20 CENT FICTION

            “Wake up, you have rights to demand, they are stealing, they took your own money and built a new palace for themselves, while you are in great poverty. If you do not get down to the street and demand your rights, you will always live and die in fear.” These small words came from a young girl called Azza. She became very famous on social media. Everyone was talking about her and everyone was asking themselves, “What is he going to do? Get down to the street and properly die or stay home and become a coward?” No one knows that we are about to make a change in Egypt after thirty years of a dictatorship.

          Our previous president “Mubarak” was a dictator. He killed a lot of people and put a lot of them into jail. Anyone who went against him became imprisoned. Therefore, all of our media was talking about his achievement. Always, he won the election with a rate of 99%.  No one dared to oppose him until the year of 2004 when Facebook came into our country. The government could not control social media, so for the first time in our lives, we felt freedom. We made a lot of secret groups and pages to talk about our president and talk about his crimes. One day, the police arrested a man called Khaled Saied because he wrote a post on Facebook calling for a revolution. The next day, we found his body in the street. After this day, a person called Wail Goniem, made a page on Facebook called “We Are Khaled Saied.” This page was very popular, and in a week, there were ten million people following this page. The page was calling for a revolution in Egypt on January 25th, 2011, in Tahrir Square.

          “Better life, freedom, and justice.” These three words were the words of the rebels in Tahrir Square on January 25th, 2011. There were about seven million revolutionaries there. I lived in Qena city and Tahrir Square was in Cairo. It takes eight hours to travel from Qena to Cairo, so I was just watching what happened there on the Internet. However, I could not resist the feeling that I wanted to join the revolution. I traveled to Cairo and went to Tahrir Square to join the people. However, on January 26th, policemen entered the street and started to shoot the people with their guns and hundreds of people were killed by snipers. It is very scary to stand behind a dead person. Everyone was running and trying to find a shelter or a hidden place from the snipers. You can’t hear the sniper shot, but you can feel it when you find a person running in front of you and suddenly you found him fall and die. The policemen started to throw tear gas bombs. My eyes turned red, my nose was running like a tap. It was very painful, and no one was there to take care of you. I tried cleaning my eyes with my cloth until someone came to me and said “Here, take some milk. It will make you feel better.” I didn’t feel better. My eyes were still burning. I thought I would lose my sight. Thankfully, after twenty minutes, I could see again. I started crying again, but this time it was me not the gas. I felt so scared on that day, and asked myself, “Should I leave now, or should I stay?” I did not take too much time thinking because in a few minutes the people left the square.

           However, on January 27th, the people came back again to Tahrir Square and started to shout, “Better life, freedom, and justice,” again. They started to build a wall from rocks to surround the square. That time we prepared with the gas mask and if anyone smelled the gas, they washed their eyes with vinegar and soda. I had a bad experience from the tear gas, so I just covered my nose with the gas mask and ran away from it. Someone saw me catching my breath after running and said, 

“You’re scared, huh.” 

I said, “Yes.” 

He said, “Me too, but I have nothing to lose. My two brothers were killed last night. So, can you help us in the back line.” He gave me a bottle of soda and the medical team showed me how to wash the eyes of the people who smelled the gas. That time, I stayed in the back line to help the people who got wounded. The police could not stand against the people this time, so they ran away and the people felt so happy from their victory. They gave us some biscuits and juice to help us. However, we woke up in the morning and found a lot of people screaming. The policemen started to crush people with their cars and trucks. Quickly, we started to make a huge circle around the vehicles until it fell down and the policemen surrounded. On January 28th, we called that day, “The Angry Friday.” People started to get into the police departments and free some prisoners. Some people started to steal from the shopping center like Carrefour; a place looks like Walmart, but in Egypt. We didn’t like that because that meant we were evil and robbers, not peaceful citizens who just wanted their rights, but people were hungry.  On January 30, the army joined the people to protect them from any danger.

          As soon as you enter Tahrir Square after January 30th, you would find a man asking about your identity and make sure you are not a policeman. You would also find that people were divided into groups, there were security, night shift, movie theater, medical team, and I was one of the social media groups who designed videos and posts on social media to persuade people to join us. We slept in tents all night. We had some people who wrote songs. One of my favorite song was saying:

“We want a leader for the people who got betrayed from their leaders,

 We want a leader for the people who got imprisoned from their leaders,

His age, his gender, doesn’t matter, what matters is that we want a human.” 

We also had journalists. One day we found that some of the people who were rented by the government, entered the square and started shooting people. People start running again. I found someone who got shot in his hand and told one of the military soldiers, “Help us!” but the soldier didn’t answer him and turned away. Whatever, they couldn’t win and we captured them all, but after that people started thinking that the military is not here to protect us, they just want to make sure we are not going to enter the palace and kill the president. We stayed in Tahrir Square for eighteen days until Mubarak left. For the first time in our lives, we felt the taste of freedom. Everyone felt that he became a president, and we could make a new government. People start dancing in the street.  We had the feeling that we could make our country great again after thirty years of fear, or at least that is what we thought. 

         Everyone went to Tahrir Square for his own reason. Some people faced police brutality during Mubarak rule. I went to Tahrir Square because I felt I am one of the minority in my country who doesn’t get his rights. I was Christian in an Islamic country. I remember one day during the revolution I slept on the street after a long day. I was freezing that day. Suddenly, someone woke me up. I was scared so much when I saw him. He was a tall tough guy who had so many scars on his face, and his arms were the kind of guys that you think are criminals. The guy came into me and said “Don’t worry, I am here to give you some food and a blanket”. I was surprised because unlike his look, he was so gentle so I stopped him and asked him, “What is your story?" 

He smiled and said, “I was one of the criminals that the government hiring me to kill the people who don’t like journalists, and they asked me to join other people to enter Tahrir Square and kill some of rebels, but for the first time of my life, I’m scared to do that I felt how wrong I am. I know if we fail, they will kill me, but I don’t care because I have a feeling that we will win this time." 

I was so happy to see him and hear his story. I smiled at him and gave him some of my food, we ate together until he left.

        The problems happened after the revolution. We could not unite with each other again. People split into categories. Some people wanted Egypt to become an Islamic country, some people wanted Egypt to become a democratic country, and some rich people wanted Mubarak back. However, Morsi became President of our country. He wanted our country to be Islamic. He gave himself a lot of Privileges. We did not like him, so we made another revolution on June 30th, 2014. El-Sisi became our president. He promised us that he will not be like Mubarak again. However, after El-Sisi became president, all his promises disappeared. He became another dictator. He started to kill a lot of people and put a lot of people into jail. Anyone who went against him became imprisoned. Therefore, all our media was talking about his achievements. No one dared to oppose him, but this time the government was able to control social media. Everyone became scared again.

         Everyone dreams of freedom. The sad fact is that if I wrote this story in my country, I would be imprisoned. On November 7th, 2019, there was an election in Fall River. I was watching the news how people were freely voting for the candidates. It reminded me of the only democratic election we had in my country in 2012. We thought our country would be greater after our revolution. However, it did not turn out the way we expected.