Tahrir: The Seed And The Utopia

Right after the election results in my own Heliopolis district were announced, I sarcastically wrote about the Republic of Heliopolis. This post, which turned out to be one of the most popular in my 8 years of blogging, was purely tongue in cheek and aimed at triggering a laugh amid the horror the elections results caused to many.

Actually, I do not want to live in the Republic of Heliopolis. I want to live in the Republic of Tahrir.

Tahrir has become a utopia to many of us. A dream. A place that enabled us, Egyptians, to overcome many of our ills. I sometimes believe  there is something supernatural in Tahrir; some kind of energy that transforms whomever chooses to be part of it.

They say we Egyptians are lazy. Tahrir is a beehive. During sit-ins, everyone has a thing to do; from the elderly woman who prepares sandwiches to the young men who guard the gates.

It’s believed we are not creative. Tahrir is a bastion of creativity. Our creativity was articulated in the numerous political slogans, banners, graffiti and the protective gear we invented to protect our heads from rocks and our lungs from tear gas. You will see the poet, the musician, the political analyst, the writer, the blogger, the photographer. Want to see how creative we are?  Take a stroll down Mohamed Mahmoud street and look at its walls. Look at its walls before they remove what our artists painted there. Because our paintings make them look in the mirror and see their ugly faces.

It’s believed Egyptians are intolerant. Not a month passes without a sectarian crisis somewhere. Not in Tahrir though. In the square, the Muslim Brotherhood doctor treats patients inside a church. Christians form a protective circle around praying Muslims. In fact, Tahrir might be the only place Christians prayed in outside their churches. In Tahrir, you find Christians whom you never thought would be politically active. You would find Mina Danial.

It’s believed sexual harassment is rampant on Egypt’s streets. Again, not in Tahrir. The square is the only place where sexual harassment is an exception and not the norm.

They say the privileged don’t care about the poor in Egypt. In Tahrir, you will see the rich man sleeping in the same tent with the unprivileged man. You will see street kids roaming around protesters feeling a sense of security they wouldn’t feel if they were left at the mercy of Cairo’s streets. You will see Tahrir School where poor and street kids learn to read and draw. You will see a female protester teaching a street kid to shoot pictures with her Canon.

It’s believed we became radical religiously. We forsook our moderate and intelligent religion and replaced it with a rigid ugly form of religiosity we imported from the oil fiefdoms. In Tahrir, you find Sheikh Emad Effat.

As mentioned above, I tend to look at Tahrir as a mental state. As a seed that was planted in this country. And just like any seed, it is destined to grow. This is the reason why they’re doing everything to choke it. Because if Tahrir came out of Tahrir, this country will change forever and threaten whatever interests they’re trying to protect.