Live From Egypt: Welcome to the Revolution

Cairo—Hey, I just got in and things seem great here. As I arrived home, the people seemed to be happier, as if they had just taken a breath of relief that they've been waiting to take for over 30 years! Instead of a "where's your passport son?" I was greeted with a "welcome to Egypt.” On the way home I saw groups of kids sweeping the streets, painting the sidewalks, and covering over the graffiti on the walls. It was a new age, a new Egypt. I was so glad to see the nation united for a good cause and in good spirits.

At night it’s a different story. After unpacking and the large family dinner I ventured out to see my friends and what I missed. Under military control there is a nationwide curfew beginning at midnight, and they start the military checkpoints at about 12:30am. For three kilometers we must have passed six checkpoints. The troops checked for license, registration, and national ID cards of all the passengers. This was followed by a swift and thorough sweep of the car for weapons, drugs, or someone on the wanted list. The entire process took about ten minutes, but we were clean and so they let us through. Another truckload of people weren't so fortunate I observed as we passed by them.

All in all things seem great, safe, and headed in the right direction. All we can do really is wait and see how this revolution will play out. Stay tuned as I bring you the latest from the heart of Egypt.

Mohamed Ghanem is a contributing correspondent based out of New York City.

Still True Grit

Photo by Andrea Bruce for the New York TimesAfter witnessing the tumultuous events in Cairo, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times found his way to Bahrain. There he continued to witness the almost unbelievable determination of people to free themselves from their tyrannical rulers:

At one hospital, I met a paraplegic who is confined to a wheelchair. He had been hit by two rubber bullets and was planning to return to the democracy protests for more.

And on the roundabout on Sunday, I met Ali, a 24-year-old on crutches, his legs swathed in bandages, limping painfully along. A policeman had fired on him from 15 feet away, he said, and he was still carrying 30 shotgun pellets that would eventually be removed when surgeons weren’t so busy with other injuries. Ali flinched each time he moved — but he said he would camp at the roundabout until democracy arrived, or die trying.

The previous day the police had opened fire on demonstrators there at Pearl Square (the Bahrain version of Tahrir Square), killing at least five and injuring many more. The regime in Bahrain, after witnessing the fall of Mubarak at the hands of his people, was not taking any chances. They were determined to crush any pro-democracy movement from the outset.

The very next day the demonstrators marched toward the square again, fully expecting to get shot down by the police. They stepped forth into the open. The police were there, but instead of firing live ammunition as they had the day before, they shot rubber bullets and tear gas, and then fled.  The people surged forward into the square. The forces of democracy had retaken Pearl Square through sheer grit and determination.

It seems President Obama also did his part. He reportedly called the King of Bahrain after reports of the shootings surfaced. It is not known exactly what he said to the king, but afterward there were no more mass shootings of pro-democracy demonstrators. Word spread throughout the country that Obama had intervened, and as a result the people of Bahrain expressed their gratitude.

Bahrain is now one of the many new battlegrounds in this democratic revolution sweeping across the Middle East. What began in Tunisia, and what recently toppled the Pharaoh of Egypt, has now spread to Libya, Iran, and Yemen. Accordingly, the regimes of those countries have acted with savage brutality to stop any democratic revolution in its tracks.

Obama, the Congress, and the American people must show the same grit that these demonstrators have demonstrated. America must extend forth its hand to the people of the Middle East and aid them in their struggle to throw off their despots. The American government, long the underwriter of such despotic governments, must now use its vast power and leverage to “persuade” these same governments to turn power over to their people and to do so peacefully. The American people, for their part, should reach out to these courageous revolutionaries across the Internet to aid their just cause in any way possible.

This has become a test of determination, both for the forces of democratic change and for those dark forces aligned against such change. There are few times in history that present such a stark contrast between good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice. This is one of those times.

The Eighteenth Day

Photo by Ed Ou for The New York Times

In Tahrir Square, on the eighteenth day of a popular uprising, a man held a sign aloft that read, “Mubarak, if you are Pharaoh, we are all Moses.’’ That seemed to capture the very essence of what will go down in history as one of the greatest revolutions of the Middle East. The Egyptian people, under the boot of this Pharaoh for over thirty years, finally led themselves out of slavery to freedom.

It was a true popular revolt, involving all members of Egyptian society. The poor, the rich, socialists, the Muslim Brotherhood, secularists, professionals, working class, and the young and old alike, all took part in deposing the Pharaoh. And it is important to restate that they achieved this themselves, without the aid of the international community, and certainly not help from the United States.

As far as revolutions go, this one was relatively bloodless. Instead, the people used their brains, technology, and nonviolent tactics to achieve what many believed to be the impossible. Their overthrow of the Pharaoh was also very quick. They achieved in eighteen days what took some revolutions years and years of war, tears, and suffering to accomplish. The triumph of the Egyptian people, against all odds, is truly an inspiration to all who aspire to the ideals of democracy and liberty.

There will undoubtedly be some in the United States who will claim that our invasion of Iraq is what eventually led the people of Egypt to overthrow their dictator. Nothing could be more false. The Egyptian Revolution, in fact, is a direct repudiation of the imperial theory that democracy can be imposed on a people from the outside. It is the people of Egypt, and their iron will alone, that caused this revolution. And it is their determination that will make this revolution succeed.

Success, however, is by no means guaranteed. This revolution is not over; it is only the very beginning, and nobody can tell how or when it will all end. The Egyptian Army has seized control of the state’s power, promising to return control to civilian authorities as soon as possible. That same promise has been made many times during revolutions, and broken many times.

Since the United States reacted with weakness and equivocation during the uprising, it must now react strongly in insisting that the Egyptian Army cede control to the people at the earliest possible moment. New, genuine, and legitimate elections need to be held and overseen by an independent body from the Arab states and the international community. Anything less is unacceptable.

President Obama also needs to take this historical opportunity to push for change across the rest of the Middle East. An opportunity like this will not come again for a very long time. He needs to put the other Pharaohs on notice that their own people, if their grievances are not addressed, may soon follow the path of the Tunisian and Egyptian people. And, most importantly, should there be another popular uprising in another Middle Eastern country, Obama must see to it that the United States offers full support to the revolutionaries.

I will say again: this is an historical opportunity to change the Middle East for the better. For far too long the people of this region have suffered under tyrannical and corrupt governments. The United States, specifically, has supported this status quo in the name of “stability”—primarily stability for American access to oil. If the Egyptian Revolution is successful, and causes sweeping change across the Middle East, then the people of the region will finally have a hopeful future. Furthermore, if this revolution is successful then the dark vision that people like Osama bin Laden have for the region, and the world, will be vanquished once and for all.

Therefore, the struggle of the Egyptian people is our struggle too. America stands to gain or loose as much as the Egyptians do. If they succeed in building a genuine democracy whose revolutionary fire spreads across the Middle East, that is a huge victory for America; conversely, if they fail, that is a catastrophic failure for America too.

It took eighteen days to depose the Pharaoh, but it will take much longer to build a new nation based on justice, liberty, and democracy. For the Egyptians the struggle has only begun. America must now help nurture this New Egypt by supporting the aspirations, ingenuity, and determination of its people. Let America and Egypt join hands in this journey forward and send this message to all other Pharaohs in the Middle East and beyond: we are all Moses.

True Grit

Righthand photo by Emilio Morenatti/ Associated Press

One of my first political memories as a small child was Tiananmen Square. I was eight years old at the time and remember watching the evening news as, night after night, masses of people gathered in that square, in defiance of a tyrannical government, to demand the basic human right of liberty. I remember when the soldiers of the “People’s Liberation Army” were sent in to massacre those pro-democracy demonstrators. And I remember the powerful image of a lone man who fearlessly planted himself directly in the path of a column of tanks, and would not let them pass. 

As I watched the demonstrators in Egypt this week, I could not help but think back to that memory of Tiananmen Square and of the people who finally rose up against an intolerable despotism. The images of that time, and the images now being broadcast out of Cairo, reminds us all that the most powerful political force in existence is still the individual desire for freedom.

Take, for example, the extraordinary scene that Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times witnessed the other day in Tahrir Square:

Inside Tahrir Square on Thursday, I met a carpenter named Mahmood whose left arm was in a sling, whose leg was in a cast and whose head was being bandaged in a small field hospital set up by the democracy movement. This was the seventh time in 24 hours that he had needed medical treatment for injuries suffered at the hands of government-backed mobs. But as soon as Mahmood was bandaged, he tottered off once again to the front lines.

“I’ll fight as long as I can,” he told me. I was awestruck. That seemed to be an example of determination that could never be surpassed, but as I snapped Mahmood’s picture I backed into Amr’s wheelchair. It turned out that Amr had lost his legs many years ago in a train accident, but he rolled his wheelchair into Tahrir Square to show support for democracy, hurling rocks back at the mobs that President Hosni Mubarak apparently sent to besiege the square.

These demonstrators are cut from the same cloth as the American colonists at Lexington, the civil-rights marchers in the 1960s, and the Chinese demonstrators at Tiananmen Square. They posses true grit, and they deserve our full support.

Try as he might, Mubarak has failed to crush the people’s uprising in Cairo. His thugs have inflicted physical damage on the pro-democracy demonstrators, but he has not even gotten close to damaging their will to resist. In fact, his actions have only strengthened the resistance against his rule.

As we watch the events in Cairo, we all wonder what is coming next. My personal fear that Tahrir Square would turn into another Tiananmen Square has abated in the last few days as Murbarak looses support even amongst his generals. Furthermore, the Obama administration has chosen wisely to support a transitional government that would effectively remove Murbarak from power. That would have been inconceivable under the last American administration, itself exhibiting many of the same characteristics of the corrupt Murbarak dictatorship.

Whatever happens next, we are undoubtedly witnessing a monumental historical change in the Middle East. The Egyptian uprising, for instance, has also touched off growing demonstrations in Yemen, Jordan, and Syria. However, it is unclear yet that these changes will finally result in a better future. If many of these uprisings end like the Iranian Revolution did—with a radical Islamist regime coming to power—then the future of the region will be even darker than before.

In the meantime, the vast majority of the demonstrators in Egypt are motivated by a disgust of Murbarak’s dictatorship, the corruption of his regime, the oppression of his secret police, and the stagnation of the Egyptian economy. As Americans, it is essential that we support the aspirations of these demonstrators for a more democratic Egypt. It would be uncharacteristic of our national character and history to do otherwise.

Tiananmen Square seems like centuries ago, but the struggle that occurred there continues now in the streets and squares of Cairo. It is the same struggle that founded our own nation and led men like Patrick Henry to famously declare, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” It is comforting to know that sentiment is still alive and well in men like Maged, a doctor who drove 125 miles to join the demonstrators in Tahrir Square. “If I die,” Maged said, “this is for my country.”

Live From Haiti: The Anniversary

Jonathan Denby, All Rights Reserved, 2011

Port-au-Prince—On the morning of the anniversary—exactly one year since a 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti—four other journalists and I waited patiently in the courtyard of the NGO compound we were staying at. However, our initial driver failed to show up at the designated time and so we were forced to get a new one. He drove into the compound around 9:00am in a rickety bus that was painted with vibrant images of plants, people, flowers, and other cultural imagery. It was if some stoner VW minivan from 1968 had traveled through time and was now going to drive us into downtown Port-au-Prince.

We arrived downtown at the National Cathedral about thirty minutes later. The plaza in front of the Cathedral was already filling up with people. Along with Haitians, the worldwide media had also come out in full force with photographers, videographers, reporters, networks, freelancers like myself, and just plain tourists wandering around with their cameras ablaze. This was a media feeding frenzy of the first order with the national commemoration as the dramatic backdrop.  The scene was memorable: women wearing the traditional white Haitian garb with head-scarves wailed in mourning and threw their hands skyward shouting for God’s forgiveness.  Many people were solemn; some looked captivated by the events unfolding around them. Others gathered around small tents listening to the sermons of ministers.

Surprisingly, we were actually able to walk into the ruins of the National Cathedral.  The experience was so insanely dangerous that is worth describing in detail. The entire structure was a skeleton and looked as if it would all collapse any minute. The roof had completely fallen in. Huge mounds of debris and rubble covered the floor. Stone pillars and archways had toppled over, and pieces of concrete hung precariously from the rusting steel rods embedded within. It was like crawling around the wreck of some stone ship where a wrong step or unlucky placement could end in terrible injury or death.

The situation became even more surreal when we discovered an intact staircase that wound its way up the side of the skeleton. We ascended the staircase, which was blocked along the way by pieces of debris and where entire sections of the wall were missing. At the top of the staircase, you had to pull yourself up through a hole in the broken ceiling. One misplaced step or slip and you would simply slide down the debris and out of one of the gaping holes in the wall—and then out into the open air where the plaza awaited you a hundred feet below.

Once through the hole, we ended up in the belfry of the Cathedral. Looking up, I saw the large cast-iron church bells broken from their anchors and suspended above us by little more than wooden beams. If the beams had broken, the bells—probably weighing a couple tons each—would come crashing down and bring the entire floor (and us) with it.  We walked from the belfry and into another room that, at this point, was essentially half a balcony suspended above the floor of the cathedral. We stayed a couple minutes and then descended back to ground level.

Jonathan Denby, All Rights Reserved, 2011We found ourselves in the surrounding streets. After doing some interviews, we heard that former president Bill Clinton was nearby. We raced over and, miraculously, security waved us through with hardly a glance. We walked into a large courtyard lined with Haitian soldiers in crisp white ceremonial uniforms. We joined the press-pool on the side. Clinton was sitting with other figureheads on a stage overlooking the gravel-covered ceremonial grounds. Haitian President Rene Preval, not exactly a popular man nowadays, was next to him, as was Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive. They sat solemnly as a woman stood at a microphone singing the national anthem. Then they rose and walked down the stage to the grounds below. They collectively placed the first stone at the center of what is to be a memorial park dedicated to the victims of the quake.  It was a quite and serene moment with nobody speaking or cheering.

Jonathan Denby, All Rights Reserved, 2011We had lunch in the afternoon at a hotel located across the street from the Champs de Mars, a large and dirty refugee camp that sits just across from the ruins of the National Palace. It seemed as though the entire foreign press corps in Haiti was staying there. Journalists of all kinds were sipping cocktails and chatting in the outdoor lounge area. Suddenly, lunch was interrupted by a protest outside. I went out and photographed a group of protestors marching down the street. They carried anti-Preval and anti-UN banners. I interviewed a twenty-one year old protester named Mackenzie. He was there because he wanted the United Nations peacekeeping forces out of Haiti. He wanted the PNH (Haitian National Police) to take over again. He also asserted that UN forces were killing people in some of the refugee camps. If their protests went unheard, Mackenzie said, they would act “in a bad way.”

Jonathan Denby, All Rights Reserved, 2011Afterward, we had to get yet another driver, our first driver having abandoned us hours beforehand. We drove a short distance to a voodoo ceremony. It ought to be said that many in the West have a fear of voodoo, believing it posses dark and even evil qualities.  This is an unfounded stereotype propagated by ignorance and even racism. Conversely, the ceremony I attended was a very lively event complete with a band, singing, and dancing. The practitioners—both men and women—were dressed in traditional white garb. A group of men danced around while a number of women were off to the side chanting, lighting special substances that produced white billows of smoke, and sacrificing chickens. It was not disturbing in the least, and had it been taking place in some neighborhood in Brooklyn, say, it would have been viewed as a block-party.

Our driver took us back to the street in front of the National Palace to do some filming and this is where the day’s adventure took a bad turn. Some of the journalists opted to stay in the van, while the others and I disembarked. The people with me were a filmmaking crew that wanted to shoot some footage of the surrounding area and do some interviews. I set down my backpack for a minute and took out my own video camera to do some shooting. My colleagues continued onward without looking back and eventually disappeared around a corner. At that moment our driver suddenly decided to take off in the other direction. I discovered that I was alone in front of the Champs de Mars, not exactly the safest of the refugee camps in the capital.

Jonathan Denby, All Rights Reserved, 2011I took off in the direction of the film crew, but after fifteen minutes of searching they were nowhere to be found. I decided to double back and wait in the area where we had been dropped off in hopes they would come looking for me there. As I waited, I became increasingly nervous as various groups of men watched me from the periphery of the camp, some with interest, others with clear hostility.

All of the sudden I heard my name being shouted from across the street. Some people in a green jeep were calling for me. I could not make out who they were, and it was not until they drove over did I see that it was Lou, the founder of the NGO where we were staying. “Thank God you happened by here,” I said. “I got separated from my group and have been here about forty-five minutes.” “Well, get in,” said Lou, “We are headed to the General Hospital.”

It turned out that the General Hospital is a sprawling compound that sits not too far from the National Palace and Champs de Mars. Members of the NGO were there, mainly medical and logistics people volunteering their time for the day. They were tending to some of the patients and building bookshelves to store medications and supplies. I remained there with them until nightfall and then headed back to their compound.

As darkness fell, I stood on a patio of the three-story compound and gazed out over the lights of Port-au-Prince below. I thought about the day’s events and how this island-nation was still struggling and suffering a year after the earthquake. I thought about the million and a half people still stranded in refugee camps like the Champs de Mars. I thought about the people who were dying of Cholera, an easily preventable and treatable condition. I thought about the international community and all the funds they had promised Haiti, but has since not been delivered.

What can be said of an anniversary of such a terrible disaster? Probably the same thing that can be said of any catastrophe where large numbers of people have perished: mourn those who are gone, help those who are still here, and be thankful you are rete vivan—staying alive.