guido > < omsk

• Op 1 februari 2011 om 12:00 stuurt guido

  guido in cairo

  Dear everybody,
   
   
  Cairo, 31 of january 2011
   
  I just want to give you a smell of the things that I witness here in Cairo in the middle of this revolution. I happen to be stuck in an uprising, I was in cairo to make a play with Egyptian actors.. and then…  this happened. Off course you all saw it on the news. But I think the reality is different.
   
  I am fine and safe with friends. It is a very very exiting time to be here. My friends are artists, actors, filmmakers.. and the house where we are staying is 500 meters from the central tahir square. At night it can be a little scary, but the days are fine.
  At this moment it is calm. Army helicopters are flying over. But the square is still filled with people for the 7th day of protests..
   
  Yesterday I was in the most peaceful demonstration I have ever witnessed, in a surreal décor that looks more like a worn torn country than a peaceful uprising. 30.000 people were demonstrating at tahir square, hours after curfew. Surrounded by army tanks, helicopters, an occational army fighter flying over, all these people were singing, shouting, asking the president to step down, as they are completely fed up with 30 years of a corrupt regime. Imagine that you live a country that has 30 years (!!) of Emergancy law – every policeman can arrest you without any reason, lock you up in a cell for days, torturing, without any legal form of defence… in a country that is headed by a president that is seen by the US and the West as the best ally and friend of the democracy..
  I see images of unveiled westernised women next to women completely veiled in burqua, shouting the same slogans – the dictator has to step down.. thousands of people praying in the middle of the square.. while others don’t..  everybody wants his word to be heard.. an old man in his seventies comes to me, almost unable to walk, who is crying from joy that finally… Finally the Egyptian people stand up against the regime..  there are hundreds and hundreds of normal people, rich, poor, intellectual, workers who come to the square with food, with drinks, giving dadles to those who are strong enough to sleep another night on the square.. it might sound like a cliché, but I am afraid it s the truth.
   
  Don’t believe the media who say that these protesters are rioting, damaging or violent. Demonstators are protecting the tanks, so nobody scares the soldiers. When somebody tries to break into an burned down police truck, tens of men come to prevent him from doing so. The demonstration has to remain unviolent! The social control is big. As the police retreated completely, Friday night gangs started to walk down the streets. But the neighborhoods quickly organized themselves, the whole night neighbors are protecting each other on the streets, in front  of their houses. The prove is.. I live next to the busiest shopping street in cairo, none of the windows are broken, even if next to it is a burned down police truck… of course I don’t have an image of the whole city, so things might be different in other parts, but the general image is one of solidarity..
   
  In the same time the air is full of rumours. Nobody knows what will be next. What will the army do? What will the police do? Yesterday they said the police would come back to the streets, but today there is none in the center of cairo.. the protesters are organizing themselves.. directing the traffic, helping the people in the streets…
  As the police completely left the city, there is no security.. it is completely insane what the police did. The minister who is responsible for this has to be judged for a crime against humanity. Do u imagine. The police completely abandoned embassies, let criminals brake out of prisons, abandoned musea that are full of the worlds most precious goods.. let the city become a total chaos.. and accusing the protesters to be responsible for the chaos.
  No one protester turned against embassies, jewish synagogues, musea.. everybody is very angry about this. The police themselves are reported to loot, and the person who looted the Egyptian musea was arrested and was.. a police officer..
  At the same time we have no idea what is really going on..  we listen to al jazeira, bbc, rumours and try to understand what is happening.
   
  I might fly back to Holland in some days as the reason why I came here, to make a play, seems to get more and more impossible.. I will keep you posted…
   
  Take care
   
  guido