Looking for Trouble

Amal Sedky Winter: In the grip of Mubarak’s iron fist

BY AMAL SEDKY WINTER

To see more of Amal’s writing, go to her blog: “My Eye on Egypt.”

A CODEPINK delegation of women is in Tahrir (Liberation) Square with the democracy demonstrators. CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin is on the right. CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars and redirect resources into healthcare, education and other life-affirming activities.

My 26-year friend, Adham Bakry, a graphic artist protesting in Tahrir Square was interviewed by BBC on Monday Feb 1^st, 2011. Some of you, as I did, may have heard him. His said he was demonstrating for social justice; his words were not inflammatory. Yesterday, Mubarak’s goons chased him down, separated him from his American companion, Christina, roughed him up and took her to the American Embassy. They shoved Adham in a cab and dropped him in a Cairo slum district, Bulaq Durfur. They flaunted his passport with its entry visas to many countries and accused him of being involved in a foreign conspiracy. The ignorant, misinformed and manipulated residents beat him up until a young man on a motorcycle rescued him. Adham got home 8 hours after he left the square.

 I suspect he will find a way back despite rumors that today the protesters will be even more roughly treated.

 The protesters are holding 35 men whose identity cards prove they’re employed by internal security. They also have people who admitted to being paid by the government to beat up the demonstrators.

 Ahmed Shafik, Prime Minister, rumored to have threatened to resign over yesterday’s government attack on the anti-Mubarak demonstrations, at a news conference today apologized for the clashes and promised to meet with the protesters and investigate the violence. Current and past cabinet members have been prevented from leaving the country.

 He claimed the government didn’t have enough police to control the situation. (Egypt has 1 policeman for every 37 citizens.) In another turning of logic on its head he said the terrible way in which our young are behaving, are embarrassing the country and allowing a country only 200 years old  tell — we who invented government — how to govern ourselves.

 The propaganda machine is at full-throttle but all else has come to a halt. Sympathy for the man, who fought against Israel, loves his country and wants only to die in the land where he was born, spreads easily. Dignity is important.  It’s estimated that the Egyptian economy has lost 35 billion dollars in the past 10 days and money is streaming out of the country with a tap of a computer key. People are confused and frightened and rumors are rife—most planted by the propaganda machine.

Amal Winter is an Egyptian-American psychologist in Seattle who currently lives in Cairo, Egypt during the academic year where she is Visiting Professor of Practice at the American University in Cairo’s Graduate School of Education. She is a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, the Arab American Community Coalition in Seattle, and the Arab American Institute’s Pacific Northwest representative. Her numerous consulting positions include the U.S. Department of State where she trains women in the Middle East to run for public office and the creation of training programs for panels of mediation specialists in over 450 Egyptian family courts.

Previous posts by Amal:

Thousands taking to the streets of Egypt’s major cities despite government crackdown

From Cairo: ‘For the first time in my life, I see real pride in their faces

Egypt in Revolt: People who have been disgusted by their country are standing up for it

Egypt in Revolt: The Empire strikes back