The January 25th Revolution and Changes in Egyptian Society

Page 8 of the March 28th issue of Al Masry Al Youm -
'Tracking People's Behavior After the Revolution'

For long, Egyptian citizens’ social conduct has been criticized by many. In post-revolution Egypt opinions are divided. One side says people will never improve enough so that democracy can take root, and the other says time and effort of citizens will bring change to society.


 Hassieb AudioDoc The January25 Revolution and Changes in Egyptian Society by IngyH
Total Length: 14m15s

Research for this project was conducted using Gamal Hamdan’s Shakhsiyyet Masr, and from the A-U-C archives the document ‘The American University in Cairo: A Period of Rapid Change. The Presidency of Raymond F. Mcclain from January 1955 to July 1963.’ Special thanks to Ebony Coletu, Michael Reimer, Jehane Ragai, and Sarah Shabayek for lending their voices to this documentary. Thanks also to Sporting Club in Alexandria, Egypt for hosting the Belal Fadl Public Lecture.  

Protesters march through downtown Alexandria on Feb. 11
Photo: Ingy Hassieb

The songs used in this documentary are:

Revolution by The Beatles, Al Ayam by Omar Khairat, Come Together by The Beatles, Free Your Mind by Digla, Money by Pink Floyd, Highlights by Digla, People Are Strange by The Doors, Sout El Horreya by Wust El Balad. 

Man on the Street Interviews: Do You Trust The Egyptian Army?

Man On The Street Interviews: Do You Trust The Army? by IngyH

Millions of Egyptians had celebrated the military's descent to the streets and their assuming control of the country after the collapse of the Mubarak regime.

Egyptians celebrate the army's descent to the streets during the January
25th Uprising - Photo: Ingy Hassieb

The Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces has been guiding Egypt through its transitional phase with claims that power will soon be handed over to a civilian government.

But with the country still in a relative state of instability, opinions as to whether or not the military is capable of leading Egypt out of the woods seem divided.

Students at the American University in Cairo, A-U-C share their thoughts.

......

The military has repeatedly claimed it does not seek to maintain control. Parliamentary and Presidential elections are set to take place in the fall of 2011, which according to the Supreme Council should be enough time for new and old political parties to make the necessary preparations for a peaceful hand over of power.

This was Ingy Hassieb, A-U-C.

Egyptian Citizens Question Military's Actions

 Finalez Tahrir Audio Feature by IngyH

April 9 - Tahrir Square

LEAD-IN: Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square claim the military fired live automatic rounds at them last Friday night after curfew. The Egyptian armed forces denied the accusations claiming that officers had not been armed with automatic weapons that night. A-U-C Radios' Ingy Hassieb reports.

Barbed wire and abandoned military vehicles sealed off Tahrir Square on Saturday April 9 after violent clashes between the Egyptian armed forces and protesters camped in the now world-renowned midan.

PROTESTER: After the curfew, while we were entering the square, they began firing at us from many different directions and they weren't firing towards the sky, they fired directly at us. (:13)

Demonstrators said they had no choice but to hold a sit-in in Tahrir Square after 25 defected officers sought protection within their ranks.

ABDELATTI (protester): Those 25 Egyptian military officers were sentenced to death by Tantawi. Four of them were executed, the rest managed to  flee. (:10)

Protesters said hundreds were injured in the previous night’s clashes and claimed they were transported to Ahmad Maher hospital for treatment. The hospital confirmed admitting only six individuals with minor injuries that same night.

NAT SOUND: "Al geish wal sha'ab eid wahda" (The army and the people are one hand)

April 9 - Tahrir Square

After the ousting of former president, Hosni Mubarak, the military's temporary control over the country was celebrated by millions of Egyptians.

Now two months later, citizens are beginning to question the military's allegiances.

M.ABDELATTI: At first we used to say the army and the people are one hand, but now we don't know who is going to help the people move the country forward to a state of peace and good, purify it from all the depravity that exists...as long as there is someone like Tantawi, loyal to the old regime and Hosni Mubarak, then the country will not get better. (:17)

SFX: Sout El Horreya - Wust al Balad

Another protest is set to take place next Friday, April 15, calling for Tantawi’s dismissal.

Ingy Hassieb, A-U-C Radio.  

---------------------------------------------

Listening Journal #2: BBC World Services on the History of MI6

The BBC World Service Documentary, "MI6 - A Century in the Shadows," is a three part series produced by Mark Savage, in which the history of the British secret intelligence organization, MI6, is explored in explicit detail. 

The first piece in the series "Gadgets and Green Ink," is 22:28 minutes long, and serves as an introductory piece to the series. It acquaints audiences with the organization and its early days during the first half of the twentieth century as it looks at British secret intelligence operations during the two World Wars. The controversial and intriguing nature of the topic alone are enough to create, but the way the piece is structured and narrated make it even more interesting to listen to.

The documentary starts very strongly with nat sounds of a coding machine and what sounds like recordings of old radio transmissions. Two sound bites immediately capture the listener's attention, a man and a woman talking about their involvement with death and the questionable "things [they] had to do" in the name of duty. A narrator then introduces the title of the documentary.

The reporter and presenter, Gordon Corera, begins by talking about the most recent MI6 news to create a link between past and present. He touches on the modern paradox that exists between the secrecy of intelligence organizations and the democratic state's duty to be transparent with its citizens. In doing so, he makes a historical digest of the organization's operations relevant to a 21st century audience, and also poses a question that gives purpose to his work, namely whether or not the presence of intelligence organizations is justifiable.

Corera attempts to find out what kind of operations MI6 handled during the first and second World Wars, and also whether or not the the organization's endeavors had any impact on the outcome of either.

He does so by outlining what the job of a secret intelligence agent entails, before delving into details about the actual actions of the organization during the wars. All the while he stresses the moral and ethical dilemma of using secret intelligence. For example, he has his interviewees, all of whom are ex-MI6 officials, speak of recruiting foreign agents who betray their own countries by spying for Britain.

Nat sounds are somewhat scarce, but well employed. One example would be using sections of the Messages Personelles, coded messages that aired on the BBC, a method of communication between the organization and its human resources.

The reporter's tone of voice throughout the piece is objective and detached from the sensitive topic he is presenting on. Corera uses interview segments that include both questions and answers instead of using only sound bites, which adds substance to the piece. However, during the first interview segment (at around 2:20-30) he interrupts his interviewee several times, in a tone that is eager bordering on shocked. Yet, a passive and interested listener would probably forego this, given the fact that the subject at hand has to do with the dubious, and unexposed affairs of secret intelligence services.

The recordings' sound quality is excellent and the piece was very easy on the ears. Still, it is almost half an hour long, and it is only one of three parts of the complete project, so it's easy to get distracted while listening, especially towards the middle. Additional nat sounds could possibly help by adding more of a dramatic effect to keep the audiences more engaged.

That being said, it is possible to download the documentary as a podcast that could be transferred to a cell phone or iPod and listened to whenever and wherever. The fact that the piece is organized chronologically also makes it easy to switch it on and off at intervals as each era has its own story that could stand alone without the details of the period that came before it.

The entire piece was well written. The narration was objective and did not fall prey to the sensationalism that generally surrounds intelligence, despite the fact that it included interviews with former spies and had very tense tunes playing in the background at certain times.

I particularly liked Corera's ending though as it featured one such interviewee who talks about foreign spies being captured, tortured, and killed by the Nazis before their ultimate defeat, and the beginning of the Cold War, which was even more dependent on intelligence operations.

As was mentioned earlier, the fact that secret intelligence operates on a slippery slope is never downplayed, and by simply saying "as one war ended, another war was just beginning, a cold war, a war fought largely in the shadows, and one in which intelligence was to be the front line," the reporter leaves the audiences wondering (especially after the emotional sound bite used before it) what kind of practices MI6 got involved in during the Cold War, and so successfully compels listeners to tune in the week after for the rest of the story.

Segment of Interview with AUC History professor Michael Reimer

Segment of Interview with AUC History professor Michael Reimer by IngyH

Interview with Michael Reimer (March 22nd 2011) for: The January 25th Revolution and Changes in Egyptian Society


Were you in Egypt during the protests?
Yes, I was in Egypt during the entire period of the protests.

Did you actually go to Tahrir Square?
I was in Tahrir Square a few times. Well, actually just twice before the president's resignation. And, it was February 1st or February 2nd I was there, just before the incident with the camels and the horses and such. I wasn't there on that day. And one other time and I can't remember the exact date but anyway... We did see, and I was with some other people, and we did see on the first occasion some clashes between police and demonstrators, and then the second occasion was actually a very peaceful day. It was the Tuesday before the clash with the Baltagiyya.

The history course that you're teaching right now, Isqat al Nizam, this was your idea to start teaching that?
It was actually an idea that was sparked by the provost. Because the provost here at AUC, Dr. Medhat Haroun, had circulated to all the faculty a suggestion that we set up some special, either, courses or workshops or seminars relating to the revolution as a way of contributing as a university to the dialogue about what had happened and what was going to happen in Egypt as the constitution was changed and as the discussion about changing the political and the cultural atmosphere in the country, so it was my idea originally to set up some kind of course where we could compare Egypt's revolution with other revolutions. But it could not have happened without the support of my colleagues and so it's a team taught course, and every week we have a different lecturer who is presenting on a different topic of comparison for Egypt, with Egypt's revolution.

Can you tell me what are you hoping to teach students through that course and what you are hoping they will learn. 
Well I think what we want the students to learn is that there are many different trajectories that a revolution can follow. There's not just one kind of revolution as it were, there isn't a single pattern that all revolutions conform to, in other words. And one of the things that came out in our discussion on the very first day, we had a panel, and some students wanted the panel, which consisted mainly of professors, although we did have a student on the panel as well, to sort of tell them what should happen now or what had to happen thinking that there's somehow a law that all revolutions have to follow. And what we tried to convey to the students was, first of all, there is no such law that the revolution has to follow, or a pre-ordained path, and secondly what happens is determined to a large extent by what the students and other Egyptians actually want to happen, what they're willing to sacrifice in order for something to happen. So, we wanted to stress the fact that there is a certain open-endedness to any kind of revolutionary situation. And one can look around and see models of things, or revolutions that perhaps Egypt wants to follow, and other models that it wants to avoid. But in each case there are, by studying revolutions we can sort of see, well, who benefits, who doesn't benefit, what groups tend to be involved, what groups tend to be excluded or marginalized by revolutions. I would say one thing that I certainly hope our students would learn is that a determined minority often times can, you might say, take hold of a revolution and lead it in a particular path. Unless people are willing to stand up, to object, or to try and lead it into a different way, often times revolutions do actually tend to be taken over by one group that has a very clear ideology and a very clear goal in mind, whereas other people are sort of dithering and not following through. Yes that can happen with a revolution, it doesn't have to happen, there have been revolutions where that hasn't happened but it is a potential outcome of a revolution. 

Final Project Promo: The January 25th Revolution and Changes in Egyptian Society

 FINAL PROJECT PROMO by IngyH

Alexandria - 2/4/2011
Photo: Ingy Hassieb

Music

Omar Khairat - Al Ayam 

SOT_Michael Reimer - History Professor at the American University in Cairo: Democracy is what produces the changes in behavior that we have seen and that I think will continue to improve people's behaviors in all sorts of ways. 

ANNC: The January 25th Uprising has undoubtedly affected Egyptian politics, but how and if it's going to affect society remains to be seen. 

Attend the listening session at AUC's New Cairo campus on Sunday May 22nd and Wednesday May 25th at 10 a.m. each day, in the BEC building room 1060. 

Podcast #1: Audio Book

 PODCAST #1 - LOLITA by IngyH


An excerpt from Vladmir Nabokov's Lolita

"My heart beat like a drum as she sat down, cool skirt ballooning, subsiding, on the sofa next to me, and played with her glossy fruit. She tossed it up into the sun-dusted air, and caught it -- it made a cupped polished plop. 


Humbert Humbert intercepted the apple.

'Give it back,' she pleaded, showing the marbled flush of her palms. I produced Delicious. She grasped it and bit into it, and my heart was like snow under thin crimson skin, and with the monkeyish nimbleness that was so typical of that American nymphet, she snatched out of my abstract grip the magazine I had opened (pity no film had recorded the curious pattern, the monogrammic linkage of our simultaneous or overlapping moves). Rapidly, hardly hampered by the disfigured apple she held, Lo flipped violently through the pages in search of something she wished Humbert to see. Found it at last. I faked interest by bringing my head so close that her hair touched my temple and her arm brushed my cheek as she wiped her lips with her wrist. Because of the burnished mist through which I peered at the picture, I was slow in reacting to it, and her bare knees rubbed and knocked impatiently against each other. Dimly, there came into view: a surrealist painter relaxing, supine, on a beach, and near him, likewise supine, a plaster replica of the Venus di Milo, half-buried in sand. Picture of the Week, said the legend. I whisked the whole obscene thing away. Next moment, in a sham effort to retrieve it, she was all over me. Caught her by her thin knobby wrist. The magazine escaped to the floor like a flustered fowl. She twisted herself free, recoiled, and lay back in the right-hand corner of the davenport. Then, with perfect simplicity, the impudent little child extended her legs across my lap.
  
 By this time I was in a state of excitement bordering on insanity; but I also had the cunning of the insane. Sitting there, on the sofa, I managed to attune, by a series of stealthy movements, my masked lust to her guileless limbs. It was no easy matter to divert the little maiden's attention while I performed the obscure adjustments necessary for the success of the trick... "

Music: Flames - VAST

Audio Essay: This I believe about the new Egypt

  AUDIO ESSAY #1 - This I believe by IngyH

I believe the new Egypt should be just. Fair and just.

Growing up my mother taught me about fairness. She said all human beings are born equal, that a person’s worth is not measured by the amount of money they have, their profession, or their social class. She told me to treat people the way I would want to be treated… with respect.

As I grew older I realized what my mother taught me could not be further away from reality in Egypt.

I came to understand that people in my country are not only measured by their social class, but are defined by it. Citizenship rights are only attainable to those who can afford them.

When I turned sixteen and had to get my ID card I simply went to a guy, who knew a guy, who knew my family. He took me to the front of the line and asked the administrator to finish my paperwork and take my photograph.

In less than half an hour I walked out of the office, ID card in hand. All it took was a few folded notes disguised as handshakes.

Those who didn’t know someone who knew someone who could help them out, who didn’t have twenties to spare, waited in the back of the line either to be told to come back another time or to be treated with absolute disrespect by the person handling their papers.

It was more or less the same procedure for my driver’s license, and renewing my passport.

Some call it bribery; others call it charity, a way of helping those less fortunate.

Somewhere along the line, the helping hand began buying people reverence. An individual’s esteem was judged by the size of his pocket.

In the new Egypt, people will not be bought and sold. In the new Egypt I want to stand in line with others, to see everyone treated properly, not for their connections but for the simple fact that they’ve done nothing to deserve otherwise. Egyptians should not have to feel like foreigners inside their own country.

No one should be above the law, not the doorman and not the president. They will be equals, one and the same, praised for their good deeds, reprimanded for their mistakes.

The way Tahrir Square was between January 25th and February 11th is what the new Egypt should be like, a land of parallels, of equality, of equally important Egyptians, worth the same in each other’s eyes.

This I believe.

Listening Journal #1: World Vision Report on Tourism in Egypt

World Vision's report, "Tourism Standstill in Egypt," explores the impact of the January 25th revolution on the country's tourism industry. The country reportedly lost one million tourists between the 25th and February 11th.

The feature, 4:52 minutes long, is set in Giza, an area usually bustling with tourists and where the famed Pharonic pyramids still stand.

The piece starts off with the sound of hooves moving against a grainy surface. The volume decreases as the reporter begins to speak, instantly capturing the listener’s attention with a detailed, and visually appealing description of her whereabouts. The nat sounds continue to play in the background.

The reporter then introduces a tour-guide who has spent the larger part of his life working in the area and whose work completely depends on tourist presence in the area. She explains that he is one of many whose income has recently decreased drastically.

Rather than speaking, the reporter allows the subject to tell his own story about the hardships that he and many like him are facing. In doing so she adds a human-interest element to a business story in order to maintain interest and compel even those not interested in economics.

Her presentation of facts and figures about the Egyptian economy falls in nicely with the personal stories. For example, she states Egypt’s tourist statistics and the industry’s share in the country’s gross domestic production (GDP), but also has her interviewees explain the consequences in simpler terms, “if on a day there’s no work, then there’s no money, then there’s no food.”

She describes even the horses in the Giza stables as “emaciated with protruding ribs and thinning flanks.” 

The reporter moves on to discuss people’s happiness and hopes for a better Egypt despite their desperate financial situations.

She transitions smoothly between the two ideas by changing the nat sounds from those of horses and carriages to those of people on the streets, talking to each other. Her description of her new locale is quite visually stimulating and it effortlessly takes the listener from one side of the street to the other.

The nat sounds in this section do not necessarily directly correspond with the setting, but she does make an effort to maintain a connection between the noises and the words. For instance she makes sure that the sound of men talking can be heard when she talks about men going in to buy cigarettes from the convenience store. She also adds in a child’s voice when she mentions one.

She leaves time for a few more quotes relating to her second point before wrapping up the story. One is left wondering how people in such conditions could possibly have hope for a better future. The reporter then ponders on the question of when and whether things would go back to normal to indicate the story is not yet over.

The piece was fairly short for such a substantial topic, yet still quite thorough. It addressed the story from a very interesting angle, using personal accounts to inform audiences about a large and complex economic situation. Not only so, but she also let her subjects tell the story, which created a sense of intimacy from beginning to end.

Overall the production quality was good. The reporter's and subjects' voices were clear and distinct. Moreover, the story was well structured, organized, and communicated.

The nat sounds worked well with the piece as well, especially against the reporter’s voice, which was calm the whole time, but had a slight tone of skepticism, especially toward the end, to fully convey the instability she is discussing. I would have preferred to listen to more than just hooves and chatter however.