Re: Michel Hebert in Cairo

Re: Michel Hebert in Cairo

[Michel Hebert]

Paul Taylor suggested that I post a personal account on what happened (and still happens) in Egypt. I was not sure this was appropriate for the List, but as he said, and since Bob (Rosebrugh) seemed to agree, if we look at Category Theory as a community, then why not. So here is my account, which I struggled to make as short as possible, but I found it hard to put a check on my enthusiasm.

The American University in Cairo is situated right in Tahrir (= Liberation) Square, where most of the action was concentrated over the three weeks of what is now called here the "January 25th revolution". Actually my office  was overlooking the square. I am saying "was" because two years ago, to our chagrin, most of the AUC activities moved to the outskirt of Cairo in a newly built campus. The "Tahrir Campus" still exists, though, and you can see its main (yellow, vaguely Islamic-style low) building on some of the footages of the events, for example the excellent summary (in three parts) produced by al-Jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/2011/02/201121310411102992.html
which I recommend if you want to visualize what happened from the Jan 25 to  the fall of Mubarak.

In any case I still live close to Tahrir, so that I could easily follow the  events and hop there from time to time. There was ample time to do that, as classes were of course canceled, and that concentrating on the commutativity of diagrams was beyond me during such exciting time.

I am trying to summarize, but I have a more detailed daily account (in French) and some pictures for those interested. Just ask me.

It started with a few suicide attempts by fire (at least one died), from about a week before January 25th, in line with what happened in Tunisia (and led to Ben Ali's fall), together with small demonstrations of the usual style common at the time in Egypt: 50 activists closely surrounded by a couple  of thousands of anti-riot special forces, with lots of plain clothes policemen in the vicinity. It HAD to be peaceful...

But on the 25th a very surprising thing happened. Mobilized entirely by Facebook-style tools, about twenty thousands people gathered in Tahrir to protest, in particular against the police violence (this was the Police Day, an  official holiday to honor the police forces!), but also the recently rigged elections, lack of freedom, etc. There was no identifiable leader, organization or plan. This unprecedented style of mobilization was to continue all along the coming weeks, defying all predictions that such a lack of visible leadership cannot lead anywhere. The achievements of what we simply called the "shebab" (the youths) are very clear and progressing little by little in the right direction to this day.
Anyway on the 25th the police forces where overwhelmed, tried initially to confront with relative moderation but were not able to stop the protests. People moved beyond the cordon, and occupied Tahrir. Much later the police began using full force and it became very tough there.
End of the first step. Nothing apparently achieved, but in fact a taboo was  broken!

  A similar event was "planned" (in the same way) for the next Friday (the first day of the week-end here). The government felt the danger this time and had cut the internet and the mobile phone communications on Friday morning, but this did not succeed: after the mid-day prayer time, from everywhere  waves of people began to form and converge towards Tahrir square. This was  clearly to be violent, and me and my wife cautiously stayed home. We have no television, and with the other communications cut we could only follow what was happening from what we saw and heard from our 10th-floor terrace. Actually we could easily follow the progression of the protestors. As they were violently clashing with the anti-riot forces, their chanting were sporadically mutating into chaotic roars, with noise of teargas canisters, shootings, water canons. Smoke and smell from burned tires or cars and of teargas were everywhere. The protestors eventually reached Tahrir (where many will stay for the next two weeks!)

I'll skim through the too many exciting events which happened in the next two weeks.
The next day the police completely disappeared from the country!! The reason is still being investigated, but presumably it was to create chaos and fear. The army then moved their tanks around Tahrir but declared they would not attack the people. They are rather respected in Egypt, as opposed to the  reviled police. They remained in a fragile neutrality for several days, even when counter-protesters (many of whom clearly thugs paid by the police, or policemen themselves) attacked on February 2 and 3. This was extremely violent and hundreds died. At some point the pro-Mubaraks climbed on top of some buildings (including our university) to throw stones and fire bombs or  shot at people. After and before these very tough two days, Tahrir was like a fortress, inside which hundreds of thousands lived, chanted, discussed,  brought their family, took pictures of children on tanks, waved banners, organized cleaning, eat popcorn ... The most extraordinary melting pot of people from all ways of life and political inclinations, with no conspicuous leadership but spontaneously very well-organized: for example you could not  access Tahrir without being searched by protestors posted between the tanks, to make sure no one brought weapons there.
The Cairenes who where scared where mainly the ones watching too much television news; the antidote was to go to Tahrir and enjoy this extraordinary happening.
Anyway, after a lot of suspense, on February 11 Mubarak finally left, leaving the power to a High Council of the Army. (Probably the latter pushed the  former out a bit...)
It happened just when I was entering home, in a rather depressed mood. An ex-colleague abroad quickly e-mailed me to congratulate and asked if I could  hear the Tahrir crowd cheering if I opened my window. I answered that even  hiding under the bed with earplugs I would hear it! The celebration went on for the whole night and the next day there.

The romantic part is almost over now. Still, some generally peaceful, not too disruptive demonstrations continue, pushing each time the Army to keep their word and work hard on the process towards amending the constitution to  allow the formation of parties and elections, dismantling/reorganizing of the State Security, prosecution of the ministry of Interior and countless corrupted officials, etc, etc. And little by little the shebab get what they  want: for example the Army had initially nominated an interim prime minister that the protestors found too close to the ancient regime, and they obtained, two days ago, his resignation and replacement by a more popular one. There will soon be a referendum on a list of proposed amendments on the constitution, worked out by a team of independent experts. New parties, as well as new personalities willing to run for the presidency, are slowly emerging.

A lot of dangers lie ahead. Egypt, even if it completes its march to democracy, will not be richer for that. The revolution has generated such hopes that one can expect deep frustrations sooner or later. And the sources of international tension in the region will still be there, maybe more so from the moment the people will have their say...

However what I have seen and continue to see so far from this people is so sustained, so extraordinary, so unexpected (by the Egyptians themselves) that I feel optimistic.
It would be a miracle if everything goes smoothly for very long; but what we have seen so far IS a miracle, so who knows...


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