The Waiting Game

Today I heard quite a different story about Egypt. A new perspective I’ve never considered. It’s all about patience. It’s a waiting game.

*Paraphrased, and sentences in no particular order*

Ahmed: It’s a waiting game. We cannot fight from the outside and from the inside. On the outside, we have Europe and the U.S. mad because we are trading with and becoming closer to Russia and China. Internally, we are fighting terrorism. So the intellectuals and those associated with NGOs are saying “stop, just stop” (to the protestors and the dissent). We are waiting for things to change, and I believe that the president wants democratic reforms in Egypt. 

What of the Egyptian military controlling so much wealth and power. Does it truly want democratic reform that would threaten that?

Ahmed: The world runs on power, and it’s hard to give all that up. It’s also hard when you have nobody to give it to (i.e. no well organized political force to be trusted outside of the military, as the MB has been outlawed). I am reading between the lines, that’s how I know that’s what he wants. But security is the most important thing right now, and terrorism must be eliminated. 

Do you think things will change to realize the goals that were first articulated in 2011 or do you think the status quo is the way it will remain?

Ahmed: Things are already changing. I mean, I just kicked a police officer out of my house. I would never have been able to do that before. You see, you have to “give them another face’, meaning that you can approach them as someone who protects you rather than someone to be opposed to. I go downstairs on Jan. 25 and ask a group of officers, “Is it safe? Can I go out?” Their faces change and they say, “Of course! Go! Go! We will protect you.” I go to Talat Harb square and ask why there are so many police officers there. They say, “It’s Jan 25.” I ask, “Is it safe? Can I go to the square?” They respond: “Please go! We are here to keep you safe.” There are two faces to the police, and I want a dialogue. I don’t want to oppose them. I respect them and the military. I want to say, “Let’s have democratic reform after 30 years of this bullshit.” If they say no, khalaS, then that’s ok. But I want that friendly, civilized dialogue. 

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“Ahmed”’s remarks reminded me that the situation here is more complex than “support” and “opposition” to the current regime. People have mixed identities and allegiances. Wealth and power have “literally married each other,” so you cannot exclude one group without excluding another. MB, the military, and business, the holy trinity of Egypt, are all intertwined in a way that dialogue is a more palpable course of action than blind protest or alliance. Lives are entangled, politics are complicated, and social life is divided. A reminder of the complex state of the world.

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I also learned some unsettling things about the “private” sphere today. Ahmed was apparently scolded by the doorman/guard downstairs for having girls up to his apartment, saying that it was risking the reputation of the building. Ahmed waived off the man, so the man went to the police. The police came to investigate. Apparently, such “cases” are of great interest to the police because it is exciting to deal with women with “low morals” (definitely not my words), for reasons to which I will leave to the reader’s imagination. The doormen/guards are part of a union that has sway over who lives in their buildings can be turned out or forced to live elsewhere if they cause trouble. The boundaries between the public in the private are blurred here in a way that I never really understood, especially when it comes to personal privacy and the proper boundaries between authority and the home. A police officer waltzing into your house to ask about girls? The threat of having someone “filing a report” about this at the station? 

As Ahmed says, “welcome to the third world. We have the laws on paper but their practice is totally different, and everyone understands that.”

The world is complex, as are the blurred lines between public and private and relationships with authority and loyalty. 

Half of me is totally appalled, the other is fascinated and wants to know more.

I'm glad I came to Egypt.