October 1st, 2002 | The lowdown by Natasha Behbahany

Cairo's Protests

On Friday, I attended the demonstrations in Cairo held at Al-Azhar, the renowned Islamic university. This area is part of Islamic Cairo and includes the Khan al-Khalili market. I know this area well - it is a bustling, lively area - but this particular Friday the streets were blocked off and it was odd to to walk through it without watching for cars.

As I walked towards the center of the action, the call for the noon prayer erupted around me. Men lined the empty streets and prayed and recited in unison. It was a surreal surrounding but even greater was the knowledge that the majority of Cairo was now acting as one, reciting the same words as the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).

I walked on, and I was engulfed by the single voice of hundreds of men around me saying Amin, with the Khutba (speech) bellowing out of the loudspeakers. The speech is part of the Friday prayer and often takes a political tone.

But this day, the Khutba was overshadowed by the presence of demonstrators. The signs were quite generic: "No war, Yes Peace", "Arab Solidarity."

There were women, children and men of all ages. It was initially a formidable presence of people, but everyone was calm and the shouting was anything but intense. I was quite disappointed because last Friday, the demonstrations at Al-Azhar took on a very strong political flavor and got a bit out of control.In fact, the police had to use water hoses and police dogs to subdue the crowd. According to the Cairo Times, the slogans they chanted were much more extreme, for example: "With our blood, we will sacrifice ourselves for Islam."

This week was different - in fact, it seemed mostly diplomatic. Occassionally I cam across slogans such as"When the Jews want to negotiate your rights, give them the only thing they understand : Jihad." But that was rare.

Then, I saw a child carrying a picture of President Mubarak and I realized that this demonstration must be state-sponsored. It would certainly explain the mass produced signs and funny red hats that reminded me of Chuck-E-Cheese birthday hats. The hat-donning crowds gathered at the top of a hill, and I quickly lost interest. There was little evidence of genuine political feeling here. Even if there is popular consensus against the United States, it did not surface on a large-scale at this demonstration. In fact, after a while, the crowd seemed to just dissolve.

People were walking back in their own small groups dragging the posters on the ground, and carrying the hats in their hands. It struck me as odd: people became political actors for an hour and then, literally and figuratively, took off their political hats and resumed their normal lives.

The real kicker of political apathy was what happened to the big picture of Mubarak. The child carrying it had somehow ripped it. Some young men took hold of it, half-heartedly tried to mend it, and then ripped it up into neat pieces to use as derriere protectors while sitting on the ground!

Despite Friday's "demonstration" there is evidence of real political expression in Egypt and it is being met full force by the authorities. Two Palestinian students from my university, the American University in Cairo (AUC), were beaten by the police after they tried to bring an unauthorized demonstration out of campus and onto public streets. The university was completely blockaded by police and no one was allowed to leave for a few hours.
Since then, the university has been constantly surrounded by police until this week, when one entrance for the university was opened. The increased security has not made me feel uneasy or particularly safe.

I blend in easily with the Egyptian population and so I have not received any misguided hatred by locals. However, the Egyptian police will not hesitate to use force against anyone - whether it seems warranted or not.

There is no existence of civil liberties here, and human rights groups have become outraged at the reported use of toruture against detained civilian demonstrators.

Whether these demonstators are what I would call "real" demonstrators or those just posing to care, makes no difference to the police. The greater concern is to shut down any possiblity of political reform in Egypt, not stopping war in Iraq. For its own reasons, the state wants to appear "democratic" in allowing these staged demonstrations. However, do not be fooled: those who are seeking real change in Egypt, are quickly muted.