خالع ومخلوع وبينهما فاسد

معلش. واضح ان حصل سوء تفاهم بسيط. من ساعة ما خلعنا مبارك وكل حاجة في النظام الحاكم لسه زي ما هي. فكده بقى شكلنا كأننا كنا عايزين نخلص منه هو بالذات. وكأن الموضوع شخصي يعني ومالوش علاقة بمبادئ وحقوق وعدالة وحرية وعيش وكرامة انسانية. يكونش افتكر ان الموضوع شخصي وعشان كده كان واخد على خطره وداخل لنا عِند؟ أبداً والنبي خالص. واحنا هنستقصده ليه بس؟ احنا كان قصدنا اسقاط النظام. النظاااام. النظام كله مش حتة منه. يبقى مش طبيعي اننا ننزل الشوارع ونقلب الدنيا علي نفر واحد وبعدين نسكت على اللي كانوا أعوانه وهم طايحين في البلد بنفس الأسلوب ونفس الغباء.

خلاص يا حسني معلش.. الشعب مش عاجبه صبغة شعرك الجديدة.. قوم وهنقعّد مكانك حسين حتى عنده كاب يبقى يغطي بيه صلعته عشان ماحدّش يعترض.

لايكونوا فعلاً فهموا اننا كارهين مبارك مالباب للطاق كده، مخنوقين من طلعته يعني. طب كنا رضينا بجمال. ده حتى واد حليوة ومعجباته كتير.

لما قلنا “ارحل” ماكانش المقصود مبارك لشخصه. أيوه كان لازم يمشي لأنه بحكم منصبه كان المسئول الأول ولأنه –زي ما بيقولوا “أبناء مبارك” كده– لا مؤاخذة رمز. رمز الفساد والاستبداد. رمز القهر والمهانة والفقر والتعذيب وتدنّي مستوى كل حاجة والرضا بقليلنا والمشي جنب الحيط. انما رحيل الرمز –لو افترضنا يعني انه كده رحل– كان مجرد بداية.

يمكن “الشعب يريد اسقاط النظام” كانت مُبهمة شوية، يعني سوفيستِكيه حبّة ويصعب على البعض فهمها. خلليني أوضّح طيب:

الشعب طهق. الشعب مش عايز يتعذب في الاقسام. الشعب مش عايز يتاخد تحري لو مشي من غير بطاقة. مش عايز يتاخد نيابة عسكرية عشان واقف في مظاهرة. ومش عايز ياخد على وشه بالقلم عشان شكله مش عاجب الضابط. الشعب ما بقاش طايق انه كل ما يفتح بقه عشان يعترض يترمي عليه قنابل غاز. وانه كل ما يطلب حاجة عادية زي مثلا ١٢٠٠ جنيه في الشهر أو مثلا مثلا يعني ان اللي قتل أخوه ياخد جزائه يلاقي نفسه بيتسحل وبيتضرب بالرصاص. الشعب مش عايز فوضى ولا حاجة. الشعب عايز لقمة نضيفة. وعايز يلاقي شغل. وعايز مواصلات محترمة يركبها للشغل. ومدارس العيال تتعلم فيها وما تضّربش. ومحاكم المجرمين يتحاكموا فيها وما يضّربلهمش تعظيم سلام وهم داخلين وخارجين.

الشعب خلاص فاض بيه. والثورة مستمرة طالما لايزال هناك ما يستحق الثورة عليه.

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البلطجية في التحرير ليلة ٢٩ يونيو ٢٠١١

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كلمة أخير: فلنفترض ان فيه بلطجية مع المتظاهرين وأهالي الشهدا، يبقى كتّر خيرهم البلطجية واللهِ ده احنا من غيرهم كنا هنتبهدل. وللا هي البلطجة من حق الداخلية بس؟

أشكال والوان

صورة المصلين في التحرير النهارده فكرتني بالمقطع ده من قصيدة تميم البرغوثي

يا مصر قومي وبصي في المرايات
كان كل واحد في الميدان جايب معاه مراية
رافعها للسما
اشكال والوان كلها مرفوعة في العالي
صبحت مراية واحدة بتلالي
وبقت يا مصر الارض صورة للسما
لعبة بازل متكاسرة الاجزاء
لما البشر يتجمّعوا تبان السما ع الارض
ّواما البشر يتفرّقوا تلقي السما بتنفض
تبقى سما متوزّعة جوه الشقق
وتمر ليلة من التوجُّس والقلق
وننام ونصحى تاني يوم
ترجع سما لما البشر يتجمّعوا مع بعض

Translated from a poem by Tamim Al-Barghouti, with inspiration from this image.

Get up Egypt and look in the mirrors.

In the square each held a mirror
up to the sky.
The different shapes and colours
became one image
the sky shimmering on earth.

People like puzzle pieces
when they gathered
the sky came down to earth.
When they parted it broke and
was scattered in their flats.

The night is tense.

We sleep and wake and return
to the square bringing with us the sky.

ما رواه أبو لمعة .. عن وقائع يوم الجمعة

الصورة اللي على اليمين من ميدان التحرير النهاردة وقت صلاة الجمعة .. الصورة اللي على الشمال لخبر من الموقع الرسمي للإخوان المسلمين نُشر في نفس الوقت تقريباً (اضغط على الصورة لقراءة التفاصيل)

ده مش هجوم على الإخوان لا كحزب ولا كأفراد، إنما على التضليل الإعلامي أيّا كان مصدره أو انتماؤه .. بصراحة كنت أتوقع من المصدر ده بالذات آداء أرقى شوية من كده .. (وجعتني أوي حكاية “جمعة الوقيعة” دي .. ربنا “يوقع” كل انتهازي في شر أعماله!)

from May 2005 to May 2011

Friday, 27 May. Protests are being planned all over Egypt. Some opposition groups are calling it the “second Friday of rage“, others (myself included) see it as a second wave in an ongoing revolution that was not finished in the first place.

It’s been exactly 6 years since the first visible protests against Mubarak’s regime. I was reminded of that by an email from Alia pointing out what a long way we’ve come since May 2005. She included a link to a post she’d written back then following the brutal assault on opposition protestors in Cairo (read more about that incident here.)

I remember that day. I wasn’t actually there –was living in London at the time –but I remember calling friends, scanning the internet for pictures and stories, and doing very little at work for days (and maybe weeks after) besides immersing myself in the –then still emerging– world of Egyptian blogs. That day marked the crystallization of a very sinister possibility: that when the real oppressed of Egypt rise, it might be against other Egyptians who are on the same side, also oppressed but with the kind of clothes or cars or discourses that allow them to be framed as the other and consequently as the culprit. It was scary to see how easily we could all be played against each other in a game that serves the oppressors to consolidate their power.

Yes, we have come a long way. But the dangers we are facing now are sadly dependent on the same dynamics as back then. On a daily basis, we still have to resist being played in a game of “us” against “them”, while the real oppressors are watching from somewhere altogether outside the frame.

For me, the necessity of Tahrir (Tahrir as shorthand for ongoing protests everywhere) goes beyond presenting demands or exercising pressure on the SCAF or calling for the release of Amr, Michael, and thousands others. All these are important issues, but more than that, for me the necessity of Tahrir lies in the way it brings people together, from all sectors of society, from across the ideological spectrum.

It’s a space where we keep rediscovering ourselves and each other, where we see that the world abounds with possibilities of creativity, tolerance and freedom, and that we don’t have to be stuck in the narratives that have been imposed on us. Tahrir is a meeting place, a thinktank, a sort of Athenian Pnyx for the many many individuals who are already part of a better Egypt, or even (I’ll allow myself to ignore the little devil of cynicism over my shoulder and say it) of a better humanity.

Cairo revisited

** revised version of a post I published yesterday **

Having been away since end of Feb, I go back to Cairo for a quick fix from Friday 15th to Wednesday 20th.

Day 1 –

Taxi from airport. Cairo is reassuring and uplifting. News from twitter and facebook would make you think knives are slashing skin on every street, and on every corner a crazed preacher like the Jesus guy outside Camden station, except this one would be holding a Quran. But Cairo is reassuring and uplifting, traffic a tad better than usual, my taxi driver in a good mood. On recent Mubarak news he says: “I’m sorry for the old man, but justice feels good.” A sentiment I hear echoed in many conversations in the few days that follow.

I call my parents and tell them I’m on my way. They sound relieved. We hardly spoke while I was away. In the weeks before I left, our arguments are of the kind you hold on to until someone is diagnosed with terminal illness. They accused me of ruining the country. I tried to wring their stupidity wide open for them to see but kept tearing at my own hair instead. I disappeared for days and let them assume my whereabouts. They talked to me as if I held some sway over the protesters in Tahrir. Some of my relatives would call to say things like “Please tell your friends to go home now, enough is enough!!” They’re not really stupid, my parents and aunts and cousins, nor were they pro-Mubarak per se. Mainly they were just scared.

Day 2 –

I wake up at 5am. First rays of sunshine on the Nile and all that. I spend the morning reading and writing, sipping coffee and listening to Darwish. After weeks of reading the news online, I can finally fetishise The Newspaper. I find all the copies in my parent’s house and sail through yesterday’s news.

The first pre-summer night of the year and the outdoor wedding party of M and A. Black cotton dress and orange shoes. Some people here I haven’t seen since Tahrir. It’s hot and we are all as still and as spent as the leaves on the trees. Each small group oblivious of the rest, we drink and talk our way through the first half of the evening. I can only talk about the revolution or my stalling PhD. It’s good to remember how much has happened over the past few months, even if I have hardly written a word! We move with the evening, the mood shifts and it’s like we’ve had to shed some urgent layers of conversation before we’re ready to party. I lose track of how many hours I spend on the makeshift dance floor.

Day  3 –

I meet up with S who’s working on a post-Jan25 project evaluating “media accessibility” in poor communities. Everyone I know is involved in an outreach initiative or a political party. And they all seem genuinely enthusiastic and purpose-bound. Two measurable declines in post-revolution Egypt: the stock market index and levels of cynicism.

But then.. there’s always but and there’s always then.. there’s the story of my brother and the two Sherifs: “the one that stays and the one that goes and how we wish it was the other way round”.

The first Sherif is moving with his family to the States. I meet my bro on the margin of his leaving do, and hear the familiar narrative: An Egyptian Copt, his wife American, they fear that Egypt is no longer a safe place for their children. Good people ambivalent about a good thing, they leave because they can. It’s depressing.

The other Sherif is a childhood friend of ours who at some point in his mid-twenties decided to find God. In a chance meeting two days earlier, he enquires about my brother’s marital status and advises him that it’s not good for a Moslem man to be single (read: unmarried). It invites temptation you see. He then opines that Egypt is on the right track and “the Islamic state is on its way.”

In my anecdotal version of reality, the two Sherifs provide the only sources of worry during my short happy trip.

Day 4 –

I spend most of the day in downtown Cairo, and am struck by the feeling of normality in the streets and bars. I realise that this is the first time since January that I see downtown Cairo without a demonstration, or at least a few small traffic-halting protests here and there. Is this nostalgia that I’m feeling?

Lunch with my “writing friends”. A group of mixed nationalities, at least 2 of us positive that they’re not interested in politics, we still find it hard to keep away from the topic of Egyptian politics for more than 10 minutes. I even venture some details about my love life to lend some variety to the conversation, but that’s not as exciting as trying to decipher what some army general or other might be thinking. I remember what monasosh has jokingly told me: how the only relationship she can sustain these days is her relationship with the army.

I’ve been bringing up the subject of detainees with almost everyone. People are concerned, yet the prevailing attitude seems to be playing along with the army until they go back to their barracks. And about Maikel Nabil? Reassuringly no one I speak to –friends and immediate family―thinks that the “Israel thing” changes much. What people see is a guy who’s in prison for writing on his blog. “Told you that military rule would be a lot worse than Mubarak,” is what my father has to say. I swallow my reply as I try to honour the vow of never discussing politics with my parents.

Day 5 –

I need to work. So I take my laptop to a café where I can sit outside and enjoy the sun while.. err.. working. It’s good to be in Cairo. Even better when I run into A and H, two friends who never fail to exude positivity it would be annoying if it wasn’t the very reason I’m in Cairo for. I need a fix. Give me your optimistic views and I’ll mix them with a hint of sugar into my double macchiato. When they leave in a couple of hours it’s to attend a vigil held for Vittorio Arrigoni outside the Italian embassy.

Later on in a taxi going past Maspiro. Traffic is stalled, there must be a demo that I don’t know about. We edge closer, I try to make out what’s written on the placards.. The people want freedom for… the president? Really? A hundred or so demonstrators hold pictures of Mubarak in military uniform. The placards don’t only demand his release but insist on reinstating him as some kind of hero.

They are slapping pro-Mubarak stickers onto passing cars. I stare a warning to stay away from my taxi. We speed away as soon as there’s an opening.

precious .. precarious

Two flat tyres .. one early morning .. have me sitting on a plastic chair under a tree by the pavement of a side street.. outside a mechanic’s shop .. not far from the house where I first learned to speak ..

Waiting while ..

a savvy sassy boy in his early twenties ..

his girl watching from a few metres away .. out of sight from his boss .. her arms resolutely crossed .. her colourful veil in contrast with everything around her ..

fixes my car.

I’m aware of my first coffee of the day .. waiting .. on the other side of all this.

As the savvy sassy boy goes .. back and forth .. between my car and his girl .. I expect to feel impatience ..

I don’t.

I make two phone calls .. I take out my notebook ..

and continue to sit.

My breathing is slow .. my thinking is slow .. I’m slow to recognise the grounded lightness that I’m feeling as the pleasure that it is..

Pleasure rising like perfumed steam .. from the breath moving through my body .. the sunlight dripping through the leaves above .. onto my arms and onto the page ..

Rising from the heat of the pavement caressing my bare calves .. from the methodical frenzy of the ants .. in and out of the cracks .. in patterns that must make sense to someone somewhere .. but don’t ..

From the glistening playfulness of the red of my toes .. and my hand gliding over this page .. and my memories of these streets .. as old as I am .. as tenderly relentless .. as gracefully obscene.

There’s a faint pulsating pain in my stomach .. that reminds me there’s more to life than this lightness ..

I step aside and watch my pleasure .. precious .. precarious .. powerful as an instinct.

It could easily belong to that moment in the life of a fish when .. with all the natural confidence of a being in its element .. it runs with the current .. and opens its mouth .. to savour the bait.

Here for now .. I luxuriate in the delicate layers of this moment..

and continue to sit.

Betraying Cairo

من رواية <خيانة القاهرة> لشيرين أبو النجا..

تلك القاهرة التي ركدت في روحي منذ آلاف القرون، منذ أن كنت فكرة مازالت في رحم الأرض، منذ أن كنت أحاول التودد إلى بذرة واحدة في الأرض. تعلمت من حينها أن أقول “نعم” حينما أرغب في قول “لا”. وأن أقول “لا” حينما أرغب في قول “نعم”. تعلمت ببراعة كيف أحول الرغبة إلى فكرة عابرة سرية بدون أية معالم تشي بوجودها سوى درجة توتر غير ملحوظة في الصوت، وحفظت الدرس عن ظهر قلب: إن نظرة أمي تحرك المؤشر وإن نظرة الناس تعني جحيم دانتي. فكانت البراعة تقاس بمدى القدرة على الاختباء عن أعين الناس. علمتني القاهرة وكل أحبائها أن جسدي محرم وقلبي محرم على كل الرجال إلا لواحد فقط سيأتي في يوم ما في مكان ما وفي لحظة ما. وليس مهماً أن أكون مستعدة لاستقباله، المهم أن يأتي. كم مرة أخطأت وتوهمت أنه أتى؟ كم مرة طلبت من القاهرة السماح والغفران؟ كم مرة شعرت أنني لا أستحق القاهرة لأنني أخطأت؟ كم مرة التهمتني حية الأرواح الأخرى لأنني أخطأت علانية دون مداراة؟ وحفظت الدرس مرة أخرى، لنخطئ كما نحب سراً وقهراً وكمداً. القاهرة لا تحب من يستخف بقوتها وجبروتها، القاهرة لا تحب الأقوياء بنزاهة، القاهرة تحب من يتواطأ معها، حينها فقط تتواطأ معه.

التواطؤ مع القاهرة يحتاج عمراً كاملاً. عمراً نتعلم فيه الابتسامة المرسومة والضحكة المفتعلة، عمراً نتعلم فيه طقوس ممارسة العفة الزائفة، أن نمشي في الشارع وننظر أمامنا مباشرة بحدة وتجهم لكي نثبت براءتنا، وألا ندل الغريب على شارع يسأل عنه حتى لو كان الشارع أمامنا، وألا نبتسم ونظهر فرحتنا حين ندخل مكاناً ما حتى لا يظن الآخرون أننا نحب الحياة، وألا نقول لامرأة أن زينتها لا تلائم المكان حتى لا تظن أننا نشعر بالغيرة تجاهها، وألا نسأل كاتبة عن كتابتها حتى لا تظن أننا نسرقها، وألا نكتب رسالة لرجل أحببناه حتى لا يظن أننا وقعنا في هواه فيلقينا جانباً، وألا نمرض لكي نثبت تفانينا في العمل، وألا ندخن سيجارة في أماكن بعينها ولكن يمكن أن ندخن في أماكن أخرى، وألا نقول كلمات معينة لأنها تفهم بمعانٍ أخرى، وألا نجلس مع رجل بمفردنا حتى لا يقال عنا كلام بعينه.

بكل هذه الازدواجية أحببت القاهرة فأحبتني. لكن في كل المرات التي تمردت فيها على القاهرة كان العقاب شديداً. اللعب مع القاهرة له قواعد وأصول، وغالباً هي التي ترسم القواعد لكنها تتركنا نعتقد أننا نملك الزمام.

from Betraying Cairo, a novel by Shereen Abul-Naga..

Cairo lived in my soul for millennia, from the time I was nothing but an idea in the womb of the earth, trying merely to merge with one of its seeds. Already then I was learning to say “yes” when I mean “no”. And “no” when I mean “yes”. I mastered the skill of turning desire into a fleeting thought with nothing to give it away but a hardly discernible tension in the voice. I learned the first lesson by heart: A look from my mother is a warning, a look from a stranger is Dante’s Inferno.

Intelligence is measured by the ability to hide.

Cairo has taught me that my body is out of bounds, that my heart is out of bounds, forbidden to all men but one who will some day, some place, at a fateful moment, walk into my life. It doesn’t matter if I will be ready to receive him, what matters is that he will come. There were so many times I mistakenly believed that I’d met him. And every time I had to beg Cairo for forgiveness. Every time my mistake made me feel undeserving. Every time I was eaten alive by others because I didn’t bother to hide my blunders. Once again, I learned my lesson. Make as many mistakes as you like in secrecy and in darkness.

Cairo doesn’t appreciate those who underestimate her powers and show their strength by being honest. She likes those who collude with her, and only then will she collude with them.

Colluding with Cairo needs a lifetime to master. A lifetime to learn how to force a smile or a laugh as required. A lifetime to master the rituals of false chastity. You learn how to look directly ahead and frown as you walk in order to prove your innocence. You learn not to answer a stranger who asks you for directions even if his destination is just around the corner. You hide your joy as you enter a place lest the others think that you love your life. You don’t tell a woman that she’s overdressed, or she’d think you envy her. Or ask a writer about her work, or she’d think you want to steal it. You don’t write a letter to a man you love, or he’d think you were desperate and throw you aside. In order to prove your dedication to your job, you don’t fall ill. You let people see you smoke in some places but not in others. You avoid certain words that might have a double meaning. You don’t sit alone with a man, or certain words –that do have a double-meaning– will be said about you.

With all such duplicity, I loved Cairo, and she loved me back. But every time I rebelled, the punishment was severe. Playing with Cairo has its rules, mostly decided by her, though she would sometimes lead you to believe that you’re in full control of your life.

neither here nor there

(written on June 4th)

Today was elections day in the UK. I don’t vote but I’ve been following the build-up in the news, and today found myself going around my flat humming a seasonal adaptation of this song:

I’m neither left or right.. I’m just staying home tonight.. getting lost in Obama’s little speech..

And lost in Obama’s little speech I did get, for today the man who had kept me up all night on November 4th, was addressing the Muslim World (capital, not plural) from my very own hometown. After listening to the full speech, I found the text on the white house website, and sat with it for a couple of hours trying to figure out how I could find it promising, inspiring, irritating and cringe-inducing, all at the same time.

Actually the irritation had started earlier, with the hype leading up to the speech.. Who and what is that muslim world that the US president was going to address? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Was it a place or an entity or a species or what? In any case, if Cairo is where you go to address the muslim world, then Cairo must be VERY muslim indeed! That’s why when the Guardian reported on some guy complaining about the security clampdown before Obama’s visit (in an article that incidentally also carries the words Muslim World in the title!), they could have him describe what is happening as ‘religiously forbidden’.* The ‘computer shop employee’ goes on.. ‘if they spent a fraction of all this security money here on giving people bread then we’d all be much better off’.. seems to me like a perfectly secular analysis of the situation, if it wasn’t for the translation of haram as ‘religiously forbidden’ that put the whole thing in a framework of piety and zeal.. only fitting for Cairo’s status as the locus of the muslim world I suppose.

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Now the speech itself.. ahem.. features 69 uses of variations on the words Muslim, Islam and Islamic (really, that is the number, I counted) –as opposed to 6 uses of “Arab”, which occur only in the context of Palestine & Israel. It’s clear then which is the prevalent category now. And everyone seems to be buying and liking this idea of Obama –as a powerful representative of a big undifferentiated Western World—reaching out to a big undifferentiated Muslim World. And the people of the Muslim World –so long misunderstood—are happy that finally someone is making an effort to speak what he thinks is their language. This must be why the Cairo University –invited—audience broke into enthusiastic applause every time the president prefaced a paragraph with the words: ‘As the holy Qur’an said’.. (cringe) OK, in all objectivity, this was a nice gesture, one showing that his team have done their research, and at least he’s aware that the Qur’an has some nice bits (and it must be good and educational for Americans back home to hear those bits as well).. but I couldn’t help being reminded of Napoleon “nous sommes les vrais musulmans” Bonaparte, whose leaflets and announcements to Egyptians in 1798 usually started with bism-illah-ilrahman-arahim wa la-ilaha-illa-allah. Granted, the locals seem to like this kind of thing.. and maybe I’m the only who feels patronized by the presumption of flattery.

And I have to say they tried, Obama and his team of researchers and speech writers, but there was really only so much they could do. The clash of civilizations narrative precedes them, and is too deeply ingrained now to be shaken off in the course of a speech. It was in a way necessary to use the existing dichotomy of West and Islam. They had to work with it. But do we (the varied creatures of the different species that inhabit the muslim worldssss) have to take it without questioning too? Can’t we at least wriggle a tiny bit when they try to squeeze us into a pigeonhole with such little legroom? Or do we also find it convenient to fit snugly into a tight category and safely enclose everyone else in the other? I was more annoyed I think by the predictability of audience reaction than by anything in the speech itself.

Anyway… still.. despite the undercurrent of irritation and cringing.. I did find the speech inspiring (yes, life is full of grey areas like that). Not many speeches nowadays would be as nuanced and carefully balanced (let alone speeches by politicians, let alone by an American president addressing.. errm.. the muslim world!). There is a very clever balancing act going on all the time, as Obama tries to address the concerns of his immediate audience, without losing sight of the concerns of others listening elsewhere (including “a small but potent minority” who really believe we’re all terrorists). He manages to mention the history of colonialism and America’s role in Iran’s revolution, acknowledges the moral ambivalence of the invasion of Iraq, expresses disapproval of the continuing building of Israeli settlements, and actually says Palestine (twice! note: not “the Palestinians” but Palestine), and even uses the word “occupation” in talking about ‘the daily humiliations –big and small—that [Palestinians must endure]‘.

All these are nods towards narratives that are not usually openly acknowledged in American politics, showing a sense of history –global history—and a willingness to include more than one side of every story. This is a very very long way –lest we forget—from the “either with us or against us” rhetoric. I think Obama’s speech writers –and this had first hit me during his famous race speech—have a special knack for going for the jugular, making him say things that may be very obvious, but that no one really expects a politician to spell out so clearly. It might sound simple, but in a world where political speak has long stopped even trying to address reality, it kind of verges on the revolutionary.

So I was inspired by the possibility of maybe nothing else but a shift in the dominant narrative. We’re already slightly better off, if all Obama’s oratory prowess achieves is bring into the language of mainstream politics some of the details that are usually glossed over, details like the historical effects of colonialism and the everyday hassles of occupation for instance. Rhetoric is as good a place to start as any I think!

But poor Barack, he .. really .. can .. never win.

. . .

* I checked the Guardian’s article again, and in the online version they’ve actually corrected it. Now the word haram is elaborately explained as ‘carrying a range of meanings from “religiously forbidden” to a more secular “it’s unfair, it’s a shame”..’
What the man is saying sounds to me like: It’s unfair what they’re doing to us.

(حرام اللي بيعملوه فينا ده!)

Ah, Arabic language.. how exotic and complicated thou art!

Cairo, 7pm

She walks her beloved oppressor of a city, in a long flowing dress, bra-less,

the twilight resting on her shoulder, the breeze drying some droplets of sweat

on the back of her knee…

And it’s like sighing, like sitting back in her body and lightly falling.. into sleep…

She quickens her step.

Comfort.. can only come as a jolting shock, a forewarning..

in these relentless streets.