The period of rage from Tuesday 25th to Friday 28th January was a period full of doubts and questions on what was going to happen next. It was also full of fears because of the magnitude of aggression by the state authorities, and concerns about
safety after the news broadcast by the media that police stations were being attacked and prisons being broken open by force and that thousands of criminals were free in streets.
The narratives in this chapter on young people's involvement in the Tahrir actions during the 18 days from 25th January to Mubarak's downfall on 11th February and beyond come from the three young people Amro, Mona and Karim (the Don Bosco high school senior encountered in Chapter 5). In building the story of young people’s involvement in the Tahrir actions I will use the narratives of the three young people which they had narrated in different meetings with me and at different stages. Parts of the narratives come from Amro, Mona and Karim's written memories which they have posted online on their blogs and / or Facebook pages.
During the month of Ramadan / August 2011, it was night time and I was in Tahrir Square at the intersection of Mohamed Mahmoud Street. A group of 25 to 30 young people, mostly of high school age, were gathering in front of the Hardees restaurant. They were waiting for others who had responded to an invitation for a gathering in Tahrir Square. I approached the few familiar faces I knew in the middle of the group and saluted both Amro and Karim. The latter agreed to leave the group to sit with me in one of the Tahrir coffee houses.
Karim: I am not ashamed to say that I wasn't at Tahrir Square during the revolution, but I followed the progress of the revolution in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and the rest of the governorates. Being locked at home was out of my hands. It was against my will and I wanted to go to Tahrir Square. Although staying at home watching what was happening on TV during the revolution was the peak of being negative, I was able to turn it into something positive and they were the best 18 days in my life; I can't forget even a single hour of those days.
On January 25th, I heard there would be demonstrations. But what difference does that make, I thought; every now and then we hear about demonstrations and nothing happens. I even didn't pay attention to what happened on the 25th. The next morning, on January 26th, I left home to go to my institute in Shubra. On my way, my eyes fell on Aam Mohamed (the newspaper seller). I thought of taking a look at what had happened
yesterday. The official newspaper headlines were about Lebanon and what was going on there and a bit of news on demonstrations requesting reforms that had ended safely. I laughed mockingly, saying that the country would never change, that would be only in my dreams and I swore that not in a million demonstrations would anything happen. Before leaving Aam Mohamed for the institute, by chance I saw a newspaper called "Al Masry Al Youm", and its first page looked odd, as there was a photo of a dark square with thousands of people rushing in different directions, but the photo wasn't very clear. I found out later that it was unclear because of the tear gas bombs; I bought that newspaper for the first time and rushed to arrive on time at my Institute.
At the end of the week, on Thursday January 27th. I left home for the Institute and came across Aam Mohamed, but I didn't find anything new, so I continued on my way. I reached the institute and we had a Social Studies class; we happened to open up the subject of the demonstrations, and I told the teacher, “The young people went on demonstrations on Tuesday, and look what happened!! They were beaten and went back home, nothing happened. ” He told me, “You will see what will happen tomorrow.” I sat down wondering what was going to happen.
Mona went on to tell her story after she had been released. Up until the midnight of 25th January Mona was still sceptical that anything could happen:
I thought that nothing was going to happen on 25th January and that no one would do anything. This was my thinking until the midnight of the 25th; all of a sudden we found our friends knocking at the door to escape from the tear gas bombs… We didn't believe it until our friends showed us the photos they had taken in Tahrir Square and we saw a lot of people there. Our friends themselves did not realize the number and variety of people that were there: it wasn't only the elite (cultured people and political activists). One of our friends told us that some young people lit a fire from the wood, sat around it and started to sing, and the question I kept thinking was, What is the meaning of what is happening?
I hadn't really been into demonstrations or protests in the past. I was happy to join the 6th April Movement strike in 2008 because my friends were there and I was just cheering from a distance… but to have such a number of people engaged in the same thing as was the case on the 25th… was fairly weird to me, a lot of enthusiasm in the air. I kept asking myself, was anything going to happen or not? On the 26th some of our friends got arrested! There was a strange movement in the country that we didn't realize… the incident that was similar to what was happening was the
students' protest that took place in the 1970s that my mother had told me about.
The one who found it most difficult to speak was Amro who, as he said, carried many sad memories of those days. He didn’t join the 25th January demonstration because he had “a private lesson”. He said he wasn’t convinced about joining in and didn’t believe that there was going to be a revolution. Sitting in a Costa Cafe close to Tahrir Square, Amro talked about his Tahrir memories:
I actually joined the revolution on Friday January 28th (known as the Friday of Rage). I didn’t know what to expect. The private lesson was cancelled. By accident I joined the march from my neighbourhood to Tahrir. When we were approaching the square, the march took the wrong entrance to the square, which brought us face to face with the police forces that were waiting. We were beaten aggressively. We were attacked with khartoush and tear gas. I went home, but passed by the pharmacy in order to deal with the effects of the tear gas. I slept for two days.
My parents didn’t know for some time that I had joined the actions of the revolution. Even later on, when I told them that I'd joined some demos they didn’t understand that I had been that close to the front line. My parents are pro-revolution but like any parents they are always worried about me and what could happen to me in the street. I will never forget those days.
Karim's memories of January 28th, the “Friday of Rage”, come from where he was stuck in the Al-Daher area, not too far from down town Tahrir:
I woke up at 6 a.m. and went to church. I prayed, then at 8:30, I walked along the street with my friends to have breakfast as usual. But on our way back, and all of a sudden, we found all the signals of our cell phones were going up and down. At that moment I knew I had to move and that something was happening in the streets. We went around a lot of streets and then went out to the main streets where I found plenty of cars and armoured vehicles, people running to left and right, shops closing their doors and some people who looked weird wearing black sunglasses and with strong physiques (State Security Sector guys). But when we got back to the side streets, we found everything was normal, people walking by, shops open, so I realised that the danger was in the main streets only. But by 1 p.m. I noticed some youths who looked very strange who did not belong to the neighbourhood standing round the corners of the streets. We
called them ”baltagia” (bullies). I went back home around 2:30 p.m. and found all of our neighbours gathering at our place watching the Al Jazeera TV channel for some time and the official TV channels for a while after that.
Mona continued narrating her memories about the Friday of Rage from her location close to down town Tahrir:
There were invitations on Facebook for something to happen on Friday the 28th. What would we be doing?... We thought that it was over, that the demonstrations had been suppressed and that our friends would be released… and then it was the 28th; all means of communications (internet, mobiles, and even landlines) were cut. I was supposed to shoot a movie that day, and my day was going on as planned, but 30 minutes before shooting the communications were cut, so I cancelled the shooting, and when the communications were disconnected, we couldn't reach either our families or our friends, so people had to go down to the streets to know what was happening. I couldn't go out that day: my friend locked me at home because she was afraid that we might get lost in the crowd.
After the Friday prayers I tried to go out, but I couldn't find anybody to go with. It was such a bad feeling. I felt paralyzed and helpless, it was a horrible feeling. From the balcony, I saw people arrested, I saw a lot of violence, and I didn't know what to do. I felt terribly helpless, all I could do on the 28th at 3 p.m., as all the pharmacies had finished their stock, I sent bandages or disinfectants, and the whole neighbourhood did the same. All the men and women were standing on the balconies throwing cotton and bandages, and we knew that people were dying in the streets. My roommate was so sick, so she had to go down for an injection, but she found injured people with serious injuries, the pharmacies were empty, and the policemen were about to retreat, so they took off their clothes in the streets and were wearing civilian clothes to run away. That night I couldn't sleep, but on the 29th I woke up to hear the sound of bullets coming from everywhere, and I heard from our friends that they (the Ministry of the Interior) were starting to kill people, This didn't frighten me as much as when I asked myself a question: Where am I? I 've seen armoured vehicles shooting people with live bullets. So it is a revolution then, and I don't know what to do?
My mother called me, and I was telling her that people were dying here without any fault, it is a war!! As my mother was breaking down, I had to go to her house on the other side of Cairo. She picked me up and there were fires everywhere on the ring road, especially on our way back home. In my family I am treated as a responsible person, just like my eldest
brother to a great extent. I have achieved this the hard way, it is such an effort, so I've always felt responsible for taking care of my elderly father and mother. I didn't know how to protect them. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know whether what was happening was right or wrong.
The memories voiced by these three young people on the first few days of the Egyptian revolution showed the emerging young Egyptians' political consciousness. It was something they had not experienced before, of being face to face with the ugly aggression of the state. Amro had been in clashes before, between the Ultras and the police during football matches, and Mona has been in a demonstration before. But this time, demonstrators were being beaten and even killed in the streets. In narrating their memories they repeated the questions: is this really happening? What can I do? What does this mean? For young people, the emergence of political consciousness came as they witnessed moments of uncertainty, fear and worries about themselves, their families, and friends. In the middle of hopelessness that any change could happen, chaotic streets, and fears of consequences, critical decisions were made. Amro joined the march from his neighbourhood to Tahrir without letting his parents to know that he had done so, while Mona told her mother that she was leaving home and going back to Tahrir with her friends.
For young people, one of the significant paths leading to Tahrir was online social networking through blogging, and the connectivity of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other online media. In various ways, young people intensively utilised their digital experiences, strategies, tools, training and networking during the first few days of the mobilisation and throughout their engagement with the Egyptian revolution. The significance of online connectivity for young people during those first few days was tested when the government cut the internet and mobile service. Away from notions of cyberactivism, as Mona put it very simply: “When communications were disconnected, we could reach neither our families nor our friends; people had to go down to the streets to know what was happening.” This is
what Hammelman and Messard (2011) argued, that online participation leads to offline participation (2011: 24). Moreover, online connectivity was utilised by young activists during the first few days for mobilisation and disseminating information about routes of marches, safety precautions, types of suitable clothes to wear, medicines needed for street clinics, and other items required in order to support the occupiers. Despite the significance of the role of social media and online connectivity however, some young people rejected the notion of the “internet / Facebook revolution” that was widespread during those early days. Karim said:
When I am on Facebook or Twitter I feel I am in the kitchen of the revolution. However, this is not a Facebook revolution. This is our revolution. This is the youth's revolution.
Karim said exactly what Herrera (2011) argued, following the downfall of Mubarak, that:
What is happening in Egypt is not a Facebook Revolution. But it could not have come out without the Facebook generation (Herrera 2011: 5).
Young Egyptians’ sense of hopelessness and their great desires for real change were the real grounds that gave birth to Tahrir. Despite the uncertainties and fears, masses of Egyptians from different social strata were moved by the younger generations’ “claims to the city”, the radical connotations of their call for real change, and that they filled the roads and streets leading to Tahrir Square. However what Tahrir has in turn given to young people remains to be explored. The following sections of this chapter are attempts to unveil part of it.