How to breathe, how to vote

November 18^th, 2011 marked the beginning of what many called the second revolution. International news outlets reported on what they dubbed “Revolution Redux” in Cairo, and the city was once again suffocated under plumes of tear gas. I was antsy to witness revolutionary fervor in Midan Al-Tahrir for myself after spending January 2011 in college, under my covers and glued to Al-Jazeera's live stream. I ventured out onto Qasr Al-Einy street, one of several arteries leading to the Square. Still blocks away from the civilian check-points, I felt for the first time the tell-tale burning sensation in my nostrils that I have yet to forget. Through the wafting clouds of tear gas, I felt my heart start to race, my eyes widened in fear, and I couldn't breathe.

It was a semi-familiar feeling; as a child, I had asthma. It's been almost 10 years since the last time I felt my throat involuntarily close up, but this time, on Qasr Al-Einy, it was different. It wasn't my body attacking itself, but the government––my government––attacking me.

When I went back to Chicago in February of this year, I landed and my throat started closing up at the most inopportune moments, making me cough violently. The first time my mother heard me cough from the other room, she knew: “your asthma is back. I remember that cough.” God bless mothers.

I was looking forward to Chicago as a detox of sorts: no more black boogers; no more brown water in the shower; no more chlorinated water supply; no more hissing; and no more tear gas in the air. I didn't expect to enter dust and pollution-free American air just to have an asthmatic relapse. I came back to Cairo and just like that, my cough was gone.

I landed and found Cairo calm. The momentum for demonstrations has grinded to a slow halt, the number of martyrs is no longer growing, and normal daily life has resumed. However, this city has yet to forget. Roads are still blocked off, embassies are still heavily guarded, revolutionary graffiti still loudly present on walls, and the radio is eternally repeating clichéd questions: “callers, tell us, has the revolution been stolen?”

Candidate Abu Al Fotouh. The graffiti
underneath reads: "Once, a man went to cheer and died", about
the Port Said football riots in which 74 died

Strolling down Qasr Al-Einy the other afternoon, I was admiring the picturesque, clashing effect graffiti had on the wealthy antiquity of buildings on the street. I like imagining Cairo decades ago, before the sepia tone, the negligence, and the deterioration set in. I love the graffiti: an oppressed voice on a city whose will was lost in the past eras of power, wealth, and corruption. I noticed, crossing the street, two men holding rags to their faces. Instantly, I took a deeper, cautionary breathe, trying to identify tear gas in the air. I had flashbacks to scenes of women fainting, people running, and men with blood-shot eyes and keffiyehs handing out surgical masks on this street; I had flashbacks of not being able to breathe, and then I realized that I could take my breathe. No tear gas. The men were only sneezing or coughing, coincidentally at the same time. I inhaled deeply, and realized that not only did I not cough, but that I hadn't since I arrived back in Egypt.

The air is still thick, but the energy is different. Instead of the men stationed on corners distributing help and aid to those affected by the gas, or collecting donations, there are political posters and graffiti lining the street. I took a closer look at one of the posters, and realized it was for a presidential hopeful: Abu Al Fotouh, an ex-Muslim Brotherhood member. Maybe, I thought, this is where the energy is being redirected. Away from civil unrest, and towards the maintenance of a fair and free democratic system––towards elections.

Perhaps it is progress. Perhaps it is seeing a poster for the upcoming presidential elections for the first time, and thinking maybe this is what the revolution was for. Maybe we've succeeded, although I think the revolution has indeed been stolen. Despite the corruption, despite the unjust riot control, despite the thick pollution, and the oppressive state of human rights, I have hopes that Egypt is healing itself through progress, just as it heals me.

I saw some of the first signs of democratic progress on the same street on which I found myself struggling to breathe while the military attempted to stifle our voices––the very same voices that will soon vote for President. I can take deep breathes now, knowing that movements take time, and comforted by the subtle markers of growth. It is right to criticize, but even more right to appreciate what has been accomplished. Abu Al Fotouh doesn't have my vote, but the freedom––uncorrupted freedom––to choose is hopefully on its way––we can all hang out in Horreya until it gets here.

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.