Midan al-Tahrir, a snapshot

June 7, 2012

Me and Omar, my guide, in Midan el Tahrir

I’m sitting in a conference in the Intercontinental hotel at City Stars. Al mow2tamer al dooli masr ta3ood. Egypt Returns International Conference. The room is very official looking, but mostly empty. It fills up only when we’re served food. It’s strange looking up at this panel of Arab men, and one woman, with English words buzzing in my ears. Though the translation services hardly help. I still am not really sure what they’re talking about. The relationship between Turkey and Egypt. The relationship between Egypt and Iran. Problems, problems, problems and more lists of problems. Maybe the solution workshop comes later. Somehow I don’t really think so.

Anti-SCAF graffitti (right caption: "Do you see?")

People still linger in Tahrir. Ala tool. Always. My guide took me two days ago and it was incredible. They’re called Ultras. Supporters of the Egyptian Ahly football team and rivals of the White Knights, who support Zemelak. The Ultras are the ones leading this protest, among the others I’ve seen streaming through downtown and other centrally located neighborhoods. This time they're demanding an end to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), or the military rule that governs Egypt currently. It seems tricky, these days in Cairo. Everyone is against everything and supports nothing. Thus, what options are left? 

"Unite or Die, Egypt Deserves Compromise"

p.s. When writing Arabic with English characters the numbers are used to represent sounds that don’t exist in American. The numbers are as follows:

2: Qaf, or in Egyptian a glottal stop

3: Ayn, which makes an A-ish sound

5: Khaf, which makes a kh sound

7: Hof, which makes a really deep H sound

There are more numbers, but they’re not used that often and I don’t know them. Just fyi.