In Sana’a President Saleh is walking a fine line — using violence to disperse peaceful protests works until civilian deaths make international news. Iona Craig reports
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The cars started flowing through downtown Cairo’s Tahrir Square again on Sunday. Most of the protesters, who had made the massive public space their revolutionary home since 28 January, departed willingly. They meticulously cleaned it before they left, and many already spoke of a growing sense of nostalgia for the utopian ethos that embodied the Republic of Tahrir.
When Mubarak’s resignation was announced on Friday — less than 24 hours after his final, disastrously tone-deaf speech to his people — Egyptians basically launched a three-day street party. I heard a lot of people making, “It’s like we won the World Cup” analogies; I even made one myself.
But looking back, this seems even bigger. This was a “Berlin Wall” moment; the euphoria and national pride that accompanies a huge football victory was mixed with a realization that everyone’s life would be different after today.
Even now, as normality largely returns to the city, there’s a valedictory mood. Friends who hadn’t met since before Friday are still greeting each other with “congratulations”.
It’s a time to recover and take stock.
Mubarak is apparently in his presidential palace in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. Unconfirmed rumours abound regarding both his health and his potential exile destinations.
The Supreme Armed Forces Council, which now runs the country, has dissolved the parliament, suspended the constitution, offered new elections in September and pledged an orderly transition to an elected civilian government. They haven’t however lifted or repealed the notorious “emergency laws” and there’s concern that a current wave of post-resignation labour strikes will be banned or forcibly suppressed.
Journalists are shifting from breathless news reports to more investigative and exploratory work. A lot of journalistic effort is being spent meticulously recreating Mubarak’s final hours — leading up to and following his Thursday night non-resignation speech.
Some (including this reporter) are even planning to take long-suffering spouses out for an actual Valentine’s Day dinner.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s praise of the Egyptian people and encouragement of Cairo’s protesters in the past two weeks have a satirical edge; especially given the pair’s violent wrath towards their own people’s demands in June 2009. Of course it’s their assumption that Islam is the id of the Egyptian people, and therefore warrants this encouragement. In this equation support for citizens free expression is irrelevant.
It was with great relish that I received news of a brilliant twist in the tale, when last Monday Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi seized the opportunity to expose the façade of the Iranian leadership — and reignite the opposition — by making a formal request to march in support of the Tunisian and Egyptian people’s uprising. Karroubi also gave a rare interview to the New York Times.
It would seem that the leadership were painted into a corner and would, consistent with the admiration they’d shown, be left no choice but to grant this. But consistency has never been a consideration and the request was met with silence.
Silence. And the house arrest of Karroubi by Thursday. Regardless, Facebook pages were created and word spread…Monday 14 February, Freedom Square, Tehran. Soon tandem events emerged in Qom, Babol, Esfahan and elsewhere in Iran as the desire of people to once again take to the streets became palpable. Before long control of access to information became paramount, culminating in the comically desperate move by the state to filter the word “Bahman” — the current calendar month — barring it from the internet so people couldn’t find out where and when to meet, or what — if anything — was happening.
No matter, as Iranians returned to old fashioned methods, with reports of teenagers sent door to door alerting people to be there on Monday. Scroll down this Facebook wall and you’ll see notices written on walls, in phone booths, on the side of buses, rubbish bins and scribbled on bank notes. Moussavi’s Facebook page declares that they will go ahead with or without permission. And Karroubi’s latest statement since house arrest proclaims: “The people know what to do.”
In observing from afar, the parallels and comparisons between Egypt now and Iran 30 years ago have been inevitable with speculation on lessons learned.
The Egyptian people claimed their victory on 11 February (22 Bahman) the exact anniversary of the Iranian revolution 32 years ago. For Iranians, watching was bittersweet. But the dignity and determination of the Iranian people 18 months ago has not been forgotten as this jubilant Egyptian declares on Friday in Cairo:
Last night the rooftop protests resumed their echo across Tehran.
A Facebook status earlier this week expressed it best:
On motorbikes in Tehran, camels in Egypt, either way, death to the Dictator!
Shahira Amin, the number two at Nile television, explains why she resigned from Egyptian state television
When I got into the car to drive to work on Thursday 3 February, I had no conscious plans to quit my job. I took the same route I take every day to the Ministry of Information building in Maspiro, Cairo. Everything looked familiar except for the army tanks acting as roadblocks on the Cornish, the main road that runs parallel to the River Nile. It was a strange sight: soldiers gesturing to car drivers to slow down for security checks. Traffic is usually heavy in the morning, but that day there was an eerie silence, the street was empty of vehicles and the atmosphere was tense.
I had stopped briefly at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo the previous day (Wednesday) to check out what was happening. I was overwhelmed by the size of this historic demonstration. It was exciting to see so many Egyptians united for a common cause and voicing their demands: they wanted to see an end to rampant corruption. They also called on Mubarak to step down. The one word echoing in that square in the first few days of the protest was simply: Go!
For an Egyptian patriot, it was a welcome sight, and the sound of the protesters’ chants was music to my ears. I had never imagined this level of passion was possible from a people that I had long thought were passive, even lifeless, but now the giant had woken.
On Thursday as I drove to work my heart felt heavy. I recalled some of the violent scenes I had watched on my television screen in previous days. One scene that kept flashing before me was the pro-Mubarak men on horseback who had stormed through the crowd, using their whips to terrorise the protesters. It was like a scene from medieval times.
My cell phone rang and I jumped at the sound. It was a colleague from work asking why I was late. I told her that I had stopped several times at checkpoints but would be joining her shortly. I parked in the Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel, which is only a few metres away from the square. It’s close to the TV building too, and I wanted to walk the remainder of the way to work. Even then I hadn’t realised that my legs would take me directly to the square as if my body had been hypnotised by the cries of the demonstrators.
When I got to the square, I knew I couldn’t leave. I took my phone out of my bag and wrote my boss a message. Instead of informing him that I would be late for work, I found myself writing the following words: “Forgive me. I won’t be coming to the building again. I am on the people’s side, not the regime’s.”
The message was clear. I was resigning from my job as deputy director of Nile Television, Egypt’s state-run foreign language satellite channel — a job that up until that moment had been the reason for my existence. I am still not sure what came over me, but I didn’t give this life-changing decision a second thought. I quit, giving up the life I have known for over 20 years without a second’s hesitation.
I was as astonished by my decision as my bosses and workmates were. I had never considered resigning before, and everyone knew how passionate I felt about my job. It wasn’t just a managerial post; I was also a news anchor and senior correspondent. Producing feature and news stories was what I enjoyed most about the job. I have travelled the world covering major events, interviewing scores of prominent figures. I have even risked my life on a number of occasions, covering sectarian unrest on the Thai-Malaysian border, and the Gaza war 2008-9. But perhaps being in war zones wasn’t quite as dangerous as falling out of favour with this ruthless regime.
I have on occasion ruffled feathers with my reporting. Whenever that happened, it was customary to get a phone call froma state security official who would question my motives, reprimand me for “tarnishing the country’s image” and warn that the next time I would not be let off the hook.
But until now, things had been OK and I had — I believe — managed to push the boundaries of free speech even further with every “controversial” story that was aired.
So why did I resign and had I ever considered doing so before? Let me answer the second question first: no, never. I loved my work and had never felt restricted despite the threats from state security or occasional rebukes from my bosses for “crossing the red lines”. These so-called red lines usually meant interviewing opposition figures or expressing an opinion that ran counter to the official view.
My station, Nile TV, broadcasts in English and French. The target audience is different from other state TV channels — our viewers are elite, educated members of society and the foreign community in Egypt. That’s why Nile TV got away with more than other state channels. But in this latest uprising, the situation was different.
From day one, we were clearly instructed to follow the rules. We had to follow the line taken by the Arabic broadcasts on the main local channel, and broadcast what they were broadcasting. First, viewers watching Nile TV were to be given the impression that this was a normal protest to express dissatisfaction at the high food prices and an even higher unemployment rate. There would be no mention of the protesters wanting the president to step down.
Second, they were to be informed that the protest was organised by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (not the young activists and internet users who were really responsible for its launch). And third, that foreign agents were fomenting the unrest, fanning the flames of sectarianism and fuelling the instability to serve their own hidden agendas.
That, I believed, was a hugely distorted version of the story. Here was a historic revolution happening in our country. It was, and is, unprecedented in scale and intensity. The Muslim Brotherhood aren’t at the helm as the government would have us believe: the instigators were members of the 6 April Movement that had supported the labour riots at Mehallah el Kobra in 2008 and the ‘We are All Khaled Said’ group — named after the young man beaten to death by police in Alexandria in June 2008.
Political forces like the Brotherhood and members of the liberal Wafd Party did come on board later, but the revolution remains all-inclusive, with no political or religious agenda. The only flag raised in Tahrir square is the Red, White and Black Egyptian flag. That’s the truth.
But instead of showing what was going on in Tahrir, the pro-Mubarak rallies outside the state television building dominated our coverage on the 2 February. Here was history in the making in my own backyard and I wasn’t able to tell Egyptians the story of what was unfolding. Instea,d Egyptian audiences had to rely on Dubai-based al Arabiya and other news channels. Al Jazeera had been taken off air because of what an anchor on state TV described as incitement and bias (without mentioning the channel by name).
For any journalist, the experience of holding back information is agonising and feeding the public lies is career suicide. You stand to lose your credibility and integrity. Last Thursday, I knew I could no longer be the mouthpiece of a regime that uses such brutal tactics to silence voices of dissent.
If I continued to be part of the regime’s propaganda machine, it would mean that I too would be implicated in their crimes. I would have the blood of the innocent martyrs on my hands. So far, 300 people have been killed in these protests and thousands have been injured. Many more could lose their lives in the coming days and weeks if the situation continues unresolved.
Having left my job, I now spend most of my day in Tahrir Square with the protesters. Yesterday, I overheard a young mother tell her little child, “Be patient, the road to freedom is never easy. We are on the first step in a long and difficult road but we will get there.” I wish I was as confident as her.
I left Tahrir Square thinking: these protesters are willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom. That’s a much higher price to pay than losing a job.