EGYPT
THE POST-REVOLUTION

The Pressure
for FREEDOM
As revolts spread in Syria, the Egyptians go to vote as if for the first time, and the military has decided to abolish martial law. WAEL FAROUQ, Vice-President of the Meeting of Cairo, explains why he does not fear for his people and why, now, it is certain that Tahrir Square "did not happen by chance."

BY ALESSANDRA STOPPA

"Awal marra"means "for the first time." They repeat it in line, proudly showing their thumbs inked violet: they have voted. It has always been in vain, but now, no. Before, they were subjects; now, they are citizens.
From a distance, the Egyptian revolution that captured the world's attention in January now seems a minor flare-up. Interest is lagging in the burned land of a country that has exited from a 30-year regime to gain our attention, albeit inconstant. But in the face of the revolts of these weeks that have shifted the axis of attention, from North Africa to Syria, Egypt is not an exception to lose sight of. In the balance in Cairo's current situation are the post-revolution alternatives: persistent chaos or a seized opportunity for democracy.
On the March 9th referendum, 18 million Egyptians went to vote on the constitutional reform regarding the new terms of presidential elections. It passed with 77% of the vote and the repetition of that voting booth refrain: awal marra. This was a first–for many things. As we write, the military council that has guided the nation has confirmed that, as of February 11th, the former President Hosni Mubarak and his family are under house arrest, and forbidden to leave the country. Above all, it has announced that martial law, which has meant the unlimited power of the police in effect since the 1981 assassination of President Sadat, will be abolished. The precise date has yet to be established, but it should be "before the elections," which will not be moved to an earlier date. The fear of elections in June has been averted: such a short time would not have enabled groups and parties to organize in time, except for the Muslim Brotherhood and the NDP, the National Democratic Party, the still-intact backbone of the regime. The galaxy of the secular opposition was ready to boycott an early vote. Instead, political elections will be held in September with presidential elections to follow. This is not too long for the military to remain in power, and long enough so that all can prepare for the electoral campaign.
But this is only the agenda for the democratic transition, which in no way extracts the country from its political confusion: the demonstration of force of the Brotherhood and the Salafi groups who serve the counter-revolution, the old power that changes name but remains firmly rooted, the multiplying protests in all labor union sectors, and the stock market that is re-opening in an economy on its knees. But this is just the scenario, with its delicate and unclear equilibriums and difficult forecasts–it is not the identity of Egypt.
If you ask Wael Farouq, a Muslim and Professor at the American University of Cairo, what will become of his country, he answers that he doesn't know. But he says it without fear. He does know what he saw in the three weeks he spent in Tahrir Square. Those days pursue him, two months later, because they were the expression of "something that exists, that is there in reality. It is the need for truth, which has won because it has found human experience, its physicality." He isn't a romantic. "Saying that everything has happened doesn't romanticize what has happened; those who were there know better." A square. A physical space, conquered by a human presence: "The possession of space and time, the here and now of women and men and their desire: this is what made a dictatorship fall."

THE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF THE HEART. Three weeks immersed in the milionyya, the protest that made Mubarak fall and disarmed his million and a half police officers. All of a sudden, in that sea of people, it became clear to Farouq.
When it seemed that his presence there had no meaning, there in the midst of millions of others in the square pulsating with life, he felt the same "instant of wonder" he experienced 12 years before when reading Fr. Giussani's The Religious Sense for the first time and that wonder has continued: "It has extended over time even to this moment." This is his revolution, the proof that nothing has the specific gravity of the heart of man.
"Democracy isn't just the future," explains Farouq. "Today, we are already experiencing a real democracy. It is in the people who are re-conquering the awareness of and responsibility for their own existence and that of the community." It is in the numbers (never before seen) at the ballot boxes. It is in the introduction of a law that reduces the requisites for the formation of new parties and prohibits those based on religion, race, or ethnic group. It is in the possibility of re-converting to Christianity, seeing their rights recognized, for those who had left Christianity for Islam. "The press doesn't talk about it, as it doesn't talk about the cleaning of the streets, which we've never had here." Nor does it talk of the Arab mind, "that has rid itself of the dream of the just sovereign"–the revolution lacked a leader, a fact that is obscure or negative for many. "Instead, that lack has been an advantage;" the regime was unprepared because it found itself before "a non-traditional force," adds Farouq. "A moral force. The only true weapon of the people."
The young people who ignited the revolution are between 18 and 25 years of age. In the beginning, there was the pain and injustice of the death of their peer from Alexandria, Saif, killed by the power given to martial law–the law which was prolonged only two months after the police cracked his head. Kulona Khaled Saif became the motto of the revolution: "I am Khaled Saif." This unity witnesses to a belonging that began to swell in the speeches and posts online, until they agreed to meet on January 25th.

"EXCUSE ME, WHEN IS THE REVOLT?" Among them there are some students of Farouq. "At 11am of that mornig I called them, 'Excuse, when is the revolt?' They laughed. 'Professor, the revolution is at 2 pm.' And so it was." The police were also informed of the protest. But the crowd grew to 3 million. "I saw many adults cry and thank their young people: 'You brought me back to life.' Those young people are upper and middle class, they don't have economic problems," but they do have a strong need for freedom. It wasn't a revolt for hunger, nor for anger. "We were angry for 30 years, and nothing ever happened. This revolution was for faith, faith in their own desire." For faith, not fideism. "We fear the fundamentalists less than you do; the Islamic currents of the Arab world can live under the pressure of security forces, but can't continue to live under the pressure of the desire for freedom."
The January Revolution didn't happen "by chance." And Farouq sees one great result: "Those who experienced it have been changed." He has changed. "I'm more certain about what Fr. Giussani says about prejudice: my life was immersed in prejudice. I was liberated by what happened. I can no longer look at reality, or other people, as before. In the midst of that square, I thought of The Religious Sense because there I had proof that the key of knowledge is an encounter, an event: true things always happen. For this reason, I can't focus on fear, because it distances me from reality."
He was 14 years old when he read the Bible for the first time. The teacher tried to cut off his curiosity. "Their prophets are false," he told him. This wasn't enough for Farouq. He bought it secretly and started his clandestine reading. A Christian classmate saw it and ripped it from his hands, saying, "This is our book!" A fight broke out among the students and he was suspended for a week. "Out of fear, I should never have taken it in hand again. But if I had been afraid, I wouldn't have seen all that has happened to me in these years"–for example, the encounter with the words of Fr. Giussani through a student who was passionate about Dante, and a friendship, born of the shock of the Meeting of Rimini, which never ceases to grow. He recounts all this with the expression of one in love, which is enchanting. What has happened moves him. "The adventure of the surprise," he calls it. "This is the only road. I would never ever have imagined hearing Fr. Giussani's name on Egyptian television, but thanks to the Meeting of Cairo this happened. And I would never have imagined seeing my people as if for the first time."

"THEY'LL CHANGE REALITY."A month after the removal of the President, Farouq was listening to a national radio station and heard a famous Egyptian writer and journalist, Sa'ad Hagras, who spoke of the young people of the revolution, explaining that they are the same, in social background and will, as those who, two months before, had put together the Meeting of Cairo. At a certain point, he said, "Just the title of that event ["Beauty, the Space of Dialogue"] is enough to make me feel that those young people hold a different imagination that will change the Egyptian reality."Farouq lived the Meeting of Cairo more intensely than anyone. He was the heart of the gathering. But when he discovered for the first time the mysterious link between what vibrated at the Meeting and in Tahrir Square, he felt like crying. "My trust is rooted in the present. What makes me hope for what will happen is this reawakening of the human." Nothing has the same specific gravity.