The End and the Beginning of Summer

I apologize for my two week hiatus from posting - it's been a busy last few weeks of summer classes, political developments, and a few trips outside of Cairo. While I would love to sum up all of those events with a nice long post, it is now late at night and I have still not packed yet for my trip to Turkey tomorrow. After finishing summer classes on Monday, I spent the day yesterday with my friend Galal at his house in the countryside. My "summer" (summer vacation, that is) officially begins tomorrow afternoon in Istanbul. Four friends and I will be spending a month traveling around Turkey. I'm not sure if I will have internet access there, but, if I do, I will certainly try to update this blog as frequently as possible with news of my travels in the land of Ataturk...Now it's time to pack!

Article about Tweet Nadwa

Last week I was invited to write an article about the Tweet Nadwa and the general economic situation in Egypt for Fikra Forum, a website associated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

You can find the article here. It was also translated into Arabic here.

Tahrir Comes Back to Life

Since last Friday, Tahrir Square has once again become the center of the Egyptian revolution. What started as a nationwide day of protest calling for police officers and government ministers accused of murder and corruption to be brought to justice has now turned into a full-fledged movement demanding the resignation of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi (the leader of the ruling military council) and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.

I am not going to spend a lot of time going into the specific political demands of the protesters. For that information, I suggest Al-Jazeera or the blog of my housemate Chris, both of which provide constant analysis of the latest political developments. Instead, I want to provide some general perspective on the overall environment in the square.

While Tahrir is technically a public place, a strong security contingent has sprung up at every entrance to the square. In order to avoid potential conflict, there is absolutely no police presence in the square. Instead, the protest organizing committee has enlisted groups of young men and women to check ID cards, search bags, and perform pat-downs for everyone entering the square. When I attended the protests on Friday, the makeshift security apparatus was initially hesitant to let me in to the square, but they were mollified when an Egyptian friend who I was with vouched for me. In what seems to be a holdover from the Mubarak regime, there are still people who believe that there are rogue actors and foreign conspiracies attempting to hinder the revolution. Nevertheless, despite a few wary glances and three requests to see my AUC ID card, I found nearly all of the protesters whom I talked with to be quite welcoming and interested in hearing my perspective on this new occupation of Tahrir.

During the large protests last Friday, Tahrir resembled a summer music festival in the U.S. There were stages in various parts of the square with politicians and activists addressing the crowd and chanting slogans. Large, colorful banners adorned all parts of the square, echoing the chants of the protesters who were calling for justice, freedom, and an end to military rule. Some vendors, taking advantage of the mass of people and the oppressive heat, hawked drinks and food throughout the day, and others sought to capitalize off the revolution by selling patriotic flags, shirts, and hats. It is impossible to estimate exactly how many people came to Tahrir on Friday, but the number was certainly in the tens of thousands.

It is hard to generalize the types of people who have been in Tahrir for the past few days. While there is a large youth contingent, I also saw plenty of middle-aged and older protesters, too. While there are women in Tahrir, the square remains largely male-dominated. I would estimate that it is about an 80/20 ratio of men to women. Public space in Egypt is often male-dominated (especially at night), and Tahrir is no exception.

Although the Friday protests came to an end and there were no specific activities in Tahrir on Saturday, a diehard group of revolutionaries continued to occupy the square. They have set up a large tent camp in the middle of Tahrir, and the square has remained under the supervision of the volunteer security guards and closed to traffic. The protesters intend for their occupation of Tahrir to be a symbol of resistance to the military council, but they have achieved another significant accomplishment: there has been a dramatic reduction in traffic and noise-pollution in downtown Cairo. The dowsha and zahma that often characterizes the square has been replaced by lively political conversations, live music, and poetry readings. While Tahrir will certainly re-open to traffic at some point, I can’t help but wish that the square would be made into a pedestrian-only area…

As Egypt is back in the middle of the work week, the square is fairly calm during the day. Everyday after 5 PM, however, when most Egyptians have finished work and the weather has cooled off, the square comes back to life. While it is unclear whether these protests will actually force the military council to bend to the demands of the protesters, it is undeniable that the spirit of the revolution has once again returned to the center of Cairo.

The Focus Turns to Midan Al-Tahrir (Again)

"Friday, July 8 is the single most important day in Egypt since Mubarak's ouster on February 11." -- Alaa Al-Aswany, Egyptian writer and political commentator

Hundreds of thousands (possibly one million) Egyptians are expected to descend upon Tahrir Square tomorrow in what will likely be the largest protest in the square since Hosni Mubarak relinquished power in February. The protest enjoys the support of all the major political parties in Egypt (including the liberals and the Islamists), and the parties are claiming to have cast their ideological divisions aside in order to come out as a unified force tomorrow. All the groups have gathered under the banner of economic reform, freedom, and social justice. There is also a big focus on pushing the military council to speed-up the judicial process for both the elements of the Mubarak regime charged with corruption and the police officers charged with murder during the January revolution.

In general, many Egyptians that I have talked to over the past few days feel that this is their best chance to "put the revolution back on the right track." There have been several clashes between protesters and police over the past few weeks - largely in response to several trial postponements that have been interpreted as attempts by those on the military council to protect their former cronies. In addition to the growing discontent with the military council, many people have become disillusioned by the petty fighting between the many political parties and the growing rift between the liberals and the Islamists. Furthermore, the country's economy is still suffering from a drop in tourism and foreign investment after the revolution.

Over the past month, I have felt that Tahrir has become more of a "Speaker's Corner" than the center of a revolution. Everyone is always eager to talk, but it is unclear that those gathering there have anything to show for it. Tomorrow, however, may well be different. The sheer spectacle of a mass of humanity once again in the square, united by a list of simple demands, might push the military council to bow to the will of the protesters. On the other hand, there is also a chance that tomorrow's protest could lead to violent clashes (especially if a group of people try once again to attack the Interior Ministry). As Egyptians like to say: "rabina yestoorna" (may God protect us).

I will be back with an update tomorrow. For those of you following on twitter, use #tahrir, #jul8, and #egypt

Across the Egyptian Twitterverse

Tonight I attended a “Tweet Nadwa” in Cairo. This nadwa (which translates into English as “seminar” or “conference”), as its name suggests, was organized via twitter and facebook and brought together Egyptians for a discussion about social justice and the future of Egypt. Try as I might to summarize the meeting in 140 characters or less on twitter, I simply cannot do it. Instead, I’ve turned to the blog, which gives me much more space to discuss and analyze tonight’s nadwa in detail.

The event was held in a theater nestled in the alleyways of downtown Cairo, and the room was already packed when I arrived a few minutes before 6:30. I was one of the lucky ones who was able to find a spot on the floor – a few minutes after I sat down, the theater was filled entirely to capacity with people in seats, on the floor, and in the aisles. This being my first twitter-organized event I didn’t quite know what to expect…I assumed that everyone might be spending the entire time with their noses buried in their blackberries, focusing more on their tweets than on the actual content of the discussion. As the moderator explained, however, the event was meant to be much more of a town-hall style meeting and, while a projector screen displayed a live feed of tweets from the audience members, audience members who wanted to contribute would be given a microphone instead of a smartphone. The moderator posed a topic for discussion, and then passed the microphone around to audience members and five prominent tweeters who were sitting on chairs in the front of the theater. Each person could speak for no more than 140 seconds (a nod to Twitter’s 140 character limit). Knowing what sort of rhetorical gems town hall meetings in the U.S. have yielded (e.g. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare”), I was quite excited to see how this concept would play out in an Egyptian context.

Before getting into the actual content of the discussion, a few observations about the overall feel in the room. The audience was generally young, quite politically and socially liberal (both from the nature of the discussion and their preferred styles of clothing), and clearly very tech-savvy. As far as I could tell, there were no Salafis (who often sport long beards and traditional robes called galabiyyas) and no one who publicly identified with the Muslim Brotherhood. A sense of excitement pervaded the room as the discussion began, and as an outside observer it was hard not to get swept up in the moment. I never imagined last year when I was in Alexandria that this sort of discussion would be taking place just one year later in a post-Mubarak Egypt. It was impossible not to be inspired by several hundred people voluntarily coming together to talk about the future of their country. The level of energy and passion in the room – fed by the feeling that there is a real window of opportunity right now to shape Egypt’s political and economic future – was infectious.

Tonight’s topic was social justice, and the conversation mainly focused on economics. The microphone swiftly changed hands in the beginning of the meeting, with most of the attendees striking idealistic notes about the necessity of improving healthcare and education, raising the minimum wage, etc. Nothing revolutionary, but nevertheless a good way to start the program. After a brief digression in which the attendees argued amongst themselves about how the stock market functioned and whether it was or wasn’t necessary for the country’s future, the discussion heated up when a proud Communist stood up and admonished the crowd for not focusing on the real issues. “You all are forgetting the critical problem here,” he declared, “we need to stop talking about the minimum wage and the stock market and start talking about how to end the capitalist plague that is destroying our country! We must return to the basics and realize that capitalism is inherently unfair!”

The crowd’s attention instantly turned to broad, ideological issues. Instead of clapping, the moderator told the audience members to raise their arms and wave their hands when they agreed with a certain point, and judging by the amount of raised hands and smiles after that mini-Communist manifesto, the man had many allies in the room. Several like-minded thinkers expressed their support for the idea of completely overhauling Egypt’s system, inveighing against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (among other foreign countries and institutions) for making the rich richer and the poor poorer while tacitly approving the pervasive corruption in the Mubarak regime.

The capitalists in the room were not as vocal, but a few brave souls did stand up to defend their position. “What we had in Egypt for the past 30 years,” one said, “was not capitalism. It was simply despotism.” Another chimed in: “we’ve tried socialism and it didn’t work!” While nobody endorsed the Mubarak regime’s version of capitalism, the capitalists did win a fair amount of head nods and raised hands during their responses to the communist and socialist salvos.

The back-and-forth debate between the capitalists and the communists/socialists continued for some time, but there were two speakers who I found particularly engaging. One man stood up in the middle of the debate and, quite calmly and skillfully, attacked both the capitalists and the communists at the same time: “This question of whether we should have a capitalist or a communist system here in Egypt is not as important,” he declared, “as this question: who will administer the system? If there is anything we have learned in the past 60 years, it is that no matter what ideology we follow, we are ultimately doomed to fail if we have bad leaders. Pick either one of these ideologies, but remember that our success or failure will ultimately be determined by who is making the decisions and not some theoretical framework for how things should work.” While I didn’t speak at the meeting and generally refrained from reacting to any of the statements from one side or the other, I couldn’t help but raise my hand in support of that statement. Soon afterwards, another man stood up and brought up an equally important point: “While it is important to talk about macroeconomics and large companies,” he said, “we also have to focus on small-scale issues. So many young people have business plans or inventions that they want to capitalize on, but our system makes it unbelievably hard for anyone to open their own business. Why should we have to get 15 permits from the government to open a small shop, and why is it so hard for us to get any start-up capital? Change has to come from the bottom, too, and we need to start by completely overhauling the system to make it easier for us young people to go into business for ourselves.” I, and many of the other people in the room, raised our hands in support of this point, too.

Finally, I was very interested by the constant comparisons of Egypt to other countries. Many people backed up their statements by saying “in America they do this” or “in Scandinavia they do that,” and there were several points in the discussion when people used specific examples from American political or economic history. Many of the moderates in the room advocated that Egypt look to northern European countries as models for how to balance capitalism and social justice, but just as many people shook their heads emphatically whenever someone said that Egyptians should look to foreign countries as they design their own system. One speaker garnered a sea of raised hands when he declared simply: “screw capitalism and communism, let’s invent a new and better system here in Egypt!” Nevertheless, America was certainly the most commonly referenced foreign country throughout the discussion. Interestingly, while there were occasional mentions of developing countries such as Brazil and Korea, no one said anything about the Chinese model.

As a whole, I would characterize the discussion as decidedly more focused on social justice and closing the gap between the rich and the poor than most discussions about economic issues in the U.S. Despite a rising culture of consumption here in Egypt and a tendency for the rich to flaunt their wealth, I think people are very conscious of the huge class divide that emerged during the Mubarak regime, and they want to take definite actions to solve the problem. “We must judge our government,” one woman declared, “on the basis of how it treats the weakest people in our society.” If this twitter nadwa is actually representative of the Egyptian liberal movement as a whole, I would expect to see a definite shift to more populist policies if they liberals gain a significant amount of seats in the parliamentary elections.

As I have written before, someone walking the streets of Egypt these days who didn’t know about what happened in January and February would probably not think that this country is undergoing dramatic changes. There are specific times, however, when the gravity of what is happening in Egypt hits you like a tsunami. Tonight was certainly one of those times, and I will certainly be returning to the next twitter nadwa. The attendees’ enthusiasm, optimism, and genuine desire to change their country for the better was truly inspiring.

The Arabeezy Phenomenon

The American University in Cairo is by far the most well-endowed university in Egypt. Its facilities resemble those at most universities in the United States, and its tuition is comparable to its counterparts in the U.S. as well. Because the cost of an AUC education is well beyond the means of an ordinary Egyptian family, the Egyptian students at AUC are primarily from the upper crust of society. As part of CASA’s “cultural exchange” program, we have had the opportunity to get to know a group of Egyptian AUC students. After several potlucks lunches, picnics, and other get-togethers, I have become particularly close with a few of the Egyptians. Like many of my friends in Alexandria, my AUC friends are smart, charismatic, and intellectually curious. They are just as interested in learning from us as we are in learning from them.

Most if not all of these AUC students speak English very well. Like other Egyptians who speak English with a high level of proficiency, however, they often speak a mixture of Arabic and English. This hybrid language is known in Egypt as "Arabeezy" (a mixture of "Arabic" and "Ingleezy," the Arabic word for English). Arabeezy speakers generally combine basic Arabic verbs, pronouns, and conjunctions with more complex English nouns and phrases. Sometimes an entire sentence will be in Arabic save for one key word (e.g. "I had a tough day at work today because there were so many customers" - every word would be Arabic except for "customers"), but I have also heard people intersperse Arabic and English words one after another throughout the sentence (e.g. "I'm studying economics because I want to work at a foreign company that has an office here in Cairo").

This code-switching seems to occur completely naturally. At the same time, I am highly skeptical that they are simply unable to distinguish between languages when they are speaking. Instead, I view Arabeezy as a status symbol related to class and education.* English is taught in every Egyptian school, but often not very well. When I taught English last year in Alexandria at a private learning center, for example, my college-aged students who had taken English throughout their primary and secondary education were still making entry-level mistakes. For them, Arabeezy consisted of trying to speak a few words in English followed by a lapse back into Arabic because they couldn't find the appropriate English word to finish their sentence. For these AUC students, however, their seemingly unconscious code-switching between English and Arabic clues anyone listening to them into their command of English -- a skill that is intimately tied to class and means. While I am not sure if they are purposefully trying to impress us Americans, there definitely seems to be an element of superiority compared to the average Egyptian who knows only the most basic English words and phrases.

There are two other factors that encourage the Arabeezy phenomenon as well. First is the tendency of many upper-class Egyptians to follow Western pop culture religiously. Many of the AUC students have seen more American movies than I have, and I was shocked by how many of them knew the lyrics to American songs that we sang together on our outing to a public park in Cairo last weekend. The desire to speak English instead of Arabic follows from this general interest in pop culture. Secondly, it is undeniable that English proficiency is a huge advantage in the Egyptian labor market. Many of the well-known companies in the Egyptian private sector conduct their business partially or sometimes fully in English, and English is also a basic requirement for anyone going into a tourism-related business. Thus, Egyptians may see Arabeezy as a way to practice their English - especially when they are speaking to native English speakers whom they know will understand the English words that they use.

As a student of Arabic, I find Arabeezy incredibly frustrating. While I understand the factors that drive Egyptians to want to speak English with me, I would much rather have them speak to me fully in English or fully in Arabic. Combining the two languages, however, prevents both of us from learning anything. One of the most important benefits of listening to native speakers speak is that you learn how to construct sentences and use vocabulary in the proper context. Code-switching in the middle of sentences distracts attention from sentence construction, and it also does not help the speaker learn how to use English phrases and words in the proper context. Having the ability to speak more than one language is truly a gift, but with great ability comes great responsibility. So, to all the Arabeezy speakers out there, I beg you: at the beginning of every conversation, just pick a language and stick with it!


* I am not this first to make this argument. For an excellent window into the political and social developments in Egypt over the past 60 years, see Galal Amin's book Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?.