(no subject)
birthday post! birthday post!
I've just ordered a ridiculous amount of pie from Pumpkin. Cairo is very good: if you have a little bit of money, you can get almost anything delivered. So heading to me is a quarter pie of 'white forest' and a slice each of some toffee thing, a pumpkin pie, and some nutty thing.
Ganzeer, Aida and their friend NadimX who I don't know, got release on 26 May. They're fine.
The signal for 27 May was after prayer, but before 10am twitter reported 2000 people. Here are the demands: http://bit.ly/if5c8s
This is the first protest that the Muslim Brotherhood have boycotted, so it was important to have a lot of people to demonstrate that they are not 'the revolution'. The army also said they would not be there. This is a double-edged kind of politics. On the one hand, they're saying 'go play, kids!' and appearing all pro-democratic (despite edicts issued by them essentially outlawing protest right now); on the other hand, it's a way of saying 'if the thugs come, we'll stand by and watch them kill you, just like last time.'
In the event, it was a cheerful day for Tahrir. They were selling t-shirts with the design on it that got Ganzeer arrested. Amazing what happens in 24 hours. Ganzeer (a successful designer and also a very canny, generous guy) offered the design for free, and the touts made a killing. Coolest Tahrir t-shirt yet.
The problem being I felt like shit, and had to sleep off a stomach flu before forcing myself out to Tahrir at 11. I could only stay a couple of hours. It was getting full, maybe 10,000 people, the square closed and a people's checkpoint just like the old days. The weather was bright, overcast, heavy, and hot, with bits of old man's beard filling the air - that and feeling really ill and overheated contributed to a very surreal feeling. The problem with coming to protests alone for me is that I'm, to put it rudely, constantly bothered. It's not a big deal but it's the kind of time/place where people who want to practice their English or who maybe want a phone number, feel freer to do so. It sounds horrible and ungrateful to complain about it and it means I end up having a lot of great conversations by default and it's often through this situation that I learn a lot about the actual state of the revolution. So when I'm up to it it's great; at other times, feeling sick and oppressed, it was hideous, because I just needed to walk off my knotted stomach and not concentrate on being polite and making conversation and say again in simple words what I think about the revolution and no I am not a tourist and the shame of admitting I don't really speak Arabic either, and yes I was in Tahrir on 25 Jan.
I saw Lina, but she was working for the paper so I didn't bother her for long. I met Ahmad, whose father is in a coma. Ahmad is a very formal, considerate, gentlemanly guy and a good artist and it is really sad that his dad will not live. It's the same thing that killed Mohammed's dad. They're just waiting now. We walked around a bit and then I decided to head home and he walked me to the checkpoint.
I slept and slept in the AC and then came out again for 5pm. It was decided by common consensus - both by official participants and famous activists like sandmonkey, who represents quite a lot of the unofficial voice - that the protest would disperse and not be a sit-in. I am all for sit-ins, but they need consensus and numbers behind them, so I left at 7pm with Mohammed. We had sat there in a group chatting: sexy Maurice, Shahira, Angela, Rana and Samir, Doa, and later Ahmad came and a few other folks. I was mostly too dazed to talk.
I'm not sure what 27 May achieved. Mostly, it demonstrated that we can turn out large numbers without the help of ekhwan. It was protest, not revolution.
I've just ordered a ridiculous amount of pie from Pumpkin. Cairo is very good: if you have a little bit of money, you can get almost anything delivered. So heading to me is a quarter pie of 'white forest' and a slice each of some toffee thing, a pumpkin pie, and some nutty thing.
Ganzeer, Aida and their friend NadimX who I don't know, got release on 26 May. They're fine.
The signal for 27 May was after prayer, but before 10am twitter reported 2000 people. Here are the demands: http://bit.ly/if5c8s
This is the first protest that the Muslim Brotherhood have boycotted, so it was important to have a lot of people to demonstrate that they are not 'the revolution'. The army also said they would not be there. This is a double-edged kind of politics. On the one hand, they're saying 'go play, kids!' and appearing all pro-democratic (despite edicts issued by them essentially outlawing protest right now); on the other hand, it's a way of saying 'if the thugs come, we'll stand by and watch them kill you, just like last time.'
In the event, it was a cheerful day for Tahrir. They were selling t-shirts with the design on it that got Ganzeer arrested. Amazing what happens in 24 hours. Ganzeer (a successful designer and also a very canny, generous guy) offered the design for free, and the touts made a killing. Coolest Tahrir t-shirt yet.
The problem being I felt like shit, and had to sleep off a stomach flu before forcing myself out to Tahrir at 11. I could only stay a couple of hours. It was getting full, maybe 10,000 people, the square closed and a people's checkpoint just like the old days. The weather was bright, overcast, heavy, and hot, with bits of old man's beard filling the air - that and feeling really ill and overheated contributed to a very surreal feeling. The problem with coming to protests alone for me is that I'm, to put it rudely, constantly bothered. It's not a big deal but it's the kind of time/place where people who want to practice their English or who maybe want a phone number, feel freer to do so. It sounds horrible and ungrateful to complain about it and it means I end up having a lot of great conversations by default and it's often through this situation that I learn a lot about the actual state of the revolution. So when I'm up to it it's great; at other times, feeling sick and oppressed, it was hideous, because I just needed to walk off my knotted stomach and not concentrate on being polite and making conversation and say again in simple words what I think about the revolution and no I am not a tourist and the shame of admitting I don't really speak Arabic either, and yes I was in Tahrir on 25 Jan.
I saw Lina, but she was working for the paper so I didn't bother her for long. I met Ahmad, whose father is in a coma. Ahmad is a very formal, considerate, gentlemanly guy and a good artist and it is really sad that his dad will not live. It's the same thing that killed Mohammed's dad. They're just waiting now. We walked around a bit and then I decided to head home and he walked me to the checkpoint.
I slept and slept in the AC and then came out again for 5pm. It was decided by common consensus - both by official participants and famous activists like sandmonkey, who represents quite a lot of the unofficial voice - that the protest would disperse and not be a sit-in. I am all for sit-ins, but they need consensus and numbers behind them, so I left at 7pm with Mohammed. We had sat there in a group chatting: sexy Maurice, Shahira, Angela, Rana and Samir, Doa, and later Ahmad came and a few other folks. I was mostly too dazed to talk.
I'm not sure what 27 May achieved. Mostly, it demonstrated that we can turn out large numbers without the help of ekhwan. It was protest, not revolution.