Emily Oppenheimer Interview

[Brer Brian]

To commence Friday, August 12th at noon.

[Brer Brian]

Alright I am here! Holla ;D

[mle]

ok I'm here

[Brer Brian]

First question- How long have you lived in Egypt? What brought you there, and what do you get from living there that you don't get from living in the States. (Or anywhere you might have chosen to live.)

[Brer Brian]

Heyyy

[mle]

I've been in Egypt now for a year. But I've lived here on and off for two years and a half. I went as part of a study abroad program and I really loved living here so I kept coming back. I really enjoy the pace of life here. People have time to spend with each other, and there is a sense of community in the neighborhood. Also, there is a sense of generosity here. Even when people have very little, they will share what they have.

[Brer Brian]

How did you spend the uprising? Were you ever in fear for your life?

[Brer Brian]

Are you free to be candid on the internet at this time?

[Brer Brian]

Not sure what's happened but I hope everything's okay. Please write back when you can or send a note so we know you're aight

[mle]

Well the embassies tend to warn foreigners to stay away from any protests, because the police have detained foreigners for participating in protests. So my original plan was to stay far away from any disturbances. The first night, Jan 25- my roommate and I did go to edge of Tahrir to see what was happening, although we left long before any trouble really began. Then the ISPs kept blocking facebook and twitter so it was hard to get a lot of information, but we were told that Friday would be the big day. The banks were emptying the ATMs throughout the city, so we were trying to withdraw as much money as we could and stock up on supplies. We filled the bathtub with water in case they shut the water off, we would have something to wash our clothes with.

Thursday night, I was talking with my friend in the States on Skype, and the internet went down. The internet connection was really bad in our building so I thought I just had to reset the modem, but my roommate kept asking if the government shut the internet down. I told her, "No way the government would shut the internet down for the whole country. How stupid would that be!" Except all the troubleshooting with the router did nothing, so I called my mom in the States and asked her to go on Twitter and see what people were saying about the internet, and that's when she told me it was down everywhere. She was really freaked out then, and asked for our landline number in case they shut cellphone service as well (which they did), so she would have a way to reach me in case something went wrong.
Friday, my roommate had her boyfriend, and another friend of hers who lived downtown staying at our apartment, and as soon as noon prayers finished we were watching Al Jazeera English. We had an American couple living upstairs, who came and watched TV with us for a bit and invited us to dinner later, and another friend from down the street came over as well. She said, her boyfriend and his friend had decided to go get as close to Tahrir as they could and she was nervous she couldn't reach them on the phone cause our cell service was out. They eventually came back and we watched TV together and it was nice. My mom called the families of everyone else and gave them the number to my landline so our phone was ringing all night.

Saturday was the worst. Cell phone service came back on, and my roommate and her boyfriend had went to her boyfriends family's house so it was just me and her friend in the apartment. We were watching the news and we kept hearing these loud popping sounds. I assumed it was cars backfiring, but we did live walking distance from the largest prison in Cairo, so we thought maybe there could be problems with the prisoners. Our friends down the street started calling us, and telling us to lock our doors. Their neighbor was a police officer and told them there were prison breaks all over Egypt. My landlady called and told us not to leave the house. So we locked and bolted the door and we closed all the curtains, and we saw guys with sticks walking around on the street (it turns out it was our neighbors guarding the street), but it was kind of scary. Our neighbors wanted us to stay with them so we'd all be together, even though I wanted to stay in the apartment, I eventually gathered anything that was valuable, locked the door, and went to my neighbors. We had phone access but no internet, so we kept hearing rumors about what was going on from the TV, our friends on the phone, and our neighbors. Like "The prisoners have guns, There are lootings on this street, and this mall was looted". Nobody knew what was true or not, and everyone was a bit panicked. One of my friends decided to watch Egyptian state TV because he heard they were covering the prison escapes, and the state TV was just in full out panic mode. They kept showing videos of guys they had "caught" and were listing all the neighborhoods reporting crimes. Around 1am, flare guns started going off from the prison, so EVERYONE was panicking. The guys were arguing whether or not they were going to join the neighborhood patrols downstairs. (Most of the men from the buildings were downstairs carrying whatever weapons they had- one guy had a bow and arrow) . I was convinced my neighborhood was going to be up in flames the next day. I didn't get any sleep that night.

The next day, I walked around a bit and all the shops were still there. The neighborhood patrols were really effective at keeping strangers out of the neighborhood, and eventually an army tank came and the army had secured the prison so I felt much better.

[mle]

Yeah. Actually that's probably the best thing since the revolution. People aren't afraid to talk politics anymore. Everyone has an opinion about everything now. Before, my friends shushed me when I asked what would happen to all the pictures of Mubarak after he died, but now people can talk about everything. There are some people who think speaking badly about the army and the SCAF is off-limits (especially in state media), but it won't go back to the way it was before.

I think the restrictions they had placed on speech really harmed society. If you can't talk honestly and openly about politics, then those restrictions naturally flow to religion, or social norms. Then everything is really directed through this self filtration of anything controversial.

[mle]

sorry about before. describing events of the revolution took a long time

[Brer Brian]

When the uprising was happening in Egypt, and then spread to Algeria, and then Libya, there was an "Against Oppression" thread on facebook with up to a hundred posts a day in Arabic. Who were the people posting? Were they natives of the countries in question? Could those posts have been used against them in counter-measures by the state?

[mle]

Well Algeria's uprising didn't really take. The big three were Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. The Against Oppression group was made up of people within the movement and people living outside the countries. A lot of people who are originally are from those countries but living abroad and watching what was going on. Also, Egyptians and Tunisians are supportive of neighboring revolutions so they were trying to find ways to help too. In Cairo, there were groups organizing to send goods (SIM cards, medical supplies, food and water) over the border to Libya.

[Brer Brian]

What do you think of NATO in Libya, and what did you think of the US invading Iraq in 2003?

Is there anything apart from that Americans can do to help the pro-democracy movements in these countries?