Monthly Archives: February 2011
حلال اللي بيحصل لهم
On my way home today a crowd suddenly emerged out of the darkness. A large group of men. A teenager was at the front, his face contorted. I initially thought that he was chanting, and that this was another small … Continue reading
News Feed: The Egyptian Army is now single
Yesterday witnessed an encounter with an Egyptian Jane Fonda on crack, and fun and games with the army. It being a Friday, Tahrir was again transformed into a fantasia of flag-selling, popcorn-eating and memorabilia-buying, with a spot of protesting every … Continue reading
Regimented
The fury and violence of the Libyan uprising has been making me reflect on the Egyptian revolution, and the (still not ancien) regime’s modus operandi. Extricating that mad bastard in the toctoc will inevitably be bloody. Reported deaths have already … Continue reading
Help me document xenophobic attacks during the revolution
Hello. Am abusing the blog for work-related purposes. Please pass on this note to friends and family who were in Egypt during the revolution and might have been the target of the harassment and attacks I describe below I am … Continue reading
We’ve walked so far, Hosny
On Friday night, three hours into the celebration, I saw a man in the masses on Qasr El-Nil bridge say to his wife as he took off his glasses and wiped his face, “ah…meshayna keteer ya Hosny [ah…we’ve walked so … Continue reading
A letter received by our agony aunt
PROBLEM PAGE Dear Agony Aunt After 30 years with my husband I feel like I need a new start, but he doesn’t feel the same way, and now I can’t get rid of him. I married my current husband in … Continue reading
Wael Ghoneim/Love letter to Egypt
I moved to Egypt in 2003, intent on recapturing the magic of a year I spent in Alexandria during a study year abroad. The study year abroad, and the decision to learn Arabic was itself guided by memories of the … Continue reading
Small change
The atmosphere in Tahrir Square is such that when you’re there you think that Mubarak has no choice but to resign at some point in the next ten minutes. Then you go outside the square’s perimeter and feel Egypt will … Continue reading
Media wars
I didn’t go out at all today (Thursday) because as part of its campaign against the Tahrir protestors the regime has ordered the media to initiate a vile hate campaign against journalists and foreigners – which I am sort of … Continue reading
The henchmen
A strange peculiarity about the Egyptian regime is its insistence on attempting to retain a veneer of legitimacy – even after 30 years of flagrantly falsified elections, torture, corruption and, most recently, an ill-advised Internet blackout that succeeded in making … Continue reading