It is a beautiful Friday morning in Cairo. The absence of heavy car traffic over the past ten days has given this city the cleanest air I ever remember breathing. Outside my window it's crisp with bright blue skies and a smattering of little clouds in wondrous shapes previously concealed by the infamous Cairo morning smog. In my post-Mubarak time zone it's Departure-Friday, and it's been called that for at least three days now. We don't greet each other with the usual bland good mornings we are used to. No. It's on a cheerful note of “departure morning!” that we begin conversation and end. Other people inhabiting other time zones – family, colleagues, friends, and the odd man on the street – many of those have increasingly come to view us as an enemy at the gate, our morning greeting an irresponsible act of drunkness, and some us secretly wonder if it's true. We were called “traitors” yesterday by random strangers as friends and I crossed Kasr El Nil Bridge to Tahrir Square, carrying food and medical supplies to those who survived into the morning after Wednesday night's violence. People we don't know yelled at us: “You're not Egyptian! You know nothing about this country!” Later on we were told other pro-democracy folks had their supplies seized by pro-Mubarak men on the bridge, who then proceeded to chug said supplies into the Nile. At a pharmacy earlier, a friend was asked by the salesman if the supplies were for Tahrir, and when she said yes, he proceeded to explain why she's personally responsible for Egypt's imminent spiral into a tunnel of horrors, a massive conspiracy by inside and outside forces that seek to bring Egypt down. Depending on who you talk to, Egypt now stands against the biggest and oddest axis of evil ever known to humanity, something far surpassing the wildest neocon fantasies: Against Egypt's domestic tranquility stands Israel-allied-with-Iran-allied-with Saudi Arabia-allied-with-Hamas-allied-with-America-allied-with-Hizbullah-allied-with-the-EU-allied-with-the-Muslim Brotherhood-allied-with-Jordan-allied-with-Islamic Jihad-allied-with-Turkey-allied-with-the-Egyptian Army-allied-with Baradei-allied with Mubarak! I mean, seriously?! Yes. In other time zones they blame any odd number of the above galactic evil axis as responsible for what's going on now. Like Mubarak aptly put it to Amanpour on TV yesterday, it is not in Egyptian “culture” to revolt. It is not in us to take ourselves seriously and stand up to a corrupt ruler and his elite. So it must be the Muslim Brotherhood fomenting the protests, or at least waiting to hijack their result and ride into power. Or it's Iran meddling again. Or it's obstinate youth who won't listen to reason and now jeapradize our system falling into the military's lap. Or it's America allied with Baradei protecting Israel's security and engineering Mubarak's succession by Suleiman, the trustworthy head of Egyptian intelligence. Or it's Israel instinctively seeking to destabilize Egypt, risking the peace treaty in the process. Or. Or. Or… Whatever it is, what's happening on the ground cannot be a real revolution, because Egyptians don't revolt in that other time zone. The passive fellahin on the Nile are an eternal symbol not meddle with, please. What these different theories ultimately do is increase the level of fear among the people on what's to happen next, bring many to support Mubarak and not just hooligans paid by the ruling party to beat up demonstrators, nor capitalist and police elites who stand to suffer from his downfall. No, it's my cousin and my best friend and my work colleague, many of them in that Mubarak twilight zone want him to stay after the promises he made two days ago, they want him to stay just for a while, just for six months, just to oversee the transition, just so that the country doesn't plunge into violence and chaos. Again, like Mubarak told Amanpour last night, he would love to leave office immediately, were it not for Egypt's security that he so zealously cares for. In the post-Mubarak time zone, this is all malicious hogwash intended to split the people, and splitting us it is. This facebook revolution as some have come to call it, is now witnessing facebook lynchings. Friends are removing others from their “friend” list over pro and ani Mubarak positions that seem to change by the day. I've stopped talking to my cousin and almost fell out with a good friend. And when I do my best to listen carefully to their reasoning, why Mubarak should be given a safe and dignified exit from Egypt, I understand where they're coming from, and must admit sometimes feel that their time zone reasoning prevails, that the country is indeed in danger, that enough is enough and that Tahrir, Liberation Square, must be liberated from its demonstrators for Egypt's sake. These are the fears of last night, a dark night of the soul, when I wondered with neighbors patrolling our police free streets if the spirit in Tahrir where just came from is real and true? We weigh one logical analysis of the situation against another, we argue and argue back, we joke and laugh and do our best to hide the fact that we're all really scared. Above all, we hide from the fact that the reasoning and policy discussions are inconclusive in their results, that as we go back home to sleep in the early morning, our minds are still not made up if we'll join demonstrators in Tahrir on Friday morning. At these times only faith can save us, faith either in the ability of the people to know right from wrong, to know freedom from oppression, to recognize the difference by intuition and act on it by intuition as well. A good departure morning to whomever is reading this! ----------------------------------------------- Amr A. Shalakany is Associate Professor of Law at the American University in Cairo. The above article was written also for the New York Times.
