I'm glad to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me.
I am afraid I must admit that, outside of my high school history classes, I have not spent much time dwelling on the American Revolution. It is such a natural thing to me, this freedom I am sure I take for granted, that I forget how it actually came about: through war.
So when I see another country beginning these steps, it is a little odd to me.
I am also afraid to admit that, had I not been in Egypt when this whole thing started, I would not be near as educated on the topic as I should be.
So, for those of you who may not know as much on the topic as you would like, allow me to bring you up to speed.
Disclaimer: Let's get something clear. I am not an expert, ya know? I have access to CNN and I happen to be living with a bunch of highly educated people, but forgive me for skipping details or for not getting things quite right. This is mainly for Kristi, whose knowledge on this topic almost kept me away from even posting this.
Let's start with the main characters:
-Mubarak: The man behind it all. Well, the man who is causing it all. Egypt's president.
-Protesters: The unhappy people in the street who want Mubarak out.
Our story begins with Tunisia. You may remember that recently they had a little revolution of their own. This gave encouragement to other neighboring countries, namely Egypt. If Tunisia could do it, they could do it too.
So, around ten days ago, they went for it. The protesters hit the street. Some wanted Mubarak, their ruler of 30 years, kicked out of office. Some were just looking for more jobs, food, and housing, but overall the cries were aimed at Mubarak.
Mubarak addressed the people, and basically gave vague promises of reform as he clung to his power. There was nothing genuine about his problem-solving solutions. Then he kinda told off the protesters, trying to turn people against them.
The protests continued because that was not really what the people to hear. They -those trying to stop the protesters- shut down everything. Internet, cell phone towers, all forms of communication. They set up a curfew. They began using tear gas, rubber bullets, tanks, and fire. (This is the point when they got us out of there)
-intermission-
What was it like to be there? Honestly? We were so, so safe and so far away from the danger. Had I not been watching it on our TV I never would have known what was going on. Our day in Cairo was canceled and instead we spent it visiting some other pyramids, and then we went back to home base for "lock down" which was really rough in our huge out-door hotel equipped with pool/tennis/playground/basketball/full gym and 79 of our closest friends. I don't know about everyone else, but I spent the afternoon watching the news and playing Swedish twister. The curfew was implemented that day, and so that night our hotel set up beds all over the place to accommodate. The next morning we hopped on the bus and headed to Sinai. We passed some evidence of protests, yes. A burnt car and a smoking building or two, they had us close the blinds of our bus for a total of about five minutes as to not draw attention to ourselves.
The biggest thing that came from being there during it all was a serious interest in the whole situation. I definitely feel as though I am a part of it, and the reality of the whole situation has been exponentially more real to me. I also feel so, so lucky. If you know me at all you know that Egypt has always been number one on my bucket list, and that this week long trip was the main thing that brought me to Jerusalem. Could we have timed it any better? We got out of there before they started sending the tourists out, yet I will still always be able to say that I was in Egypt in January of 2011.
...
Anyway, back to the protests.
It was chaos, you guys. It still is chaos. We're talking about the largest anti-government action Egypt has seen since the parting of the Red Sea.
Or, ya know, just in the past few decades, but that sounds less striking.
So Mubarak realized he had not appeased the people, so he decided to talk to them again. He told the people that he would not run for president again.
Why does that matter? I mean, obviously people wouldn't vote for him anyway.
Allow me to explain: The Egyptian government counts the ballots. Vote for Mubarak or not, he's got the upper hand in the whole election thing.
But at this point, that was not enough. The people were not appeased.
And what is America to do? Whose side to we take, and what happens if we take the wrong one?
And now I must bring my Egypt rundown to a stop, because that is the point where I stop having knowledge acquired somewhere other than CNN, and if you really want to know what's happening you too can take a look at their homepage, and if you don't really care then you probably stopped reading this anyway.
Well, now that I am here (here meaning the end of this post) I am wondering how I got here. Giving an Egypt run-down was not even close to my original intentions, but now that it is done I cannot remember what my starting goal was.
So in closing I will tell you that I have a picture of the pyramids and the sphinx reflected in a fellow student's aviators that I keep trying to upload for your viewing pleasure but so far I've waited two hours for this thing to upload, and it is just not happening. Can we let it be the thought that counts?
I am afraid I must admit that, outside of my high school history classes, I have not spent much time dwelling on the American Revolution. It is such a natural thing to me, this freedom I am sure I take for granted, that I forget how it actually came about: through war.
So when I see another country beginning these steps, it is a little odd to me.
I am also afraid to admit that, had I not been in Egypt when this whole thing started, I would not be near as educated on the topic as I should be.
So, for those of you who may not know as much on the topic as you would like, allow me to bring you up to speed.
Disclaimer: Let's get something clear. I am not an expert, ya know? I have access to CNN and I happen to be living with a bunch of highly educated people, but forgive me for skipping details or for not getting things quite right. This is mainly for Kristi, whose knowledge on this topic almost kept me away from even posting this.
Let's start with the main characters:
-Mubarak: The man behind it all. Well, the man who is causing it all. Egypt's president.
-Protesters: The unhappy people in the street who want Mubarak out.
Our story begins with Tunisia. You may remember that recently they had a little revolution of their own. This gave encouragement to other neighboring countries, namely Egypt. If Tunisia could do it, they could do it too.
So, around ten days ago, they went for it. The protesters hit the street. Some wanted Mubarak, their ruler of 30 years, kicked out of office. Some were just looking for more jobs, food, and housing, but overall the cries were aimed at Mubarak.
Mubarak addressed the people, and basically gave vague promises of reform as he clung to his power. There was nothing genuine about his problem-solving solutions. Then he kinda told off the protesters, trying to turn people against them.
The protests continued because that was not really what the people to hear. They -those trying to stop the protesters- shut down everything. Internet, cell phone towers, all forms of communication. They set up a curfew. They began using tear gas, rubber bullets, tanks, and fire. (This is the point when they got us out of there)
-intermission-
What was it like to be there? Honestly? We were so, so safe and so far away from the danger. Had I not been watching it on our TV I never would have known what was going on. Our day in Cairo was canceled and instead we spent it visiting some other pyramids, and then we went back to home base for "lock down" which was really rough in our huge out-door hotel equipped with pool/tennis/playground/basketball/full gym and 79 of our closest friends. I don't know about everyone else, but I spent the afternoon watching the news and playing Swedish twister. The curfew was implemented that day, and so that night our hotel set up beds all over the place to accommodate. The next morning we hopped on the bus and headed to Sinai. We passed some evidence of protests, yes. A burnt car and a smoking building or two, they had us close the blinds of our bus for a total of about five minutes as to not draw attention to ourselves.
The biggest thing that came from being there during it all was a serious interest in the whole situation. I definitely feel as though I am a part of it, and the reality of the whole situation has been exponentially more real to me. I also feel so, so lucky. If you know me at all you know that Egypt has always been number one on my bucket list, and that this week long trip was the main thing that brought me to Jerusalem. Could we have timed it any better? We got out of there before they started sending the tourists out, yet I will still always be able to say that I was in Egypt in January of 2011.
...
Anyway, back to the protests.
It was chaos, you guys. It still is chaos. We're talking about the largest anti-government action Egypt has seen since the parting of the Red Sea.
Or, ya know, just in the past few decades, but that sounds less striking.
So Mubarak realized he had not appeased the people, so he decided to talk to them again. He told the people that he would not run for president again.
Why does that matter? I mean, obviously people wouldn't vote for him anyway.
Allow me to explain: The Egyptian government counts the ballots. Vote for Mubarak or not, he's got the upper hand in the whole election thing.
But at this point, that was not enough. The people were not appeased.
And what is America to do? Whose side to we take, and what happens if we take the wrong one?
And now I must bring my Egypt rundown to a stop, because that is the point where I stop having knowledge acquired somewhere other than CNN, and if you really want to know what's happening you too can take a look at their homepage, and if you don't really care then you probably stopped reading this anyway.
Well, now that I am here (here meaning the end of this post) I am wondering how I got here. Giving an Egypt run-down was not even close to my original intentions, but now that it is done I cannot remember what my starting goal was.
So in closing I will tell you that I have a picture of the pyramids and the sphinx reflected in a fellow student's aviators that I keep trying to upload for your viewing pleasure but so far I've waited two hours for this thing to upload, and it is just not happening. Can we let it be the thought that counts?
As you should know from my Facebook updates, I've been following the situation in Egypt closely. (Also I think the folks at the Jerusalem Center might be a bit annoyed with me since I barraged them with emails as soon as I realized you were in Egypt with all of this going down.) I am so, so jealous that you got to be close to this while it was happening. Also I'm relieved that you are safe. If you want more information about it you can look at the past several FB updates I've written - most of them are summaries of what's been going down, plus links to news articles and other sources of information I used to write the summaries.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a source of information besides CNN, you might want to check out Al Jazeera - http://english.aljazeera.net it's the largest Arab news network. They're good journalists and it's good to see things from outside of America's perspective.
Also I think we should plan a trip to Egypt together sometime. After things calm down of course. We can visit Cairo and get you that Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt and just generally be awesome in Egypt together.