conversation before he asked me for the street name.

Despite a few incidents like this, I've found it extremely interesting that people regard me as Syrian and gratifying in a place where identity is so important and the language is so difficult.

Through the Looking Glass

There's not much I can say about this remarkable image. I took this photo today on Qasr Al Aini Street, looking down Sheikh Rihan Street. The wall was built after the December clashes in front of the Egyptian cabinet building. There had been a sit-in there for about a month to protest the installment of a new government by SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, i.e. the de-facto presidency) in the wake of earlier clashes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street. The clashes ended with the building of this and another wall and the gating off of the entire compound that holds the cabinet building and the parliament buildings.

Artists are volunteering to paint these images, in an attempt to honor fallen comrades, challenge the military non-violently, and keep the people's attention on recent events. Painting real images on the walls is just one strategy, but it appears popular and has begun to appear on other walls as well.

One artist I spoke to said, "To them this is a wall, to me it's a canvas." He was working on a wall nearby pictured below, which if I understood correctly refers to a scene described in an ancient Egyptian mythological story. The imagery is not yet clear to me, but the main quote on the wall says, "Let us see the light of the day."

The scaffolding on the left-hand side surrounds the Egyptian Institute, a building that once stored thousands of ancient manuscripts from Napoleon's scientific invasion of Egypt in the late 18th century. It was burned nearly to the ground during the December clashes, only some of the priceless artifacts were salvaged.