Tahrir was wondeful yesterday. We will forever live off this whiff of utopia. The field clinics are well equipped, people are working hard to keep the square clean, lots of discussions as to political alternatives, and our dreams for all this country could be in the future. So much love, and a new fresh gush of egyptian protestors who have come home from all over the world; everything can wait, masr can't. You find egypt there as you've never known it. 'We' are finally 'a' people, the circle brings us together, the divides are much more frail. We've found in and amongst ourselves a creativity, resolve, bravery, vision, idealism, truth, peace and love as we've never attributed to ourselves. And learnt the extent to which a history of harsh governance has kept the people apart and skewed our images of ourselves, limited our imaginations as to all we could be. Those of us in tahrir will forever be changed by it. Those outside will continue to leave in the fear and doubt that has poisoned us our entire lives and threatens to do so.
The situation outside tahrir is less ideal. We were caught by a group of baltageyya on our way out of wust el balad wed morning, and handed over to the military police who eventually let us go. Up till yesterday noon i would have described the experience as 'terrifying'. Others were not as lucky, some werekept by military police and interrogated very roughly, others were taken to a detention center run by the army in the egyptian museum and beaten up, and still others are yet to be found.Hisham Mubarak center for Human rights and legal aid's entire staff have been arrested and still can't be found, seems the same can be said for Al Nadeem Centre. Journalists are being arrested and released. It's hard to differentiate the popular committees from the baltageyya (thugs). It's hard to tell whether the pro-mubarak thugs have infiltrated into te 'the people' or if these popular committees have become violently unsympathetic. It's heart-breaking as these commimttees were, much like this protest an organic development of organized solidarity where people swiftly replaced government security apparatus, and grew to offer social, medical and logistical services in their neighbourhoods. In Suez and Alexandria for example they operate as local government councils would ideally operate. Whether it is the government media that is poisoning our minds and turning us against each other, or the poorly paid thugs that are infiltrating the fronts of these local committees, it isn't clear. What is clear however, is that it seems the army has resorted to underhanded violence, and executing a war of attrition.
This movement started out spontaneous anger, and was faithful and true to its two prime slogans ' Selmeyya ' 'peaceful' and 'sha3beyya' 'popular'. People have lost their lives in an attempt to keep it as such. The current government has pulled all its tricks (we have a new trend on a DAILY basis without acception) to infiltrate violence, fear and evil as you can never imagine it, into our ranks. And the youth on the forefront of this movement have worked relentlessly and with awesome bravery to keep this out. How much longer they will survive is not clear.
Stop the violence. End the existance of this government that has kept us apart for decades, and attempts to wedge us apart further. Stand up for who we are, and everything we wish to be.
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