The Other Side of Me

June 30, 2013 Two hours to go Demonstrations should start gathering in two hours from the time of writing this post. At this time Tahrir Square is already almost full. In the vicinity of the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis Tamarod's stage was built, a banner with the demands was hung, the streets were closed and a few people started to gather. The sit-in extended from both sides, having now around 50 or 60 tents along Mirghany Street. Central Security Forces have disappeared and are now replaced by more than ten ambulances parked on all sides of the street. The case is no different in Alexandria, Mansoura, Dameitta, Port Said, Mahallah, Monofeya, Suez, Sharqeya, Aswan and others where protests have been going on for a few hours now.... Streets In the streets around the sit-in people cheered as if they have already toppled Morsi. Many cars and people walking were found waving their flags and chanting or honking their car horns by themselves to support the uprising happ...

June 29, 2013 Tamarod Tamarod (Rebel), the public movement that has been collecting signatures for the past two months to call for early presidential elections with the aim of finding a legal way to topple President Mohamed Morsi, announced the final signature count in a press conference this morning. The number announced was 22,134,465 signatures. Mahmoud Badr, the movement's founder, made a call for more than 22 million people to join the protests tomorrow and stay in the streets until they bring Morsi down. He also announced that the president's legitimacy has fallen after they've collected a number of signatures th at is more than 85% of the number of voters in the presidential elections. Badr answered those who question the number by demanding early elections, saying that this was the only way to prove the accuracy of either of their numbers. The announcement was met with celebratory reactions among many Egyptians...   Support Since April 6 movement...

One Week to go The week started with everyone talking about June 30, both excitement and apprehension were present in every conversation. The number of people against the Muslim Brotherhood increased everyday. The question is why would any normal Egyptian be on their side? In the past weeks people had to stand in endless lines to find diesel, every house and workplace all over Cairo suffer from water and power cuts, and prices of essential products never seize to increase. But one week before the date of the uprising, Egyptians had to face one more problem. without prior notice Egypt ran out of gas and the streets of Cairo turned into a parking lot. It became normal to find a gas line in every street that has a gas station. Suddenly it looked like the whole of Greater Cairo was connected in a single gas line that had no beginning or end. Suddenly it became normal to find cars parked in a gas line that ran out of gas just to save the turn. It became normal for people to spe...

When I started working in Manshyet Nasser, one of Cairo's biggest slums, I thought I'd come back with stories of a different world. And although it was a world very different from mine only a few kilometers  away, this is not what I'm writing about. I'm not writing this to weep about how bad our slums are, or how unfair it is to have people living a life that is so poor to be even humane under the same government with people who live in villas, ride the best cars and have a couple of summer and winter homes. I'm not writing about this, although all of it is depressingly true. I'm writing about us, all of us, about the one thing we all share. In Mansheyet Nasser my job was to ask people about the problems they have, some of which lived in a room with five others, who are no just their children, but maybe even their in laws. A room that is used not just as a bedroom and a living room, but also a kitchen. A room that doesn't even have a bathroom. Ma...