Like so many other Egyptians, the 2011 revolution felt like my raison d'être. Even from halfway across the world, it was difficult to think of much else. I remember skipping lecture after lecture just to steal away into the library and obsessively refresh my Twitter feed, aching to be there myself. It gave me a reason to write that felt like something bigger than me and my tiny world.
In addition to recognizing the difference in atmosphere between Egypt and Canada, I’d grown up largely listening to my father’s own memories of living in a repressed, paranoid military state. It all made this movement feel that much more important. Here was a country in which anti-government opinion was restricted from all media, inside and out. A country filled with stories of police aggression--some made notorious (like the audacious 2010 murder of Khaled Saeed by Egyptian police in an internet cafe), some disguised in films that toed the line of censorship, and some only whispered amongst terrified neighbours when nobody else was listening.
Never had we been given so much access to the news coming out of Egypt. Every major media outlet was locked into the quickly unfolding events. Every channel we tuned into seemed to be reporting live from the scene, or engaged in some sort of discourse around the revolution. And of course there were the videos being uploaded to Youtube, videos that carried narratives the bigger networks were too afraid to show. Outside of my father's daily insistence on reminding us of the place, I had never seen so much focus on the country I was raised to consider "home".
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| Egyptian Revolution Solidarity March in Toronto (January 2011) |
And it wasn't just the Egyptians back home or in the diaspora (or those from the diaspora who went back home for the revolution) who kept me engaged. Finally my friends were asking me about things other than the pyramids, my professors involving me in conversations that didn't revolve around the free will of Muslim women. One of my English professors at the time--a well-known poet who openly spoke of his own revolutionary tendencies as a youth--especially indulged my preoccupation. We exchanged handwritten messages about the developments in Egypt after class and interesting articles with intersecting opinions on the future of the revolution.
I've memorized my father's nostalgic and proudly recounted version of the military coup that overtook the British. It was as if he was directly involved in the cause of liberating their country. It wasn’t so much that he was living vicariously through Nasser and his comrades, but living alongside them--when they spent countless months planning and re-planning every step without leaving a paper trail, when they took over state radio to make the announcement, and when they paraded through the same Tahrir Sq. among thousands of people…As the headlines quickly went from "protest" to "unrest" to "revolution", I felt like I was able to relate in ways I never had before. This new raison d'être was also a means by which I could wrestle some attention from my ever-elusive father.
In those few months, everything took on mythic proportions.
In those few months, everything took on mythic proportions.
As one of the most enthralling and deeply embedded bloggers to cover the revolution @sandmonkey once wrote,
"It's hard not to disengage from reality when observing or experiencing the revolution; through it we have lived all of our Hollywood cinematic fantasies."
I used to cry a lot about the revolution. It was the infectious tone of hope by demonstrators, carried in the clever chants of hundreds, thousands of in-synch voices. It was the scenes of brutal violence that met them, and the stories of those mourning the (too) many who lost their lives in the carnage. It was the impassioned arguments I had with my father, who suddenly seemed to embody the general malaise that seemed to overshadow what had felt like the most momentous time I would ever witness. It was the eventual reality that perhaps the revolution was over, and that whatever dreams I once obsessed over may have just ended up being fantasies.
As the pace of the events sped into what felt like a constant whirlwind, thinking about everything seemed to induce a sense of vertigo. At times it felt like too much to keep up with, in other moments it felt like everything was at a standstill and I was just halfway across the world, helplessly waiting. In the last few years, my reactive responses have given way to a nostalgia painted in cynical hues. Losing my father last year meant losing a lifeline to the place I'd inherited as homeland. And my relationship to the idea of Egypt as my only "home" has only grown more complicated, nuanced, and precarious.
In a post from February of 2011 (called "Scattered Thoughts on Egypt", of course), I shared some of my conflicting feelings on the revolution. When I read them today I felt a tiny spark of the intensity those days brought to my life, and I feel a tinge of the lassitude that hasn't subsided since. Mostly I felt the sense of belonging to the revolution, of finding "home":
I sat by watching, my mind eager to snatch any new breakthroughs or information. My energy went from being fully devoted to listening to the stories from the front lines, to feeling weary and almost wishing the entire situation would just end.I've had trouble eating and sleeping, and have obsessively spent my time flipping between CNN and BBC, to getting live streams of Al Jazeera online. It borders on hysteria.
I've Youtubed the same videos over and over, marched with hundreds of Torontonians for 2 Saturdays in a row, and have relentlessly pounded my cousin with questions about what its REALLY like down there.I've engaged in debates, explained what was happening to anybody who will listen, and brushed up on historical accounts of the power struggle that has ailed my country for decades.
I'm tired.
The other day, I scolded myself for feeling this way. I thought "What on earth gives YOU the right to feel weary and over-informed when these heroes are out there on the streets, determined to find an end that can satisfy them?!?"But am I really wrong for needing a break from all this overexposure? Have I betrayed my country and fellow Egyptians every time I've given a half-assed answer to people's questions in order to avoid launching into a full conversation?----
I'm at the point where I can look back at the full range of emotions and ideas I've had since January 25, and almost pinpoint the days when my attitude went from an excited, curious, hopeful observer, to a weary, almost paranoid bystander who got sucked into a dramatic scenario unwillingly.
I remember feeling, albeit selfishly, PROUD and EXCITED that my country was making headline news. For once in my 21 years in Toronto, people recognized the flag on my bag. For once, I could head downtown and find hundreds of other supporters of the Egyptian people, speaking my language, sharing my vision for the future of our homeland.
And I ate it right up. I stayed glued to CNN, collected any newspaper headlines (most, making front-page) about Egypt, and shared videos on my feed.
I've absorbed the news with an almost sadistic pleasure. I hate the way they make us look on TV. I resent the images of people fighting off men on horseback, burning pictures and flags- this is merely a snapshot of a situation that the rest of the world wants to dismiss as black-and-white, ignoring the multi-faceted colours emerging with every new image, testimony, or minute change...
But I love seeing my country on there...
