Als onderdeel van de stage in Egypte hebben we onze 'revolutionaire ervaringen' op papier gezet. Voor wie geïnteresseerd is, volgen hieronder mijn overdenkingen en ervaringen:

Revolution Impressions

Walking down the streets in a sunlit Cairo, a little girl smiles at me. A taxi driver asks: 'Where do you want to go?' A shopkeeper shouts: 'Welcome to Egypt!' And a friend tells me: 'Egypt now is even worse than during the revolution.'

Behind the everyday life in the streets of the Egyptian capital, something is still going on. The revolution is not over yet.

Every day people go to Tahrir square to let their voices be heard. 'Freedom', is what people shout. But what is freedom? The 42 new political parties all have a different view. And the hundreds of people that gather at Tahrir square each have their own opinion about the revolution, about the future of Egypt, about freedom. 'I don't listen to others, I have my own view', an old Egyptian man told us at Tahrir square. If people want to change things, independent thinking is important, but listening to others even more.

At the Day of Unity, 29th July, people of different ages, and different religious and political backgrounds gathered at Tahrir. At the surface it seemed one big crowd. But different groups were each protesting their own protest. Each chanting their own chants. Marching their own march. But all with an Egyptian flag in their hands. For those who don't have it yet, Egyptian youth walk around with paint and brush to decorate heads, hands, arms and legs with the Egyptian flags. In this way they create, conscious or unconscious, unity.

At the moment, the only thing that brings Egyptians from all backgrounds together is hope. I don't know the Egypt from before, but according to what people told me there is little difference. At the streets, in the shops or at work, everything stayed more or less the same after the 25th of January and that's exactly why people keep going to Tahrir. They want change. Not after a year, not after the elections in September, not even after one week, but right now.

'It's a good thing people keep protesting,' is (not surprisingly) the opinion of most people at Tahrir square. On the other hand a lot of people wished the revolution had never happened. Their arguments range from safety to economic stability. The Egypt from before was safe. Nowadays you can hardly find any policemen at the streets (though the army is everywhere). After the many people that got killed at Tahrir during the revolution they lost their legitimacy. A lot of people are still protesting every day; meanwhile they don't go to their work which isn't really helpful for the economic situation of the country. (This argument doesn't always make sense. The majority of the protesters would probably love to change the square for an office, since part of the reason that people protest is their wish for a job.)

Another fear of pro- and contra revolutionary Egyptians is the power of the more extreme religious parties. Till now religion was held out of politics but this is the moment for people who wish to change this. So the Muslim Brotherhood participates in the protest for change and gathers at Tahrir square.
Christians don't feel comfortable with their growing power and are openly afraid for what is going to happen in the future.

No one knows exactly what is going to happen in the future. Most people don't even know what's happening right now. A lot of people choose to avoid Tahrir square and just live their daily lives like they always did.
This is not the story told by on the international news agencies. I've seen several news items of Tahrir square these days. It looks serious, it is serious. But even my own video's and pictures look way more dramatic than the situation actually was at the moment I took them. The camera that separates the audience from the actual event seems to make a lot of difference. When I walked down the streets of Cairo I didn't hear angry shouting. Even when I passed Tahrir square people just smiled at me.