2011: A Review

     Well, it's not likely to be a year anyone will forget. All around the world events, whether natural or man-made have affected the lives of millions. In fact, billions is probably more accurate as in 2011 the world population hit 7,000,000,000 that's BILLION.

       Let's go back to the beginning shall we. 2011 started with a bomb attack on 2 churches in Alexandria during New Year services, shocking Egyptians and laying the groundwork for what was to begin a mere 24 days later. The desperate actions of a single man in a small city in Tunisia became the spark that was needed to make millions in the Arab world shake off decades of apathy and stand up to their leaders. How this will all pan out is yet to be seen, but I'm so glad that I'm here to see it instead of reading about it in a history book. For better or worse I can tell my children and grandchildren (presuming I ever have any) all about it. 

      The economic crisis focused on Europe and spread. The Occupy movement started with Occupy Wall Street and expanded to include cities and economic landmarks around the world.

       The UK in general and London in particular made international headlines twice in 2011, the first time in April for the Royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton (now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and then again in August because of the riots which swept from London to include several major UK cities. The riots surprised and horrified some, while others seemed surprised that they hadn't happened before. Either way, everyone agreed that the grief of one man certainly helped bring them to an end. Tariq Jahan lost his son Haroon during the riots in Birmingham, Haroon and two others (brothers) were killed in a hit and run in what appeared to be an anti-Muslim crime by members of an Afro-Caribbean gang. Jahan had tried desperately to revive his son himself. This is what he had to say; "I lost my son. Blacks, Asians, Whites - we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home - please."

   Osama Bin Laden was killed a decade after the 9/11 attacks. US forces pulled out of Iraq.

    Natural disasters included earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan. The Japanese earthquake in March was followed by a devastating tsunami. The most dangerous and worrying effect of which was the meltdown it caused at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The area is still contaminated and people have yet to be allowed to return after they were evacuated.

    There were floods in Asia and droughts in Africa. Again.

     2011 started with several dictators in place: Ben Ali (Tunisia), Mubarak (Egypt), Gaddafi (Libya), Saleh (Yemen), Kim Jung Il (N.Korea) and Mugabe (Zimbabwe). With 2 days till 2012, Mugabe is the only one left in power.

     On a personal note, I finished my Masters degree in education (woohoo me!) and started teaching full time and I voted in my first ever elections. My love life has remained uneventful, which considering everything that's been going on, is a relief. There was no time for romance during a revolution!

      What does 2012 have in store for us? The Olympics in London, Presidential elections in Egypt and the USA and if the Mayans are to be believed; the end of the world. Whatever's coming, it will be memorable!

Egyptian Elections 2011

     Today was the first day of voting for Egypt's Lower House of Parliament (Magles El Shaab مجلس الشعب) or The People's Assembly. As with almost everything political in Egypt this year, it was new and different. For a start, there were new names to vote for! Gone were the names of those who had dominated the parliament (and country) for decades and they were replaced by countless others. With all these new faces came new symbols (due to the low literacy rate in Egypt, each candidate and party is given a symbol so that illiterate voters know who to choose). I remember the only signs I would see around my neighbourhood were the camel and the crescent, both used by the National Democratic *snort* Party candidates. This time there was a veritable cornucopia of candidates to choose from (130 on my ballot paper) and their symbols ranged from the bizarre to the ridiculous (cookers, food mixer, tank, knife, shirt, carpet, chair, bouquet of flowers, gold ingot, water heater, bus, school bus, tram, train, basketball, basketball net and so on).

The main roundabout near my house becomes an election campaign hub

Some of the candidates' banners

There's a lovely fountain hidden behind all those banners

    Of course, this being Egypt, nothing is as simple as it first appears. Under former President Nasser an addition was made to the constitution stating that 50% of the Lower House should be composed of workers and farmers. A later amendment set the minimum % of women who must be MPs. This means that voting is not as straightforward as placing a check mark next to your preferred candidate's name. 

   

    Once in the polling station, you're given 2 papers; one to vote for the party and one for the individual candidates. Of the individual candidates you must choose 2, one of whom must be a worker. These individual candidates may be running as a member of a political party or as independents. Confused yet?

   My day began at 8:30 when I left home to head towards my polling station (polling stations were assigned according to your national ID number and so my parents and I were each at different stations despite sharing an address). I had no idea where the school serving as my polling station was, but I was lucky enough to meet up with 3 young ladies from my neighbourhood who were at the same one, and despite none of us knowing where we were going, we set off together. We found our school in a middle/working class area of Cairo called El-Zaitoun which is fairly conservative, it also has a large Coptic population which meant the queue was a mix of people voting for the Freedom and Justice Party (the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood), a minority voting for the ultra-conservative Islamist El-Nour party and Christians who, like me, were voting for the more liberal or secular candidates.

   The queue was long, and seeing it was amazing as Egyptians are not famous for their patience or queue formation! It snaked around the block in a U shape and was twice as long when I left as it had been when I joined.

The queue in front of me. At this point we'd been in line for an hour and still had to turn the corner before we could even see the school gates.

Part of the queue (about halfway along) when I was leaving.

 We were all chatting, but none of us ever really discussed who we were voting for, we were just pleased that we were voting. There were a few people passing out flyers as we waited, despite this being against election rules which state that all campaigning had to have ceased 48 hours before the vote.  The actual voting only took a couple of minutes, as I knew exactly who I was voting for. So after a 3 hour wait, weeks of reading up on parties I made my 3 check marks, signed the register, dipped my thumb in the fluorescent ink and was done! I had voted for the first time!!

    Of course, none of this was imaginable a year ago and if people had not taken to the streets and squares in January, we would have "voted" for a new President next September only to have Gamal Mubarak win with 90% majority. There are  many who think this parliament will be a useless entity, there purely for show until the constitution has been reviewed and a President elected next year. They also say it may not even last beyond a couple of months. Whatever happens, for better or worse, Egyptians went to bed today feeling, for the first time, that they made a difference. So for that alone, I say, to everyone who protested, was injured and especially to those who gave their lives; "Thank You"

Sharm El-Sheikh and Sham El Nessim

    Recently the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In 2010 there were a series of shark attacks that killed several people and since he was deposed in February 2011, former President Mubarak has taken up permanent residence in the city. Despite all this and the drop in visitor numbers since the Revolution, it is still a popular destination for tourists, especially those looking to combine sun, sea and sand and stunning natural beauty with an active nightlife. The waters of the Red Sea are ideal for snorkeling and scuba diving.

   Sham el-nessiem is an Egyptian national holiday and is a uniquely Egyptian way to welcome spring. It translates literally into "smelling the breeze"  and dates back to Pharaonic times. These days it falls on (Coptic) Easter Monday and is celebrated by all Egyptians irrespective of religion. It is celebrated, as most festivals in Egypt are, with food; in this case, coloured boiled eggs, green onions and salted fish (ringa and fessekh). These are usually eaten as part of a picnic as most families head off somewhere green. I remember when my cousins and I were young, we would all head off to the family orange grove and the smell of orange blossom still brings those memories back.

  This year a friend and I headed off to Sharm El-Sheikh for the long weekend and I have to say, it was one of the best ideas we'd had for a while! She was able to get us a good deal via her workplace so we were staying in a lovely 5 star resort at a fraction of the cost. The hotel was nice, the room large enough for the 2 of us not to constantly be in each other's hair and the view from the balcony was lovely

View from our room.

The other advantage this hotel had to the one I stayed at two years ago was that the beach was right within the resort. A three minute walk (through the pool area and garden) lead you to a walkway from which you had a glorious view of the red sea.

First view of the Red Sea

   While I would have been perfectly happy to spend all 4 days on the beach, snorkeling, reading and soaking up the sun, my friend had other ideas. She insisted that she wanted to climb Mount Sinai and visit St. Catherine's monastery. I was slightly less than enthusiastic as I had done this on my last visit and it was exhausting, freezing and took up a whole day. However, remembering just how tiring it was I felt I couldn't leave her to do it alone so we booked 2 places on a trip leaving the night we arrived. Unfortunately, the trip was poorly organized and our guide was rude, badly spoken and aggressive, but enough of that story now! On the bus journey to the mountain the air-con was on full blast and that was just enough to bring the cold I'd been keeping at bay all week to full strength. By the time we started the hike, my nose was completely stuffed and breathing and hiking at the same time was becoming problematic (I've discovered I like breathing...it helps keep me alive), so in the end I only made it as far as the first rest-stop on foot and then carried on on a camel!

Me on the camel watching the sunrise over Mount Sinai

    My camel pilot Saleh (a Bedouin native to Sinai) and I had a good chat as we made the trek up, he's been doing the job for about 3 years and that on a good day he can hire his camel about 4 times in either direction. The best tourists in his opinion are Indonesians as they nearly always opt for a camel ride up , while Russians are far less likely. I asked him how the revolution had affected business and he told me that they've definitely had fewer people this year but the numbers were starting to pick up again. 

  The view of the sunrise was as stunning as I remember and I'll let the pictures do the talking.

  In the end we weren't able to go around the monastery as the monks had decided to close to visitors in preparation for Easter services, but we did manage to use the facilities there and I snapped a picture of the door to the main church decked out for the occasion.

    Back at the hotel I took some paracetamol and slept for 12 hours straight! Luckily I got my wish and was able to spend the next 2 days on the beach.

The Day of Departure, Friday 11/02/2011

    Well. WE DID IT!!!!!!  Today President Hosni Mubarak stepped down as the head of state! Barely 24 hours after he had vowed to stay in office until presidential elections in September the Vice-President Omar Suliman announced that the President had 'in light of current circumstances' handed over the running of the country to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

    The response was immediate and electrifying.

    Except maybe in my house. After hours spent watching Al-Jazeera Arabic my dad switched to the International channel then left the room. My brother got bored at the lack of developments and also walked away. So when history was made it was just my mum and I there. And we were only there because we were going to drink our tea!

   I admit, what Suliman said didn't register straight away. It took a couple of seconds for my brain to process what I had just heard. Mum and I were looking at each other making sure we'd each come to the same conclusion, then she leapt up to get my brother. By the time he'd come back out, my friend had rang and we'd agreed to go back down to Tahrir Square to celebrate.

   Like yesterday we took the Metro down to Tahrir. Oh but what a difference 24 hours can make! People were congratulating each other left, right and centre and everyone seemed to be smiling.

   It took us a lot longer to even get to the entry to Tahrir tonight because of the crowds. The sheer number of people in the streets and on the bridges shouting, cheering, waving flags and singing was amazing, and that was before we even reached the hub of the revolution.

Crowds on the bridge overlooking Ramses St.

Tanks along Ramses St.

The Lawyers Syndicate

Crowds outside the Lawyers Syndicate

   Unlike yesterday we did not have to show our IDs or be searched before we passed the barricades told us 'there's too many people and we're free now!'. The sounds in Tahrir were incredible, it hit you the closer you got to the centre (unfortunately we weren't able to get right there tonight, too many people) and it didn't once let up.

   After Tahrir we headed back to the Metro to go to the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis. One of the Metro stations is called Mubarak Station (2 others are Sadat and Nasser) and last night people had crossed off his name and replace it with 'shuhad'aa' or Martyrs.

The newly renamed station.

More impromptu renaming 

    The Presidential Palace is only 10 minutes away from my house and the surrounding neighbourhood is as familiar to me as the back of my hand. I've never seen it look like it did tonight and I doubt I ever will again.

  The noise, the sights and just the waves of sheer joy, relief and victory rolling off the people was indescribable. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so instead of trying to describe it, here are some pictures of last night.

February 11th 2011 Egypt Reborn