Once Upon a Revolution (44 page)

Those who accept authoritarianism aren't all maniacs and extremists. Some are reasonable people such as Basem, or, for that matter, my grandmother, who welcomed the 1967 coup in Greece because it resolved national fears and anxieties stoked by decades of privation, war, and civil strife. To those convinced that their country is sinking into civil war, military rule can seem a bracing antidote. I believe that pluralism and due process are the only guarantees of liberty and security in the long run, but I can comprehend if not accept the opposing view, that freedoms are luxuries to be enjoyed only when existential threats have been tamed.

“I'm tired of people telling us we failed,” a friend still working against the regime in Egypt told me with a flicker of irritation. My friend is right to be irritated; the revolutionaries didn't fail so much as they were defeated, more than anything else by the shallow fetishism of the crowd that brought President el-Sisi. Nothing bothered me more than the unabashed zeal with which proponents of the old order set about demolishing and humiliating the legacy of Tahrir. Judges sentenced hundreds to death after a day's hearings. Sycophantic journalists broadcast the private conversations of revolutionaries, illegally wiretapped by State Security and hoarded for the moment they could be used for blackmail or revenge. Policemen shot to kill,
felool
resumed their old plunder, and, worst of all, all the revanchist forces assumed an air of wounded moral superiority. They behaved as if none of what happened during the first three years of the Tahrir Revolution made them reconsider their lying, killing ways, as if they hadn't feared for an instant that the game was up and they'd have to treat people better. Now they were winning again. The old regime was in control.

Yet how could they imagine that they hadn't narrowly escaped, that the lesson of history was that you can't take power for granted, especially if your power is built on mutually exclusive pillars of injustice and incompetence? The Egyptian Revolution that erupted in 2011 was interrupted two years later. El-Sisi might rule for a long time, curtailing
freedoms while pillaging the national economy. But he might also be swiftly undone by a population accustomed to revolt. “Do you remember the tomorrow that never came?” asked a graffito on Cairo walls in 2014. It speaks of a tomorrow that glows warmly in people's minds, for which they fought and will fight again. Only an unimaginative mind would believe the Egyptian Revolution was an evanescent fancy that can be dismissed or erased.

I don't want to end this story, because I don't like the way it turned out. The heroes were all flawed, and the best of them compromised too much, like Basem, or achieved too little, like Moaz. Their extraordinary accomplishments didn't convince enough of their neighbors and fellow citizens that freedom is worth the trouble it causes. The ending is not all gloom, however. The men and women who did these brave things leapt across a threshold. They contributed something invaluable to the moral fiber of the universe, and, less abstractly, they learned to organize and command substantial power. They might well find a way to change their country. And so, until then, if I must end this story, I might as well end it with Moaz's words, as apt a coda as any to a struggle that never ends.

It's hard to draw moral lessons from such fresh history, but as I tried to make sense of the place to which Egypt seemingly had returned just a few years after the Tahrir uprising, I wrote to Moaz in the spring of 2014. El-Sisi was building a dynasty, and the revolution already seemed a subject for historians. “Were the last three years a dream, an interruption of what is truly normal?” I asked. “Or is it normal for people to feel free and respect each other, and dictatorship has been the sixty-year interruption?”

The email reached Moaz in Qatar, where he was appearing on Al Jazeera television, arguing still about the events of 2011 and their continuing repercussions for the Arab world, and for revolutionaries and despots all over the globe updating their calculations about how to keep power or seize it. He didn't know where he'd land, whether he could secure legal residency in Turkey, or in Qatar, or somewhere else, but he was trying everything, and, oddly, didn't seem demoralized or exhausted.

Moaz reminisced about the years that had passed and about Tahrir, which for him never would.

“It was the happiest dream of my life,” he wrote. “I felt freedom and safety, and also that I am part of this country and we can change everything to reach the dream country. I had a dream, and I still have the same dream.”

Beirut, Lebanon, June 2014

Most importantly I want to thank the people who shared their time and stories with me during a transformative and busy period of their lives. Without them, there would have been no story to tell, and no book. Moaz, Basem, and Ayyash were exceedingly generous in extending their trust. I am grateful to all the individuals who spoke with me and let me accompany them at close quarters. Many of them do not appear by name in these pages. A partial list of those to whom I owe a debt of gratitude includes Ahmed el-Gohary, Sally Toma, Abdelrahman Fares, Zyad el-Elaimy, Sara Mohamed, Mohamed el-Qasas, Alaa Abdel Fattah, Bothaina Kamal, Ahmed Sleem, Hala Moustafa, Sally Sami, Maha Abdel Nasser, Asmaa Mahfouz, Ahmed Abdrabo, Mostafa Shawqi, Ayman Abouzaid, Khalid Hamza, Nazly Hussein, and many, many others.

Many friends in Egypt provided insight, moral support, shelter, and care of all sorts. Shawn Baldwin went above the call of friendship and welcomed me as a housemate. Scott Nelson and Rawya Rageh served pancakes, fresh cookies, and unending moral support. Borzou Daragahi, Delphine Minoui, and Samarra welcomed me as always into their home. Many others provided companionship at election rallies, riots, and demonstrations, over meals, and on felucca rides. I enjoyed invaluable conversations with acute observers of Egypt, including Abby Hauslohner, Ursula Lindsay, Issandr ElAmrani, Ashraf Khalil, Rola Zaarour, Elijah Zarwan, Hisham Hellyer, Shereen Zaky, Lina Attalah, Sarah El Deeb, Heba Morayef, Leila Fadel, Erin Evers, Kareem Fahim, Max Becherer, Rebecca Santana, Giovanna dall'Ora, Asmaa Waguih,
Rolla Scolari, Max Rodenbeck, David Kirkpatrick, and too many others to name.

Countless individuals donated their time and energy to give feedback, explain things I didn't understand, and correct me. They accompanied me on tiring days. They worked thankless hours and performed nitpicking tasks. They read notes and drafts, and shared their thoughts, feelings, and conjectures. Joe Gabra was a loyal and enthusiastic colleague, critic, translator, and friend. Gaser el-Safty and Ahmed Ghamrawi provided eyes, ears, company, and translation for the better part of a year. Yasser Halawa stayed awake late at night on bumpy roads and brought us home alive if sometimes in a stupor. Many others contributed research and journalistic work: Dana Kardoush, Dahlia Morched, Brandt Miller, Mohamed Magdy, Marwa Nasser, Refaat Ahmed, Heba Naiem, Mona el-Naggar, Samar Awada, Therese Postel, and others. Shereen Zaky, Charles Levinson, Brian Katulis, Michael Hanna, Neil Bhatiya, Nathan Deuel, and Ursula Lindsay commented on drafts of the manuscript. Shereen Zaky was a detailed and committed critical reader, catching errors and arguing interpretations; her feedback crucially shaped the manuscript. Charles Levinson introduced me to Moaz and Basem in Tahrir Square, for the second time in our friendship planting the seeds of a book for me.

I owe a debt of gratitude to the many journalists and researchers who chronicled, quantified, and analyzed events in Egypt, often in real time and at substantial personal risk. I relied especially on the work of Heba Morayef, Sarah El Deeb, the marvelous reporting team assembled by Lina Attalah at
Egypt Independent
and then at
Mada Masr
, and Hani Shukrallah's team at Ahram Online. My daily reading began with the blogs
The Arabist
and Zeinobia's
Egyptian Chronicles
.

Colleagues and editors gave me crucial help along the way. Jim Smith at
The Boston Globe
and then Susan Chira at
The New York Times
dispatched me to Egypt before the revolution. Much of my initial reporting from Tahrir Square and its aftermath first appeared in
The Atlantic
in the able care of Max Fisher, and in
The Boston Globe
, where I had enduring support from Steve Heuser. The Century Foundation, especially Janice Nittoli and Greg Anrig, provided the support and structure that enabled me to breathe freely while drafting and completing the book. Waleed
Hazbun and the American University of Beirut supported my research. Peter Canellos, Alessandra Bastagli, and Dominick Anfuso were early editorial believers in me and this project. Brian Katulis has kept the faith since I was writing about fire engines. Anne Barnard has remained my most important editor.

Editing the book itself has been a most rewarding if grueling labor. My agent, Wendy Strothman, has been a lodestar, and in the clutch cooked a pivotal bowl of soup that might have saved the entire enterprise. Without her and Lauren MacLeod, this book would have remained but an idea. Priscilla Painton and the rest of the team at Simon & Schuster, including line editor Sophia Jimenez and copy editor Philip Bashe, did artful and thoughtful work, improving the manuscript immeasurably while investing copious labor.

Anthony Shadid taught me constantly and transmitted an infectious excitement about the uprisings. Through him, I first came to love Egypt. In the early days of Tahrir, we reported together, and as he mused out loud, he convinced me that we were living a moment of irreducible historical importance and that we could have fun covering it. I miss his friendship, and his death leaves us all poorer; I still wish I could read his take on every day's news.

I can't imagine these years reporting and writing about Egypt without Michael Hanna. He has been a friend, mentor, colleague, companion, reveler, and much more. He put enormous time and energy into helping me, with good humor and uncommon insight. Whether he was talking our way through a checkpoint manned by jumpy xenophobes in Nasr City or arguing a tiny detail in a New York office, he was selflessly committed to this project.

I know I have not mentioned many people who were crucial to this book, which has been four years in the making, but know that I am grateful. I owe much to this supportive community, but all shortcomings and mistakes in the manuscript are wholly my own.

My friends and family held things together when I went AWOL to Egypt and at various times when I had to withdraw from the world to immerse myself in the manuscript. Martha Arnold, Deborah Hallam, Kenrick Cato, Jenny Castillo, Helen and Russell Barnard, Gretel Neal,
and my mother, Miranda Cambanis, enabled our family to thrive during the toughest stretches. My wife, Anne Barnard, embraced this project from the very start, encouraging me to go to Tahrir Square in January 2011. Without her advice and unflagging support, there would be no book. Without the love I share with her, Odysseas, and Athina, I never would have wanted to write it.

© SCOTT NELSON

Thanassis Cambanis is a journalist who has been writing about the Middle East for more than a decade. His first book,
A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel
, was published in 2010. He is a fellow at The Century Foundation in New York City. He writes the “Internationalist” column for
The Boston Globe
and regularly contributes to
The New York Times
,
The Atlantic
, and other publications. Thanassis lives in Beirut, Lebanon, with his wife and their two children.

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