“أنا عايز أفهم”
An Open Letter to the Opposition:
Squeezing through the crowds in Tahrir on Friday November 30th, I heard a voice in the distance call my name. “Anisa Farah, Anisa Farah!” (Ms Farah, Ms. Farah). I turned around and found Amr, the office boy from work, pushing his way through to come say hello. After we exchanged pleasantries and revolutionary words of encouragement, I walked away beaming with joy. Tahrir really is a place to unite us all – different backgrounds, different realities, different ideologies, all coming together in the birthplace of resistance and revolution. A few days later, I would realize that my run in with Amr was not something to be celebrated but a much-needed sober awakening for me and all of you.
As I packed my bag to head home last Monday, awaiting the cheerful hello I had been accustomed to from Amr, I was greeted with burden-laden eyes and heavy-set worry.
• يا أستاذة أنا عايز أسأل حاجة. هو بكرة إيه اللي حيحصل؟ الناس عايزين إيه؟
Ms. I want to ask you something. What’s going to happen tomorrow? What do people want?
• بكرة الناس نازلين ضد الإستفتاء الدستوري. عشان مش عايزين الدستور اللي مرسي وافق عليه.
Tomorrow people are protesting against the constitutional referendum. Because they don’t want the constitution Morsi approved of.
• ده اللي كنت فهموا. بس سمعت موضوع الشعب يريد اسقاط النظام ده تاني. هم نازلين ضد الدستور ولا ضد الإخوان؟ أصل أنا مش فاهم. فاكرة حضرتك لما اتقابلنا في التحرير يوم الجمعة؟ الصراحة ده كان أول يوم أنزل التحرير. أيام الثورة وكل الحاجات دي منزلتش. بس يوم الجمعة قلت لأ لازم أنزل عشان أفهم. بس ولا فهمت حاجة! كله بيقول حاجات مختلفة – ضد الدستور ضد الاخوان ضد المرشد. الواحد مش فاهم هو ضد إيه ولا إيه !
This is what I understood. But then I heard people calling for the downfall of the regime again. Are they going down to protest against the constitution or the Brotherhood? Cause I don’t understand! Remember when we met in Tahrir on Friday? Honestly, that was the first time I go to Tahrir. During the revolution and all that stuff, I didn’t go down. But on Friday, I told myself “No, I have to go down so I can understand”. But I didn’t understand anything! Everyone is saying something different – against the constitution, against the Brotherhood, against the Supreme Guide [of the Muslim Brotherhood]. People don’t understand what to oppose!
At this point, a colleague of mine entered the kitchen (the venue of all important discussions, as dictated by Egyptian culture) and overheard our conversation. This colleague, whom I admire and have the utmost respect for, began engaging Amr in a dialogue. “Look Amr, I won’t tell you why Morsi is bad or why you should oppose the constitution. Let me ask you, what has Morsi done? What promises has he fulfilled?” Some of Amr’s highlights from the lengthy conversation:
لو الدستور سيء كده ليه عَمر موسى طلع وقال إنه أجمد وأقوى دستور طلع من مصر؟
If the constitution is so bad, why did [opposition figure] Amr Moussa come out and say it was the strongest constitution to come out of Egypt?
بس يا فندم قالوا عندنا إن مرسي عمل 80% من الحاجات اللي وعد بيها في أول 100 يوم .
But they told us that Morsi fulfilled 80% of the promises he made in the first 100 days.
Engaging Amr in a lengthy conversation, my colleague urged him to challenge his preconceptions and arrive at conclusions on his own. I could see his eyes light up as he started to make sense of what was going on around him, as someone gave him the information he so desperately craved and gave him the respect of letting him process that information on his own.
After my colleague and I discussed everything from Morsi’s “100 day plan” to the constitution, Amr had this to say:
• انا عندي سؤال. ليه الناس اللي زيكم مابتقولش الحاجات دي للناس الي زينا؟ ممكن نكون جهلة بس احنا عايزين نفهم. فهمونا. انا أمي جهلة – مبتعرفش تكتب ولا تقرا. بس لو قعدت قدام الست دي هي حتكون عايزة تفهم منك! أنا في حياتي كلها, مكلمتش عن السياسة غير السنتين دول. فـأكيد مش فاهم. وجاهل. بس عايز أفهم. وأنتم اللي ممكن تفهموني.
• I have a question. Why don’t people like you say this stuff to people like me? We may be ignorant but we want to understand. My mother is
illiterate – she cannot read or right. But if you sit in front f this woman, she will want to understand. In my entire life, I have never spoken about politics except in the past two years. So of course I don’t understand. And of course I am ignorant. But I want to understand. And you are the ones who can help me understand
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. What Amr doesn’t realize is that he understands politics a hundred times more than I do, more than my colleague does, and more than most of you do. We’ve read it in text books. We engage in intellectual discussions. We speak of alternate theories and paradigm shifts, power structures and systems of governance, “hard power” vs. “soft power”. But answer me this – who lives with the consequences of these “politics”? When we discuss decentralization and the powers of local government, whose daily life is affected? When we speak of public healthcare and education, whose children are on the receiving end of these policies? Not me, not you dear reader, but Amr. So when I hear him call himself ignorant, time and time again, I want to shake him and tell him “YOU ARE NOT IGNORANT! I AM!”
Knowledge is power. Always has and always will be. What the Muslim Brotherhood has successfully done is created the illusion of knowledge amongst the “uneducated”. They hand out pamphlets claiming to explain the constitution, with a breakdown – albeit perverse – of specific amendments. The “uneducated” masses, which have been infantilized by their leaders for tens of years, are given the illusion of knowledge. They are reading this for themselves, they are listening to people discuss legal matters, they are given free print outs of the entire constitution and told to “read it for themselves”. After being treated as ignorant, after being shut out of the political system, after being told time and time again that they just don’t understand, they are given this opportunity. They are given the respect and empowerment that comes from understanding. Unfortunately, the “knowledge” they are supposedly given is twisted to put it lightly, and complete lies to put it honestly.
What do we do? We still shove it down their throats. Say no to the constitution! Remove Morsi! The constitutional declaration is an abuse of power! What they’re doing is wrong! But we still do not give them information. We still do not give them the respect of an explanation. We still do not go to the people who truly live with the outcomes of these “politics” we so earnestly discuss.
We go on satellite channels, engage in heated discussions in our circles. We even go to Tahrir, write signs, chant creative slogans and put stickers on our cars. I am not in any way undermining this. We should be resisting – chants, slogans and all. But that is not enough. We need to put the word out. There are people thirsty for the knowledge we have. And monopolizing knowledge, in my opinion, is just as detrimental to the future of this country as monopolizing power.
So I implore you, all of you – anyone who considers them part of the opposition, anyone whose blood boils at the current state of affairs, and anyone who refuses to see anymore Egyptian bloodshed. Spread the knowledge you have. Give the Egyptian people the courtesy of explaining and helping them understand. Qualify your statements. Tell them why you hold the views you do and give them room to arrive at their own conclusions. They will surprise you. If you think they are too “ignorant” to understand, then your certificates and accolades are a waste, for you are truly the ignorant ones.
Sincerely,
Infuriated and Equally-to-Blame
