A&S Student Returns to Cairo for Historic Events

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Nancy Joseph 06/01/2011 June 2011 Perspectives

When Egyptians pushed for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year, Hind Ahmed Zaki was in Seattle, working toward her doctorate in the UW Department of Political Science and serving as a teaching assistant. But Zaki, an international student from Egypt, was determined to return home to join in her nation’s struggle.

With the support of the Political Science Department, Zaki flew back to Egypt in early February and stayed for the remainder of winter quarter. Here she offers a firsthand account of her experience, which included participating in many of the country’s most dramatic demonstrations. 

I knew I had to return to Egypt. All my family and friends are there. Before coming here for my PhD, I was working on women’s rights back in Egypt, so a lot of my friends are activists and were participating in the demonstrations from the very first day. I was very worried for them, but also exhilarated. It was really an emotional rollercoaster and an incredible moment in the history of my country. About three days into the demonstrations, I realized I had to be part of that. Everybody I know is there. I knew I had to be with them, whatever happened. 

"About three days into the demonstrations, I realized I had to be part  of that," recalls UW student Hind Zaki, above, in Cairo. "Everybody I  know is there. I knew I had to be with them, whatever happened.

People in my department were very understanding. I’m a teaching assistant, and we were three weeks into winter quarter when all this happened, so it wasn’t easy to leave. A fellow graduate student stepped in to teach my course sections. Everybody, from the administration to my professors, was very accommodating. I was really touched by how incredible people here were about it.

Zaki flew to New York, where she met up with other Egyptian friends studying in the U.S., also determined to fly home. They had a hard time finding flights into Cairo, with many flights cancelled, but they finally arrived there on February 2.

When we landed in Cairo, things were conspicuously calm. The airport was very empty. Then we tried getting out and that’s when it really hit us. There were tanks everywhere. We were stopped a few times at army checkpoints and at checkpoints created by neighborhood watches because there were no police in the city. It was weird. The place I grew up in was very changed. It took about four or five hours to get home, when it’s usually one hour at most. 

The next morning, Zaki, along with her sister and friends, headed for Tahrir Square, just minutes away from her family’s home. Citizens had been gathering in the square daily to protest Mubarak’s regime. 

In this snapshot taken in February, people wait to pass through a checkpoint entrance to Tahrir Square.

My first day in Tahrir Square was a Friday. Fridays were especially busy days in the square, with people speaking on a stage and large crowds showing up. All the entrances to the square had been secured as checkpoints by citizens who were participating in the demonstrations. They kept apologizing. “Sorry that we have to search your bag. Sorry that we have to hand-search your body. We just want to be sure that everybody is safe in there. It’s all for us, it’s all for Egypt.” So you get sucked into this drama as soon as you approach any of the entrances to the square. 

I recognized one of the women doing hand searches. She was a street vendor who sold newspapers. I used to buy a newspaper from her all the time. For me, she represents the vast majority of Egyptian people who really are very poor. When I saw her, I just burst into tears. Seeing her made me feel that this is real. If this woman, this newspaper vendor, is participating and hand-searching me, this demonstration is not just a bunch of middle-class people who are on Facebook. This is more of a people’s revolution. Everyone is participating now. 

I also remember a makeshift hospital set up in the square. It was such a touching, amazing thing. They’d set up all these sections for people who had bullet wounds, or eye issues, or respiratory problems, or common colds. It was incredible how organized they were. It was very clean. The doctors were people who either teach medicine in state universities or work in state hospitals. If this movement failed, they might lose their jobs. So it was really very touching to see them willing to sacrifice it all—risking their lives by being in the front line of this battle, and risking their own careers if things went downhill. 

I was crying and very emotional that whole first day. I was very happy that I made it back to Cairo. I think I would have highly regretted it if I had just stayed in Seattle. 

Tahrir Square at night.

Zaki spent most of the week at Tahrir Square, sometimes staying there overnight, spending time in one of the many tents set up in the square.

It was important for people to be there at night. A lot of people showed up in the morning, but at night, this is when people were more vulnerable in the square. The army had orders not to shoot people, but there was always this worry that something might happen. And I think by staying there in the night—I know some people spent the whole 17 or 18 days camping there—there was this incredible sense of solidarity. People would buy food for each other, and blankets. I remember leaving the square a few times to buy blankets for people. 

The nights I stayed outside the house, I would nap and get up, nap and get up. Everybody was very low on sleep, high on exhilaration and tension. I would sometimes go back to my parents’ house during the day to sleep, and then get up at 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I was still jetlagged from Seattle, so I decided to use the jetlag and stay up at night, since the night was more important, and sleep for parts of the day. That became the routine for me. So the jetlag worked for me in a good way. 

With Tahrir Square attracting large crowds, Zaki and others eventually decided it was time to create a presence in other key locations in Cairo.

People wanted to move the sit-in outside of the square, going to major state buildings like state television—which was spreading the worst kind of propaganda about the revolution and the people involved in it—and the Parliament. I think it was February 6th or 7th when we started another sit-in in front of the Parliament. I was among the first there, with a few hundred other people. First the army was very aggressive with us, wanting us to leave. But then as more people started coming, the army decided to let us stay. By the first night, about 10,000 people were there. And the next day, it was like 20,000. Camping outside the Parliament building was very symbolic of the revolution. Parliament, the house of the constitution, is supposed to be the place that represents the will of the people. And the will of the people was that we wanted Mubarak to leave.

Demonstrators gather outside the Parliament building. 

As the standoff between citizens and Mubarak’s regime continued, frustration grew at Mubarak’s refusal to resign. On February 7, there were major strikes across the country, including factories, government buildings, and public utilities. Zaki recalls that day as a turning point.

I remember talking with my friends about how the revolution had to move from the streets into factories and ministries and state departments. When there were major strikes all over the country, it became clear that there was no way the regime could be saved. The country was entering a level of civil disobedience at the highest level. I think that’s when the Supreme Council of the military made the choice that they had to let Mubarak go now. Because there was no way that the country could go on like this. The regime had already fallen. Now it was just a matter of admitting it.

On February 10th, it was announced that Mubarak would address the country. Crowds swarmed Tahrir Square, expecting Mubarak to announce his resignation. Instead he insisted he would not step down.

Everybody was expecting that he would resign. I was standing in the square that day and I phoned my dad and mom and told them that Mubarak was going to make a speech. I told them, “You don’t want to miss this moment. Come to the square. This might be an historical moment that you might always remember.” So my parents got there. People were there from all walks of life. And then the speech came. People were so angry. They were incredibly angry. My dad was so angry, I almost regretted calling him to come. My dad has a little bit of a heart problem, and he was crazy when he heard the speech. People were shouting and screaming. People were crying. A few women fainted. It was a moment of total hysteria, because everyone expected him to resign, but instead he said, “I’m going to die here. There’s no way I’m leaving Egypt. History will judge me. You have no right to judge me.” Things like that. And it was like, wow, this is not sinking in. This is a senile old man. So I was very depressed and very concerned about what was going to happen next. I thought, okay, this might be hysteria now. I didn’t see a way in which, unless he resigned, that things will calm down.

Tahrir Square, above, was the main gathering place for recent  demonstrations in Cairo. 

The next day, Mubarak finally announced his resignation. Zaki remembers the day as “one of the best days of my life, if not the best day.”

I spent the whole day at the state television building, demonstrating with people. There were thousands of people there and the army was trying to stop people from breaking into the building. This was the day that the highest number of people took to the streets in Egypt, all over Egypt. There are some estimations that between 10 to 15 million people all over Egypt went to demonstrations or sit-ins that day. 

I went home at about 5 pm. We were eating and then Omar Soliman, the newly appointed vice president, came on the television and said that Mubarak had resigned. I stood up, started screaming. I remember I even dropped my food. I was like, “Ahhhhh!” Food went flying everywhere. We went to the balcony. People on balconies were screaming to people in the street, telling each other in case people didn’t know. Then everybody started flocking to the streets. For hours and hours people were just dancing and happy and there were fireworks and it was just beyond incredible. I met all my friends and we were dancing in the street for hours. It was the biggest celebration you can imagine. People were crying, hugging each other, screaming. They couldn’t believe it. They couldn’t believe they managed to do that. There was this incredible sense of triumph, of power.

In the days that followed Mubarak’s resignation, reality set in, with change taking longer than citizens thought it should. Demonstrations occurred, with the army sometimes responding harshly.

We entered a period where there was a lot going on. There were all these concerns about the army. The army started to really clamp down on demonstrations, really clamp down on strikes, basically saying you have to go back to a normal situation. They were very slow in responding to some of the immediate demands of the revolution, including taking Mubarak and his family to court over their crimes against the people. This was one of the most important demands of this revolution, and they were very slow to respond. In fact, they didn’t respond until late April, when I was already back in Seattle. 

Some people remained in the square throughout February and into March, although the number was much lower. They insisted on being there until some of the demands were met. On the 9th of March, there was a very violent attempt to drive people out of the square. Some people were arrested, some people were hurt. Those arrested were, according to human rights organizations, subjected to very bad treatment by the army, including torture. So while the army stated publicly that they are supporting a democratic transition in Egypt, things like that make you wonder how much they are willing to tolerate a transition.

After that, people began pushing harder for the trial of Mubarak and the dissolution of state security, the number one oppressive arm of the regime. People stormed the state security building in Alexandria. Some of them were shot. The next day, I was among the people who entered the headquarters of the state security in Cairo. Hundreds of people broke into headquarters, and the army couldn’t stop them anymore. Witnessing that was as incredible as the day Mubarak resigned. This was one of the main symbols of the regime and the reign of terror, so this was another very significant day for me.

Zaki returned to the University of Washington just days before the start of spring quarter, with the fate of Egypt still unclear. 

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster, with concerns about the army’s ability to run the country and to transition to a democratic government. This is the point we’re still in now—people are less excited and less exhilarated and now more worried about the future. 

It was very hard to leave Egypt. It’s hard to be away from the country at this point, because there is something happening every day. It’s a critical juncture, as we say in political science. Anything could happen. Things could go either way. You’re really scared on the one hand, and you want to be part of it on the other hand, and your heart is just there. So it’s incredibly difficult. But I’ll be returning there in the summer, and I’m very excited about that.