Flaxing muscles

I went to a sit-in today in downtown Cairo by workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company. About 350 men have been sleeping on the pavement there since Monday, in the cold, because they’d like to be able to feed their families, and sometimes wages don’t come without a fight. It’s the usual story: public sector company is privatized and sold off. Investor buys it (at a huge discount) and then proceeds to slowly and systematically dismantle it with a view to selling the land on which the factory stands and making a tidy profit.

The only problem is that new investors are contractually under an obligation to “protect” the workers who come as part of the package, which means that they can’t just sack them, shut up shop and walk happily into the sunset, pockets bulging. One common strategy is to force workers out on early retirement, another to make life as intolerable as possible (especially for those active in defending workers’ rights) in the hope that they will quit of their own accord. The results are invariably a reduced, and demoralized workforce.

While Egypt’s steady privatization has made it a star pupil with the World Bank, these policies are far from popular amongst the people they most directly affect, as it well known. I spoke to one worker today who told me that he had the option of joining a private firm but opted for Tanta (when it was still government-owned) “because the state protects me in a way private companies won’t”. Tanta workers are not the first formerly public sector workers I have spoken to who reject the idea that the government doesn’t owe them anything after the integration of their company into the private sector. In fact, several such workers I spoke to continued to refer to themselves as public sector employees.

I’m poorly equipped to discuss with authority the economic merits or otherwise of Egypt’s privatization process, but its effects as I have witnessed them have largely been extremely negative. And certainly the trickle-down benefits lauded by the architects of this process has yet to be felt amongst the majority of Egyptians. But I really understood as I spoke to workers today that the privatization process is an affront to some workers not merely because it (usually) impoverishes them and threatens their working futures. On an ideological level, men in their 40s, 50s and 60s are bearing witness to the tearing down of the last remaining vestiges of a legacy which has informed their whole lives; the idea that the state will protect them. Privatisation of these men’s factories is a multi-pronged attack. On their security, their livelihoods, sometimes their pride and always the belief system which has underpinned their whole existence.

Times and economies change and that’s life, some argue. There are always victims on the road to progress. Alas these victims are often steamrollered multiples times by this progress. Tanta workers have been battling for almost a year for basic entitlements. What they want now is either for their factory to work properly (raw supplies aren’t being renewed and machinery is being removed, they say preventing them from working) or for them to be made redundant with the severance pay they are legally entitled to. The company is doing neither.

It has offered them half of the sum workers believe they are entitled to as redundancy pay. Workers have recently been informed that they won’t be being paid January’s salaries because they haven’t been working (they were on strike). Yesterday, as workers were thinking about putting up a tent to shelter them from the cold security officers stormed their gathering attacking four workers in an attempt to get to activists from the Tadamon [Solidarity] group who have been supporting the workers. You can see a video of the arrest of the activists here. They were subsequently released shortly afterwards.

I went back the same evening and workers told me that they're not intimidated. But they also said that this is because this protest is their resort: there's nothing else they can do after this, and how can they go back to their families and the factory and Tanta having failed?

I had left the sit-in shortly before the attack happened, and encountered another of Egypt’s odd moments of irony. As I walked away, wondering whether Egypt’s government is in professional training for the Screwing Over Your Own People Olympics or just doing it for fun, I walked onto Qasr El-Eini and found it empty. Big men in suits and shades carrying machine guns in 4x4s were parked on the side of the road, waiting to escort out parliamentarians. Behind them a sea of cars, ordinary Egyptians, were being held up. Without wishing to labour the image – you get the idea – walking along, the workers’ chants still audible behind me, it felt like yet another huge Up Yours from the men in charge.

Tanta French-style

I went to Tanta four times this week, which meant a daily dose of Peugeot. On Wednesday at the Aboud bus station I said to one of the drivers there, ‘Tanta, two people’ and he led Per Bjorklund and me to a microbus. I told him that I wanted to go by Peugeot.

He indicated the Peugeot in front and said to another of the drivers, “Fransaweyeen dool. El fransaweyeen mabye7eboosh el yabaany, beye7ebo el faransawy.” [They’re French. The French don’t like it Japanese, they like it French].

“Ah bey7ebo el faransawy” [yes they like it French] the other driver replied conspiratorially.

While this may have been an innocuous commentary on the vehicular preferences of the Europeans, to “like it French” is also slang for - ahem - enjoying teeky-teek on all fours.

I was depositing myself in the back seat of the Peugeot, face-first arse-last (which somehow increased the trauma of it all), when this was being said, and was thus unable to fully gauge the tone of the conversation by scanning their no doubt smirking faces.

I explained the double entendre to Per, who said it had made him feel dirty before explaining that while they of course have a lexicon of dirty jokes like every nation, Swedish people are embarrassed by toilet humour - which I found astonishing coming from the representative of a people I have always associated with the frequent and untroubled removal of clothing in public areas.

I then asked how Swedish people swear at each other, given that profanity is one of the keys to understanding a national psyche. Apparently, Swedes do not involve their parents in the cursing of others, surely one of the few nations not to do so? Per said that if one Swede imputed lax morals to another Swede’s mother, the latter would probably ask why the first Swede is involving a 3^rd party in proceedings which have nothing to do with her.

Which is surely the sensible response to be expected of a people which gave us elegant yet functional self-assembly furniture.

We then lapsed into silence as the Peugeot pulled out of Aboud, and my mind drifted to the trial, and yesterday’s proceedings, and miscarriages of justice etc.

“COCKSUCKER,” Per suddenly and violently exclaimed from nowhere, before explaining that said expletive is a popular term of abuse in Sweden.

(Aside for linguists/swearword enthusiasts: In Swedish it is Kojsoger or something approximating that. Probably with testicular umlauts somewhere).

The Mahalla 49 trial concluded on Thursday. The final verdict will be delivered on December 15^th, but two of the defendants were released on Thursday. The police attempted to stitch Essam Ibrahim up by claiming that he’d stashed stolen goods in the address listed on his ID card. Alas the stupid lazy buggers neglected to check that he actually lives there: he hasn’t, since 2001, and this was proved to the court.

Essam Ibrahim

Ahmed Farhana had started shouting at the judge during Thursday’s session, in a slurred, distressed, drawl. “Ya 3am el 7ag el mo7ameyeen dool ana ma3arfhomsh. 3owez arawwa7…3awez arawwa7…” [Old man (I am stumped as to how to capture the meaning of 3am el 7ag here) I don’t know those lawyers…I want to go home…I want to go home…] Many of the people in the courtroom laughed at his outburst, including the judge. I found this unfathomable.

He was clearly mentally disabled – the lawyers say that he his mental age is much lower than his years - and unable to understand what was happening to him, never mind willingly and knowingly participate in a criminal conspiracy. Shame on the judicial/prison system for keeping him locked up for seven months.

Ahmed Farhana

A reader of this blog has inexplicably requested my thoughts on the Ghad party headquarters incident, possibly having confused me with that other legendary political pundit, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal.

I have very little to add, other than I woz there, but alas arrived 10 minutes after the fire was put out.

I arrived to chaos in Talat Harb Square, chaos of much lower proportions than it could have been because of the distinct and strange absence of a police presence to ensure complete pandemonium (see: the Shura Council fire. See: the April 6 clashes in Mahalla. See: any gathering of more than 15 Egyptians other than for a wedding or football celebrations).

When I arrived Moussa Moustafa and Ragab Helal Hemeida were standing in the square looking sheepish and telling everyone that Gamila Ismail had set fire to the Ghad HQ. I confess that before I arrived in Talat Harb Square I didn’t know who Moussa was, and was stumped as to why he would suggest that Ismail had torched her own flat. Which perhaps indicates the transparency of Moussa’s lie. Even an idiot could smell a rat.

On a side note I took an instant dislike to Hemeida because of the way he had done the buttons of his leather jacket right up to the neck, which gave him the look of Nehru crossed with a Croydon drug dealer. This is aside from the fact that he was spouting a load of shite about Molotov cocktails landing on his head, obviously.

Members of opposition parties in Egypt cannot fart without the immediate imposition of a security cordon. Which is why the occurrence of a near-riot in central Cairo involving flying rocks and the vandalising of buildings using blowtorches in the complete absence of a police presence is such a give-away. There are plaques all over Egypt - on university gates and tram stops and hospitals - proclaiming that Mohamed Hosny Mubarak opened this, or oversaw that. Moussa should have stapled one to his back. Organised crime indeed.

On Monday evening a DNE colleague and I went to Talat Harb Square to cover a solidarity protest with the Ghad party. The contrast in terms of a security presence couldn’t have been more marked. It was awash with plain-clothed policemen and security trucks.

We saw two women sitting on the pavement surrounded by about 10 men who then bundled them into a (police) microbus. When we stopped for half a millisecond to try and identify the women an extremely unpleasant policeman shooed us away. When we slowed down he proceeded to shove my male colleague, quite forcibly. Even Scandinavian Per said he was subjected to the shoving treatment when he tried to stand still and interview an activist. Needless to say, the protest never happened in Talat Harb, and was re-located to the (easier to contain) steps of the Journalists’ Syndicate.

Tanta

The Mahalla trial continued today, for the fifth consecutive day.

It’s being heard in Tanta, and I went there by Peugeot, one of the 7-seaters. I enjoy road trips generally, but there is something particularly mesmerising about travelling solo, and in an antique Peugeot, which remains one of the most comfortable cars I have ever deposited myself in. Today’s vehicle was no exception: it felt like we were being pulled across ice.

The last time I went to Tanta (on Saturday, also for the trial) I had gone by train and my introduction to the town had been a row of jumbled concrete tower blocks standing opposite the train station. I was happy to see that inside the town are narrower streets which, while they are not breathtaking architecturally, are kinder on the eye than the visual assault of the drag outside the court house.

I attempted to enter the court house from the entrance I had used last time, which seemed to me to be a logical idea. State security thought otherwise, and told me to use the staircase further along. No reasons were given, mostly because there weren’t any.

Low-scale harassment continued later, when the defence team retired to a screened-off cafe to enjoy a secret fag and a coffee, unseen by Ramadan’s everywhere eyes. On their way back, a relative of one of the defendants told one of the lawyers that the defence witnesses weren’t being allowed into the court house. He spoke to the state security officers, who were sitting on chairs opposite the court house in their tight jeans and open shirts. Things escalated after a security officer asked one of the lawyers when he graduated (!), again for no apparent reason.

The state security officer stood up, squared off to the lawyer as his colleague held him back. “Don’t try to make problems with me because I won’t let it happen,” he said. I was reminded of English pubs on a Friday night at closing time.

I noted that the other security officer had in his hand a load of ID cards, which appeared to belong to the defence witnesses given the way he shuffled through them when the subject was brought up. Why? Who knows.

Inside the court things were tenser than on previous occasions, partly because the lawyers are tired and disappointed that the media didn’t show up. They wanted cameras in court. It creates pressure.

Seven defence witnesses testified on behalf of their friends today, almost all of them were poorly dressed, unemployed or employed in modest trades – for this after all is a trial of the weakest, poorest and most ignored of Egypt’s population i.e. the majority.

One woman came clutching her tiny baby, which stared back at the court wide-eyed as she told the judge that her neighbour wasn’t even in Mahalla at the time of the demonstrations.

As she walked away her baby vomited lightly all over the floor, which I think, was the best statement on today’s proceedings.

Things exploded when the prosecutor began his pleadings before the court. He initially refused to speak into the microphone (which has replaced the loudspeaker used during Saturday’s session) and I soon understood his reluctance to do so.

After speaking at length about the political motivations behind the events of April 6th and 7^th he went on to say that half of the 49 defendants have previous criminal convictions and, in the same breath, quoted a Quranic verse about individuals who spread depravity throughout the world (mofsedeen fel ard).

The effect was like dropping a match in hay. The defendants began screaming, shouting, tearing at their clothes while plain-clothed state security officers rose up from the benches and surrounded the cage in which defendants are held, some of them standing on benches, apparently trying to intimidate the defendants into silence.

“Kafara? KAFARA?!? [infidels] What else are you going to do to us?” they screamed at the officers. “He knows that we’ve been wronged” one defendant said, pointing at the prosecutor. “How can a Muslim label another Muslim an infidel?” another defendant shouted.

The judge adjourned the session while the shouting and the screaming got louder. An officer threatened to remove the defendants who were still shouting. “La2, e7na wa7ed” [no, we’re together] a defendant said.

It was extremely distressing to see their fury. In quoting this verse the prosecutor had attempted to harpoon what for some of the defendants is the only lifebuoy keeping them afloat in a sea of poverty, oppression and general meaninglessness – their refuge in faith. It was a dirty trick.

A state security officer stopped me photographing them beating their heads and tearing at their clothes inside the cage. Did I have permission from the judge, he asked, ignoring the fact that I had been photographing two metres away from the judge for the past three hours, in front of the whole court. Yes, I said, on the basis that silence amounts to tacit approval. He took me to the judge’s room. “Did you give her permission to photograph?” he asked the judge. “No,” the judge replied, annoyingly.

That ruse having failed, he demanded that I get rid of the photos. He asked me for the memory card. I gave him the battery. A policeman said “that looks like a battery,” not unreasonably. I said that I didn’t know where the memory card was.

N.B. This is not technically a lie. I do not, in fact, know where the memory card is stored.

The state security admitted that he didn’t know where the memory card was either, after I told him to remove it. Which is what I was counting on.

There are times when speaking the Arabic of a 10-year old, and being a 99% foreigner pays off, and this was one of them. Take the camera, I said. He closed his eyes and laughed and looked exasperated and basically said be off with you and don’t take any more pictures. A lawyer bundled the camera into his bag before the officer changed his mind.

The thing that will most stick in my mind about today’s session, concerns the defence witnesses.

Two of them were illiterate. They signed their statements with a thumb print. The woman with the baby, when she was asked how old she is, said, I don't know.

“Well when were you born?” the judge asked.

“I don’t know that, either” she said. “Look at my ID card, it’s written on there.”

It turned out that she was born in 1986. Mubarak had had five years - a presidential term - to give her half a chance by the time she was born. Twenty-two, a mother, and illiterate. Testifying on behalf of a man facing imprisonment because he doesn’t know the right people and can’t buy his way out.

There are some disposable Egyptians who can’t be got rid of through falling rocks. This, I suppose, is what the courts are for.

Letter from Kamal El-Fayyoumy, Tareq Amin and Karim El-Beheiry to the Judges' Club

Below is my translation of a letter handed out today at a Journalists' Syndicate protest about the individuals still being detained in connection with the April 6th roundup.

The letter is to the Judges' Club which is their version of a syndicate.

The media's virtual silence about the continued detention of these men - compared with the media circus surrounding Israa Abdel Fattah's detention - is pretty marked, and pretty sad.

Letter to the Judges' Club

We, three political detainees, address the letter below to the Judges' Club and its head Zakareya Abdel Aziz from the Borg el-Arab Prison in Alexandria...

Dear Sir,

A week has passed on our hunger strike and we are extremely weak. We are appealing to you as the last and only resort for all who have suffered injustice in Egypt.

We would like in the beginning to correct certain information which has reached the press about our (the three of us) having been transferred to the prison hospital as a result of our hunger strike.

The truth is that we are still in prison after the administration refused to call an ambulance to take us to hospital, and as a result of the inability of Karim el-Beheiry and Tareq Amin to stand on their feet - as a result of their extreme weakness. Instead, a "nurse" was summoned to examine Karim, whose condition has seriously deteriorated.

We would like to know the reason why we remain in detention. We will continue the hunger strike until we either die or receive this information.

We were tortured in the state security headquarters in Mahalla on the 6th, 7th and 8th April. Officers tortured Karim using electricity while Tareq Amin and Kamal el-Fayyoumy were insulted verbally and physically assaulted. We then spent eleven days in Borg el-Arab prison in a cell with individuals with criminal convictions. When the Tanta court ordered that we be released we were held for four days in the El-Salam police station [noqtat shorta] situated between Mahalla and Tanta before we were taken to Borg el-Arab prison were we began our hunger strike.

From our detention cell, we call on you and all political currents to take action and apply pressure in order to secure the release of all those detained in connection with the events of Mahalla.

Signed

Kamal El-Fayyoumy, Tareq Amin, Karim El-Beheiry

Detained workers from Mahalla

Borg el-Arab Prison

Wing 22, Cell 5

ScUm el donya

I was astonished to discover yesterday that Egypt has a Green Party, an oxymoron if ever there was one. Protecting the environment in Egypt is – unsurprisingly - the main thrust of their platform, and in terms of a challenge this must rank alongside the Campaign to Rid the Night of Darkness, or Popular Party for a Ban on Hair Gel in Professional Football.

I don’t mean to deprecate their efforts since their objective of preventing us all from choking to death in Cairo is important, and unless it is realised we won’t be able to continue stepping all over each other and be abused and harassed by the state and its minions etc. In any case when I arrived I spied an artist-type elderly gentleman sporting a beret and a yellow handkerchief in his breast-pocket, which only cemented my commitment to the cause; seeing a spiffily dressed senior citizen who looks like he might break into a Charles Aznavour song at any moment always gives me a warm feeling. I was further impressed by a sign kindly thanking us not to smoke, and even more so by the fact that 30-odd Egyptian males were actually taking heed of this injunction. At the NGO I used to work in we would use the ‘visibility test’ to determine whether the boss had arrived yet or not; if we could see his secretary clearly he still wasn’t there yet. If we could just about make her out through a cloud of smoke he had been in the office for ten minutes. If however we required night vision goggles to assist us as we felt our way to her desk he had been there for some time, and was probably in a meeting.

I had tagged along to this seminar with Sharshar, whose friend was talking in it. The speakers were discussing Cairo’s environmental, urban planning, poverty and overcrowding issues as well as the fact that the city can boast the dubious honour of being the world's most polluted metropolis. They even endeavoured to formulate solutions to these gargantuan problems other than blowing the whole place up and starting over – although numerous audience members did tout the idea of moving Egypt’s capital somewhere else. I was thinking Miami, because it has nice beaches and the military aid won’t have to travel as far. It is incredible that Cairo has sixteen million people squashed into it compared to Alexandria’s four million and Tanta’s one million, but unsurprising all the same given that nobody wants to leave and go live in the new cities given the spectacular lack of infrastructure planning put into them – people have a house, but no school, hospital or supermarket (no orders at 2 a.m.!!). Someone made the incredibly sad remark that Heliopolis - which was the 19th century equivalent of 6th October City - was constructed by the Belgian Baron Empain purely for profit and yet 100 years later remains a paradigm of architectural elegance. He compared it with Medinat Nasr, constructed by the government presumably for the people, and aesthetically speaking the Borat to Baron Empain’s George Clooney; it functions and all, but is ugly, unappealing and crude.

Another speaker posited the idea that people litter the street as a way of expressing discontent with the government. This prompted me to think that mass protest could take the form of people dumping the contents of their waste bins and car ashtrays etc in front of a government minister’s flotilla of cars as it passes – this would at least fill the time as we wait half an hour for them to be on their bloody way. My thoughts were interrupted by a particularly enervated audience member behind me who, being so incensed by corruption, maladministration and crappy streets was speaking with great gusto, and in the process kept knocking me on the head with his prayer beads.

After the usual round of ‘Masr deih balad 3azeema’ platitudes someone pointed out that even in Amreeka Shababeeka corrupt individuals steal from government coffers and in the process rip off the people, but the difference is that at least they do it with a sense of national pride; they stay in the country and perversely the money ends up back in the economy. Compare with the Egyptian situation where thieves with an equivalent sense of commitment don’t exist. A bright spark quipped ‘yes, they’ve all run away to America’ which rounded off an interesting – if long - evening and again confirmed that Egyptian humour seems to get better the harder circumstances get. Should the country actually implode as the Green Party and others seem to be forecasting, my sides will presumably be aching with laughter.