Under a Crescent Moon

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The Arab spring: one year on

In January 2011 the Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down and millions of Egyptians took to the streets. Ahdaf Soueif records the momentous events in Cairo

Ahdaf Soueif

guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 January 2012 22.51 GMT


Egyptian women protesting in Cairo, December 2011. Photograph: Mohamed Omar/EPA

Many years ago I signed a contract to write a book about Cairo; my Cairo. But the years passed, and I couldn't write it; when I tried, it read like an elegy, and I would not write an elegy for my city.


Cairo: My City, Our Revolution
by Ahdaf Soueif

Then, in February 2011, I was in Tahrir Square, taking part in the revolution, and reporting on it. My friend and publisher called me: this, she said, must be the moment for your Cairo book. I fought it. But I feared she was right.

I say "feared" because I wanted more to act in the revolution than to write about it. And because I was afraid of the responsibility. Jean Genet, in his book that I most admire, Un Captif Amoureux (Prisoner of Love), writes of the Palestinian revolution (1970): "I am not an archivist or a historian or anything like it … This is my Palestinian revolution, told in my own chosen order." I cannot say the same. This story is told in my own chosen order, but it is very much the story of our revolution.

It proved impossible to sit in a corner and write about the revolution. What was happening, what is happening, needed and needs every one of us to be available at all times to do whatever "the revolutionary effort" might need; whether it's marching or standing or talking or mediating or writing or comforting or articulating or bearing witness … So I tried to "revolute" and write at the same time, and I soon realised that for the book to be as I wanted it to be and believed it should be, an intervention, rather than just a record, it needed to take in – and on – as much of the present as possible. And the present was, naturally, constantly changing.

A revolution is a process, not an event. And, as you know, our Egyptian revolution is ongoing. And its path has not been smooth. How could it have been when the interests we are seeking to break free of are so powerful and so pervasive? But we were given 18 golden days; 18 days when we all pulled together to get rid of the head of the regime that was destroying us and our country and everything we held dear; 18 days that brought out the best in us and showed us not just what we could do, but how we could be.


Friday 28 January 5pm

The river is a still, steely grey, a dull pewter. Small scattered fires burn and fizz in the water. We've pushed out from the shore below the Ramses Hilton and are heading into mid-stream. My two nieces, Salma and Mariam, are on either side of me in the small motor boat. As we get further from the shore our coughing and choking subsides. We can draw breath, even though the breath burns. And we can open our eyes.

To see an opaque dusk, heavy with tear gas. Up ahead, Qasr el-Nil Bridge is a mass of people, all in motion, but all in place. We look back at where we were just minutes ago, on 6 October Bridge, and see a central security forces personnel carrier on fire, backing off, four young men chasing it, leaping at it, beating at its windscreen. The vehicle is reversing wildly, careering backwards east towards the city centre. Behind us, a ball of fire lands in the river; a bright new pool of flame in the water. The sky too is grey – so different from the airy twilight you normally get on the river at this time of day. The Opera House looms dark on our right and we can barely make out the slender height of the Cairo Tower. We don't know it yet, but the lights of Cairo will not come on tonight.

A great shout goes up from Qasr el-Nil. I look at Salma and Mariam. "Yes, let's," they say. I tell the boatman we've changed our minds: we don't want to cross the river to Giza and go home, we want to be dropped off under Qasr el-Nil Bridge.

And that is why we – me and two beautiful young women – appeared suddenly in the Qasr el-Nil underpass among the central security vehicles racing to get out of town and all the men leaning over the parapet above us with stones in their hands stopped in mid-throw and yelling "Run! Run!" and holding off with the stones so they wouldn't hit us as we skittered through the screeching vehicles to a spot where we could scramble up the bank and join the people at the bridge.

We scrambled up the bank and found ourselves part of the masses. When we'd seen the crowd from a distance it had seemed like one solid bulk. Close up like this, it was people, individuals with spaces between them – spaces into which you could fit. We stood on the traffic island in the middle of the road. Behind us was Qasr el-Nil Bridge, in front of us was Tahrir, and we were doing what we Egyptians do best, and what the regime ruling us had tried so hard to destroy: we had come together, as individuals, millions of us, in a great co-operative effort. And this time our project was to save and to reclaim our country. We stood on the island in the middle of the road, and that was the moment I became part of the revolution.

I have shied away from writing about Cairo. It hurt too much. But now, miraculously, it doesn't. Because my city is mine again.

"Masr" is Egypt, and "Masr" is also what Egyptians call Cairo. On Tuesday 1 February, I watched a man surveying the scene in Tahrir with a big smile – the sun was shining and people were everywhere, old and young, rich and poor, they talked and walked and sang and played and joked and chanted. Then he said it out loud: "Ya Masr, it's been a long time. We have missed you."

On the traffic island at the Qasr el-Nil entrance to Tahrir you turned 360 degrees and everywhere there were people. I could not tell how many thousands I could see. Close up, people were handing out tissues soaked in vinegar for your nose, Pepsi to bathe your eyes, water to drink. I stumbled, and a hand under my elbow steadied me. The way ahead of us was invisible behind the smoke. From time to time there would be a burst of flame. The great hotels – the Semiramis Intercontinental, Shepheard's, the Ramses Hilton – had all darkened their lower floors and locked their doors. On the upper-floor balconies stick figures were watching us. At the other end of the Midan, from the roof of the American University, the snipers were watching us, too. Silently. Everywhere there was a continuous thud of guns, and from time to time a loud, intermittent rattling sound. We stood. That was our job, the people at the back. We stood and we chanted our declaration of peace, "Selmeyya! Selmeyya!", while our comrades at the front, unarmed, fought with the security forces. From time to time a great cry would go up and we would surge forward: our friends had won us another couple of metres and we followed them and held our ground. We sang the national anthem. On 28 January, standing at that momentous crossroads, the Nile behind us, the Arab League building to our left, the old ministry of foreign affairs to our right, seeing nothing up ahead except the gas and smoke and fire that stood between us and our capital, we stood our ground and sang and chanted, and placed our lives – with all trust and confidence – in one another's hands.

Some of us died.

Many of us had not yet truly realised what we were engaged in; what the country was engaged in. We were still calling what we were doing "protesting" – and we had been protesting for 10 years. I think every time I've arrived in Cairo – and that's three or four times a year – I've joined my sister and various friends on protests: marches to support the Palestinian intifada, marches against the war on Iraq, protests against our rigged elections, our co-opted judiciary, against the plots to perpetuate the regime by slithering Gamal Mubarak into power, against corruption and against police brutality. The government was vicious in dealing with all of them.

Looking back now we see the progression, from small groups collecting medicines for the intifada, to the civil movement, Kifaya, hitting the streets, to the massive workers' strikes in Mahalla, to the point where every sector in civil society – judges, lawyers, farmers, teachers, pensioners, journalists, tax collectors – was fighting with the government. And I see it, too, in my family. Like so many politically engaged Egyptian families it's now in its third generation of activists – and this third generation, in their 20s, are cleverer and cooler and more effective than we ever were.


Friday 4 February

It's morning and I'm leaving for Tahrir. My family is already there. It's become a tradition: Friday and Tuesday we get at least a million people out on the streets. Last Friday, the 28th, was the Day of Wrath, today is the Day of Departure – Mubarak's, we hope. It's also become a tradition that Friday (Muslim) prayers in Tahrir are followed by (Christian) mass – with everybody joining in both sets of "amens". Sheikh Mazhar Shaheen, the young imam of Omar Makram Mosque, speaks what's on people's minds and links our actions to spiritual values. He addresses his sermon to "Egyptians", and he speaks of "Christ's example". He ends by praying to God to "make us stand fast. Restore our rights. We want not war but peace. Bear witness that we love Egypt and hold the dust of this land dear. Restore our dignity. Unite us and let not our blood be spilled." Our great communal "amens" roll through the Midan.

The questions that are being settled on the streets of Egypt are of concern to everyone. The paramount one is this: can a people's revolution succeeed that is determinedly democratic, grassroots, inclusive and peaceable?

4pm


Delegations from many Egyptian cities and governorates are here. The regime has stopped the trains running, but people have got here anyway. The flags and banners of Alexandria, Assiut, Beheira, Herghada, Port Said, Qena, Sohag, Suez and others are flying. The chant is: "El-shar3eyya m'nel-Tahrir." Legitimacy comes from Tahrir.

I look back now at the spectacle of us, the people, in all our variety, picnicking, strolling, camping, chanting, on the street of the ministries between our parliament and our cabinet office on Tuesday 8 February; my aunt and I and a few thousand people outside the railings. It would be simple to go in and occupy them both. And it's not fear that holds us back. How can these shabab be afraid after their attempt on the interior ministry down the road – when for three days they surged against that fortress of evil, facing bullets and gas? Or after Bloody Wednesday, when they defended the Midan against cavalry and molotovs and snipers and militias? No, we the people were implementing a doctrine of minimum force, minimum destruction. This was a revolution that respected the law, that had at its heart the desire to reclaim the institutions of state, not to destroy them.

Would we have ended up in a better place if we had been more violent?


11 February 6pm

It happens. A brief statement delivered by Omar Suleiman looking even deader than usual, with a scowling, heavy-set man in the frame behind him: Hosni Mubarak has stepped aside; the armed forces are in control of the country.

8pm


You can hardly see the lions on Qasr el-Nil Bridge for the kids climbing on to them. All the mobiles held high; everybody being photographed in the moment. I'm part of the surge of happy humanity flowing across the bridge. Beneath us, our river, alight with sparkling lights, with fireworks, with song. Then, Tahrir.

You breathe deep when you get to Tahrir. A steady roar rises from it and there are more fireworks, and a million flags are waving and banners fly: "No More Torture!" "Welcome to Tomorrow!" "Congratulations to the World!" We're crying and laughing and jumping and hugging and singing, and now the (football) Ultras are circling the Midan, their energy like an electric current fizzing off the walls of the Arab League: "Everyone who loves Egypt, come and help fix Egypt"; off the Mugamma3 building: "We'll get married, we'll have kids"; off the Egyptian Museum: "Lift your head up high, you're Egyptian. Lift your head up high, you're Egyptian. Lift your head up …"

And in the centre of the Midan a stillness. The pictures of the murdered. The martyrs. Sally Zahran, massive blows to the head, glances upwards and smiles. Muhammad Abd el-Menem, shot in the head, his hair carefully gelled. Ali Muhsin, shot, carries a laughing toddler with a big blue sea behind him. Muhammad Bassiouny, shot, lies back with his two kids. Muhammad Emad holds his arms open wide and wears a "London" T-shirt. Ihab Muhammadi smiles but his eyes are thoughtful … and more, 843 more. In the triumph and joy and uncertainty of the moment, they are the still centre; the young people, the shabab, who walked into the Midan, in peace, to save their country and to save us. Our future has been paid for with their lives. There is no turning back.


Monday 1 August/1 Ramadan

I see the tweets at about one o'clock: "Tanks moving into Bab el-Louq. Must be heading for Tahrir."

"We have to open the Midan." "We have to open the Midan now."

I get to Qasr el-Nil Bridge and run into the battalion arriving to control its entrance into Tahrir. They're maybe 50 men. They look like army – tall and well-built and disciplined – rather than police or central security, but they're in black. They're carrying long, rough wooden sticks.

The Midan is a massive wreck, a giant tip. They've demolished our small city. It's like a scene in a film when an army's been through an enemy village: everything's razed to the ground. The military pass through, and the tents, flags, banners, billboards – everything is transformed into rubbish. Soldiers are on the move everywhere. We see young men being pushed by soldiers towards tanks, and we see soldiers deliberately breaking up unresisting chairs and tables.

The Tahrir Cinema screen is on the ground, broken up by our army, the cables cut and tangled. I see the screen on the ground, then I see a child dragging a blanket behind him and crying. Then I see other children – street children for whom the Midan had brokered a truce with their cruel lives and who'd found shelter in the central garden between the tents; the revolutionary shabab had held classes for anyone who wanted to learn to read or write, shared their food with them and given them responsibilities. The children spread mats and connected wires, and held lights and cameras. All this is in ruins now.


31 October 2011

This is my last day of writing. We are still fighting.

For weeks through August, central security forces occupied the central garden of the Midan. And in September we found out that the regime had been planning to sell Tahrir. They'd been planning to sell the central public space in our capital to a hotel chain – to a foreign hotel chain, because "Hosni Mubarak's government was worried about large gatherings and protests … in central Cairo".

What is legal and what is not? The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) makes up the rules as it goes along. The right to protest is enshrined in law, it says. But protestors in front of the Israeli embassy are brutalised and hauled off to military trial. And every one of the incidents that have marked the last eight months has registered a worsening of the relationship between the people and the army.

The question for us now is will we have the parliamentary elections scheduled for 28 November? Many of us think the Maspero event (which left 26 people dead) was meant to cause enough civil unrest to give Scaf an excuse to declare martial law and postpone elections. It didn't work. Will it work next time? Will there be a next time?

"Not one of us is going to step back into the nightmare," I wrote eight months ago. But the nightmare chases us, surprises us, attacks us. So far we have beaten it back.

We are not alone. We were never alone; the feelings, the prayers, the messages that came pouring into Egypt from every place on earth during those 18 days of Tahrir lodged in our minds and in our hearts, and affirmed every minute what we knew already: that the freedom we sought was the freedom the people of the world wanted, for us and for themselves. And what has been happening across the planet since has confirmed and reconfirmed our belief. The first placards raised in Wisconsin, the street signs invented for the City of London, the words we hear from Tokyo to Wall Street, the chants in Oakland, California – all echo the call from Tahrir and Tunis: the people demand the fall of this – entire – regime.

My father, who's 87, says we shall prevail, because "we" are a people fighting for what's right, and "they" are a faction fighting for a sliver of gain. Well, there are many bad possibilities. But there are more good ones. I believe that optimism is a duty – if people had not been optimistic on 25 January, and all the days that followed, they would not have left their homes or put their vulnerable human bodies on the streets. Our revolution would not have happened.

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