While protesters have made their home in Cairo's Tahrir Square over the past year, local shop owners have sometimes wished they would go elsewhere, finds Omneya Yousry Every time there is a new demonstration or sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicentre of last year's revolution, local business owners have been forced to plan their reaction and to decide whether to stay open or to close, fearing for their customers and merchandise. Now that the demonstrations have become an ongoing event, many local businessmen have decided to take the risk and remain open throughout the protests, since closing could cause even more disruption. According to Ali Amin, who works for the Safir Company for Tourism, his company's branch in Tahrir Square was open on 25 January 2011, the first day of the revolution. "Of course, we didn't work that day, though the offices were open. Instead, the agency showed Al-Jazeera and other TV channels to broadcast what was happening outside on Tahrir. On 28 January, our second branch was destroyed along with many other businesses, like Hardee's, McDonald's and the Z café & restaurant. The latter became a kind of medical centre for the demonstrators, as did some other small shops," Amin said. "About 90 companies located in the square were affected, and people were certainly reluctant to come to book their holidays at our Tahrir branch. They were concerned that they could get robbed or attacked by the thugs who were attacking the sit-ins and demonstrations." As a result, the Safir Company did everything at a distance, arranging for bank transfers to pay for tickets and so on. However, there was still a direct impact on the tourism agencies located in the square, with only some 180 air tickets sold per company, down from the usual 3,000. Although Amin thinks his company will be affected by the continuing demonstrations in the square this year, the branch will be open this 25 January. According to the branch manager of the Starko Tourism Company, Bassem El-Tahtawi, whose agency is located in Tahrir Square, the company has been forced to close for 10 days or more after each incident in the square. "While there hasn't been damage to the premises, we have lost so many clients that we will be closing our doors this 25 January. It would be crazy for us to take the risk of staying open," El-Tahtawi said. While tourism companies have certainly suffered, a quick tour of the Square shows that business has also been affected for other local storeowners. Khalaf Farid, the owner of a small grocery store on the Square, said that "since I set up the store in the 1980s, I have never seen the kind of tough times like over the past year since the Revolution. Apart from the damage that happened to my store, in which the store front and sign were broken, there has been an effect on customers." People do not dare to visit Tahrir Square today, due to what they see on TV about the situation there. "Egyptians don't come to the area, so who can be surprised if tourists don't either," Farid asked. The multiplication of street vendors that has taken place since the revolution has also affected his business, and "in spite of the thousands who have visited the square for demonstrations, sales have not picked up," he said. "Most people coming to the square are from low-income areas, and they only buy food from street vendors." Most shops in Tahrir Square are rented, and Farid fears that if sales slump further over the coming months, he, like many other shop owners, will find himself unable to pay the rent and will have no other source of income. The largest newsstand on Tahrir Square belongs to Nasser Shaaban Abdel-Halim, who said that despite the many demonstrations and the thousands who have come to the square, sales of newspapers and magazines have not improved. Workers in the tourism and other companies in the square refused to discuss issues related to bullying or robberies, arguing that thugs could break into their shops if they talked to the media, as they claimed had already happened in some cases. Corolos Guirguis, a pharmacist at one of the biggest pharmacies in Tahrir Square, said he and others had wanted to talk to the media, but there had been little interest on the part of the TV companies covering events in the square. Guirguis's pharmacy has been located on Tahrir Square since 2003, and last year was his slowest-ever year. "The pharmacy closed down from 25 January to 11 February last year, the day Mubarak stepped down. We also closed when the events in Mohamed Mahmoud Street started in November, as well as during the events outside the cabinet office," Guirguis said. The store used to be open 24 hours a day, but since the revolution it hasn't opened on Fridays and it now closes at 10pm, fearing attacks if it stays open longer. Every now and then, Guirguis said, he discovers counterfeited money. There have been no tourists in the square since the revolution started, and the store is finding it difficult to break even. Rent for shops in Tahrir Square is expensive at up to LE12,000 per month in addition to utilities. "Many apartments in our building were broken into more than once during the revolution," Guirguis added, "and the violence pushed residents to move out, which in turn affected what we can make by delivering medications." Though Guirguis expressed his total support for the revolution, he said that people should now work on changing their mentalities and ways of doing things. Another storeowner at the centre of events is Ali Metwalli, who sells bags in Tahrir Square. Metwalli said that he used to support the revolutionaries who would come to demonstrate in the square, but now he is less sure, since those who come have changed. "Every day now, I face threats and abuse. Lately, they even wanted to impose charges on local stores, especially big ones like KFC. When the situation in the square threatens to become violent, I close my shop immediately. On 16 January, for example, some thugs attacked the demonstrators, and we heard the sound of gunfire. The cafeteria on the other side of the square was broken into on the same day," he said. Metwalli has also endured losses as a result of the events in Tahrir Square. Goods have been stolen, his shop has been damaged, and his car was stolen on 28 January 2011. "All of this was for a better Egypt. However, what you see now in the square is pitiful. Things have become ugly. In the past, licorice sellers, being just one example of street vendors, wouldn't come to Tahrir Square. But now they are everywhere." Yet, for Al-Moetaz Bellah Ibrahim, a law student and the owner of a small grocery store on the square, things are bound to improve. He hasn't closed his store once since the revolution began, he said, and he recalls how the vast majority of shop owners in the square supported the revolution and remained open for the demonstrators. They did not donate goods, he said, as some have claimed, but they did sell food and water to those who needed them. Ibrahim's store has been located in Tahrir Square since the 1950s, and although his business has been negatively affected by the revolution, he has no intention of moving out. "I don't believe that this 25 January will be as dangerous as the media is saying that it will be," he commented. "The media and the authorities just want people to be afraid, so they will not show up in such large numbers."
