Faceless Sheroes of the Egyptian Arab Spring

With the communication blockade lifted by the government, my Egyptian friend, Amany, could finally go to work after a lengthy absence and give an account of what has been going on behind the headlines and cameras. There was no internet – no Twitter and no Facebook. Jokingly she adds that someone has created a group called “Please end the revolution to stop Egyptian girls from gaining weight”. The volatile public demonstrations are well covered by the media, but what goes unseen are the experiences of the Egyptian people in their homes. The working days are still short because of the curfew. To get to work, she has to cross Tahrir Square, the base of the protestors. She says that the situation in Egypt has been a shock to her system. In the past, her extent of giving back to society went as far as volunteerism with no interest in politics. For the first time in her thirty-something years, she is now voicing her political will through partaking in the demonstrations.

Amany says that despite the poverty and high employment levels that have plagued Egypt, the country has had lower crime rates than one would expect under the conditions that many live. However, with the police resources diverted to clamping down on the demonstrations, many neighbourhoods have become terrifying places to live in. The men in her suburb have become neighbourhood watchers in the face of lawlessness that is abusing the political upheavals. Their worst fears as a household of three women is being harmed physically and so they are arming themselves with whatever they can lay their hands on to protect themselves and their property. They have resorted to pushing the couch in front of their apartment door at night, emptying nail polish remover into spray bottles to use as ‘pepper spray’, sleeping with the biggest and sharpest kitchen knives nearby and having a ready pot of boiling oil on the stove to use as weapons. The threat is increased because they live in an apartment next a row of shops that are being vandalised making them more vulnerable. They are constantly looking around the house for what they can use as tools to protect themselves if they are attacked. To comfort each other, they have been sleeping in one bedroom. She says that sleep is alien to them with gun shots going off and men shouting in the streets, trying to scare off the thieves that prowl in the night.

Amany says that many people make a living by earning a daily income and they are suffering badly with normality disrupted. Many people are torn. They want President Mubarak gone, but they also want the protests to end so that they can go back to earning a living and feeding their families. Generational conflicts are rife, even in her family, with mothers and daughters occupying opposite sides of politics. Mothers are unsuccessfully forbidding their daughters from participating in the demonstrations out of concern for their safety, but also for ideological reasons. Some of the older generation see the Egyptian President as a ‘father’ figure and think these public protests are cruel and humiliating to insult a ‘father’ with such venomous demonstrations. Family members are fighting each other based on pro- or anti-Mubarak loyalties. She reports that in the midst of all this chaos and conflict a new sub-culture of co-operation, organisation and community has developed across rich and poor, the educated and the illiterate, men and women. The shock to her, she adds, is how in the crux of such a painful period in Egyptian’s history she has fallen in love with her country all over again. Women are also supporting the demonstrations by providing medical supplies and giving food staples to certain areas of Cairo. Amany says that though she has a Canadian passport as well, “Insha Allah” she is not going anywhere and is not going to stop supporting and participating in the demonstrations until a new dawn comes to her beloved Egypt.