Voices

Cairo: A young girl on her father's shoulders during a friday demonstration in November

One year ago today, tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets to occupy Tahrir Square. One year ago today, I was sitting in my Evanston apartment lamenting having to walk down icy streets to class. I was enrolled in a writing course at the time––Writing for Social Change––with a professor that urged us to write about issues that compelled us to action, about issues that needed attention and needed words to mobilize the effort. I began the course in early January with a dizzy purpose: do I write about The Sanjeevani Project, and our efforts in rural education? Do I write about my complicated road to medicine and public health? My first few pieces were scattered, voiceless, failing to move even myself.

In the early morning hours of January 25th, I found myself glued to Al-Jazeera's Cairo-based live-stream online. My words took a different form. I wrote about my identity, I wrote about how it felt to be a removed Egyptian citizen. My time in Cairo––split between summers growing up and study abroad­––were transformative, to say the very least. I developed a strong identity, but one that was equally attached to the United States. I identify as an Egyptian-American, but there is no American blood in me––only sentiment. Since moving to Cairo, I've allowed myself to flirt, court, and fall deeply in love with the fertile, dusty land that I will always be attached to. I am working on strengthening my attachments to this country, to feel––and really be––more Egyptian, to understand cultural quirks that glazed over in my 22 years, to embrace them; I knew that I needed to live here.

January 25^th, 2011­––even through my computer screen­––shook me by the shoulders. It shook everyone by the shoulders. I wasn't just moved by the revolution, and by the epic change that unity in a cause can inspire, but by the fact that I wasn't there, and the emotions that bubbled up accordingly. I was upset, almost irrationally. I was upset that I called myself Egyptian all of this time, yet I lived my life comfortably and still found myself able to resent Hosni Mubarak's tyrannical rule over the Egyptian people for his personal benefit. What right did I have to be enraged? What had the largely fraudulent Egyptian government ever done to hurt me? To hinder my goals? Nothing. I knew, though, that this was more my parent's legacy than it was mine. I knew that it was because of Egypt's failings that they sought a new life in a new, foreign land. It was because of my mother and my father's sweat that I was given such a blessed life. “I have been selfish”, I thought.

I came back to understand the conflicts, to know deeply the issues and to not only be aware, but to feel. Feeling, for me, is what is most important. I have been here almost five months, and feeling is dictating my days. I feel like I should speak Arabic, when English is also appropriate. I feel betrayed when I am seen as just a woman. I feel disturbed when my Egyptian legitimacy is questioned because of my American upbringing. I feel heartbreak when I cannot find the words in my language to express myself.

And so this has been my quest, one year ago the revolution inspired my eyes to well up with tears. Today, on the anniversary of the revolution that changed the world's perception of the power a people can have over their fate, I am contemplating the salty tears that have long since dried. I know why I came, and I know why this country is filled with more passion than I could have imagined. Oppression has met its match: voices.

Voices carry far and long, voices are echoed through no-longer dismissed media like Twitter, Facebook, texting. The voices that have been yelling for decades are being heard. And today, we celebrate, honor, and respect those voices. The bodies of many of these voices have been buried, have been issued false death certificates, have been held in prison for their words. But there are more voices, and they will never stop yelling. They will never stop chanting. They will never stop carrying flags, painting the faces of their children with red, white, and black stripes, and they will never again accept becoming inure to oppressive suffering.

This is what the revolution is about to me. “Mish ana masry?” Am I not Egyptian? My taxi driver dismissively said to me yesterday when I asked if he was going down to Tahrir. Today is not for a list of goals. Today is not for celebrating the overthrow of a tyrannical President. Today is for honoring the voices that dared to speak. Today is for being Egyptian.

The revolution lives within each of us. Today, I will go down to Tahrir, eat sweet potatoes, carry a flag, and get my face painted. Today is my chance to be more than a diaspora Egyptian living a comfortable life in my comfortable bed in a snowy suburban university town, today I am here. Today, I will be another body in the mass bobbing of heads on TV channels everywhere. I realize now that, although the past is unchangeable and I cannot pretend like I was here in 2011, I needed to feel the pain that came with being removed in order to bring me back. The importance may be little more than symbolic, but I am here this time not only for myself, but to share––to be another voice.

Destined to Return

Cairo is a loud place of contradictions: enchantment and frustration; nationalism and departure. Ultimately, when I was away, its cacophonous din seemed to be calling for me. Now that I am here, the noise is so much more than dissonance: it is the ramblings of an irrelevant regime, the chants of protesters, the cat-calls from young shabab on the street, and the whispers of lovers in hidden parks. The contradictions might make Cairo's music sound off-key, but, if I listen closely, I can hear the harmony.

I made the decision to move to Cairo early on in my last year of college. The move was not spurred or influenced by employment, but rather, a call to embrace my culture and witness revolution. I spent from January 25th-February 11th clutching my pillow while staring open-jawed and teary-eyed at Al-Jazeera live stream. The revolution that culminated with the removal of then-President Hosni Mubarak accomplished more than just a social political victory; the revolution brought together the Egyptian diaspora in a previously inconceivable way. The revolution, the martyrs, the violence, and the hope made us forget about Egypt's many faults and remember what it is that keeps our hearts yearning for بلدنا –our country. After all, “Once you drink from the Nile, you are destined to return.”

The Egyptian connection around the world was electrifying. I like to think that optimistic revolutionaries, dreamers, 20-somethings, and weathered sages everywhere felt their worldview change: there is hope for the determined and hopeful. Diaspora Egyptians, my family and I included, felt a stabbing pain of shame for being absent. I already knew that I was going back, but now I was relentless in my pursuit of purpose there. I will vote. I will ask questions. I will listen. I will contribute. I will drink the tap water.

All idealism and theorizing aside, there is something sobering about a one-way flight away from home. I spent months wishing I was in Cairo, hours reflecting on childhood memories, and days fantasizing about how meaningful each experience was bound to be. But, my airplane ride over was melancholy and full of doubt: why did I leave? I kept asking myself. Four months later, I still repeat this tired question, but I ask it in reassurance rather than uncertainty. Every stroll down Cairo's busy streets will undoubtedly frustrate or enchant; yet, it is always the enchanting moments that deserve to be remembered.

Five times a day, my enchantment starts with just one voice. One voice that beckons me awake, and one voice that compels me to turn off my music. It is the voice that permeates even the darkest alleys, that travels amidst the beige, satellite studded rooftops, and that seeps through my leaking windows. Soon, the asynchronous mosques in the city endearingly known as the city of 1000 minarets will broadcasting their calls. One chimes in. Then another. Mere seconds apart.

Come to prayer, come to prayer.

In rounds, they go off, and soon I can't hear anything except a din of faith: "Prayer is better than sleep."

On most days, the call to prayer falls into the background of daily routine, or we laugh at how out of sync the mosques are, but sometimes the beauty and awe are palpable. Palpable, like the dust and corruption that taint daily life. Palpable, like the tension in the quiet days before the revolution's one-year anniversary.

For many foreigners and Egyptians alike, Cairo is a place of contradicted emotions. Ultimately, we are all called back to this place of spirituality, hypocrisy, beauty, and disintegration. I have fallen in love with it's antiquated charm, and that love is never easy.