Making Myths Out of Massacres: on Rabaa & the challenges of mourning

"Right there. That's where it happened."

I follow Mohamed's nod, trying to take a long look at the somewhat distant cluster of buildings, fruitlessly searching for a minaret or anything to indicate the presence of a mosque. Our van defiantly lurches ahead, the image disappearing behind us before I can register any meaningful details. 

It's 2014 and our biennial family trip to Egypt is coming to a close as we drive through Madinet Nasr. Mohamed, the young man hired to drive us (and our growing pile of belongings) around the country for the summer, expertly navigates the full van through traffic. Polite and soft-spoken, he hasn't said much for the whole trip, even during the endless drives to the Red Sea a few weeks earlier when he brought a friend to accompany him. Sometimes I catch his spectacled gaze in the rear-view mirror, though it never seems prying.

"Atee3a! To hell with them!" my mom proclaims with uncharacteristic crudeness from the row furthest back. "They were going to bring down the whole country."

By "they", she is referring to The Muslim Brotherhood, who seem to have re-assumed their position as Voldermort-like sources of death and destruction in the psyche of people like my mother and father, whose mere mention by name proves too mention. "They" also happen to include Mohamed, who has just pointed out the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque to our left. I stare at his face in the rearview mirror, looking for anything, even a flinch, but Mohammed's eyes stay glued to the road, unchanging. I feel a tinge of shame for my mother and after fighting back the urge to react to such a harsh display, I feel the shame for myself.

This is the way it has always been whenever my parents, relatives, or their friends refer to the Brotherhood (or whatever conveniently constitutes that category at the time). They are not unlike many Egyptians, and many more diasporic Egyptians whose allegiance is inextricably tied to a regime that plays into their fear of instability and promises to deliver that rare, depleted regional resource, security--even as it actively compromises the safety of those it pretends to protect. Indeed, even if this allegiance compromises more important things, like their moral standards.

Just one month prior to this, on the cusp of the one year anniversary of the deadly dispersal, another moment of (imagined?) tension surfaced during a drive with Mohamed. Human Rights Watch had just released their controversial report on "The Rab’a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt", forcing open the wound that had been callously bandaged by those crafting the narrative for people like my parents. It wasn't surprising to see the immediate reaction to details about the mass murders, to watch the reactive denial of eyewitness accounts and registered figures. It wasn't surprising but it was disheartening. Throughout the discussion happening between my cousins and parents and the accompanying friend in the passenger seat, I kept looking to Mohamed for a response. He said nothing and drove.

Perhaps I am just projecting all of these expectations on Mohamed. Maybe all those conflicting ideologies packed into one van isn't such a big deal after all?

We learned of Mohamed's affiliation with the Brotherhood during the first ride we shared with him. When the driver hired to take us to Alexandria didn't show up several hours after he was scheduled to, my cousin offered to send a trusted friend with a van to help us out of the predicament. My mother seemed to pause, considering her options as she heard the name, but it was the day before Eid and she must have realized it was either Mohamed or missing out on Alex. A tall, stocky young man with a light beard and big glasses showed up within the hour, whisking our heavy bags into the large white tourist van that would become our main means of transport for the remainder of our stay. I don't remember the exact conversation that lead to the revelation of his association with the group, but I do remember it being a hot topic of conversation in the apartment that night. Eventually no one spoke about it at all.

Maybe that's why it was so easy to blindly deny the tragic reality and to propagate the regime's narrative right in his face.

I remember casually reading through the HRW report over a light breakfast and carrying on with my day, only remembering it if it popped up on my Twitter timeline. I was horrified by the flagrant brutality, but I was looking for something more tangible than shock. That overwhelming spate of grief I sought eluded me. Had I too become desensitized to "them"?

All sorts of thoughts are interrupting themselves in my head as we pull further away from Rabaa. The cacophony of chatter surrounding me fades into the background. I am being pulled by that same feeling that gripped at me as I walked through Midan el Tahrir months earlier, my first visit since the events of 2011. It is like a combination of grief and guilt, made heavier by the need to repress it. By the pressure to participate in the active denial of these realities. Or worse yet, to partake in the delusion that such loss, such taking of life, is ultimately inconsequential.

I turn my head all the way back to squint at the site, but by now all I can see are the massive military buildings in the horizon as Mohamed drives on.