Berkley Center

In a country divided by strong opinions and even stronger passions about how the country should be run, many people will agree on one thing: Egypt is on fire. Everywhere there are talks about the poor economic conditions of the people, stemming from the unstable national security, and increase of refugees from other failing countries. It seems like Egypt is holding a burden that has become too much to bear, and whose once-capable knees are now feeling the uncomfortable buckle of a country under attack from both the inside and outside.

It seems as if the people here are living in some kind of a dream. There is a mist of disbelief as a people who were once so unified two years ago have become ghosts, aiming attacks at an ephemeral cloud that hangs above their heads. There is no unified target; the people want the end to Morsi’s regime but are unsure of what following steps to take. There is no expectation that the Muslim Brotherhood will acquiesce to the demands of those in opposition. So the Egyptians must live on and continue attending Friday protests or comment on them from afar, either stating that they are fruitless endeavors that are misguided or poorly organized. No one offers a better solution; it seems as if everyone is trapped in a purgatory stuck between their own celestial image of the Egypt they want to see and the current demonic state of the region fraught with rape in Tahrir and injuries and deaths of the martyrs from day to day.

In school, the situation is brought up every day in more ways than I can count. Every class—even my seemingly politically neutral ones—finds a way to incorporate the grievances the Egyptian people suffer from daily. My Modern Standard Arabic teacher jokes using a conditional phrase exercise, “If it were not for the poor political conditions in Egypt, people would be more happy.” We chuckle. However, I get the eerie feeling that everything is not as it seems, that the system is so fraught with dissatisfaction that depression is permeating through the walls of my own university, a place where I ignorantly hoped to escape from the blatantly negative politics of the District of Columbia.

Talking to Egyptians, I hear opposing sides on the issue of the political condition all of the time. From an elderly Coptic woman, “Egypt is no longer the mother of civilizations.” She has lost her faith in the regime, and senses as if the Muslim Brotherhood has taken away the sense of pride she once had in her country. She feels as if this land is not her own, and her minority background will only add to the inferiority she suffers from in a country dominated by Muslims. Even Muslims here are not satisfied. I have found that there is a common misconception from foreigners who are unaware of what the Muslim Brotherhood stands for.

Of course not all Egyptians support the Brotherhood, but neither do all Muslims. From the perspective of a Muslim Egyptian man, there is a mixture of defeat and betrayal behind his words, “Egypt’s problems will not be fixed in the coming years. It may take a cycle of revolutions to stabilize the country and rebuild our infrastructure.” There is a common thread that runs through the words of the Egyptian people; they feel both betrayed and deceived by words of “freedom” and “justice” so often used by Morsi in the days preceding his public announcement in which he stated he would assume total power over the country until a new constitution was drafted.

Life goes on, though, and I must say the Egyptian people are among the most resilient I have had the pleasure to encounter. I still go out for dinners, relax in hookah cafes, attend local concerts, travel throughout the country, and interact with Egyptians from all walks of life. I enjoy seeing daily life continue with people who understand that the years ahead may not be easy, but are certainly not going to stop walking just because the weather looks bad. Somewhere within the ominous nebula above, I believe that Egypt can catch a glimpse of optimism that will propel it forward and lift it above the storm with fortitude.