June 24, 2012
This moment feels like everything. And nothing. As if the
two conflicting sensations of hope and fear were crashing into each other at
once.
Mohamad Mursi has just been named president and Tahrir is in
an uproar. The wind carries voices
of victory in through my open window, followed closely by cries of dissent that
makes it impossible to succumb to it.
Car horns blast and tires skid, I can hear whistles in the distance and
foghorns blasting even closer than that.
The city is in an uproar.
Nothing as ever been so important as a group of 80 million people
waiting 15 months to begin a path towards democracy. It looks like Mohamad Mursi is it.
The hour leading up to this was surreal. Everyone silent and waiting. In every store I visited today the
patrons asked me immediately: meen?
Who do I think will win. I
responded to the man in the Seoudi Market, the grocery store across from my
building, who was selling me meat by saying that I thought both candidates were
bad. He said I was very smart and
that that was the right answer and that I would make a better president than
both of the men running. I asked
groups of men huddled around speakers on the street the same question: meen? Lessa, they said. Not yet. We waited. I am
waiting, mostly to see what will happen next. Will the flool, or old regime, supporters retaliate and will
the nation devolve to that of Algeria in the 90s, a borderline civil war state?
Or will they accept that this is the function of a democracy and even when two
less than desirable candidates run, the outcome is still a popular, free
election for the people and by the people? Lema nshoof. We
shall see what happens next.
There is no parliament, there is no constitution, there is
no prime minister. Lessa. Not yet. But for now we can be happy that Tahrir is full of people
rejoicing at this new beginning, rather than bloodshed.
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