Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Echoes of Intifada

By Fatemah Farag

Images of the Israeli military machine -- soldiers, guns, tanks and helicopters -- giving chase to unarmed Palestinian men, women and children, dominated the television screen in one of the many coffee- houses in the coastal city of Alexandria. Only minutes earlier, men's voices rang out amidst the gurgle of water pipes and the slap-slap sound of backgammon pieces striking against wood, but now eyes stared and a shocked quiet settled over the place. "I think that is enough," commented a man as he looked to the ground to hide an expression of disgust. "The time has come to stand up and pay the Israelis back for all the injustice our people have had to suffer," he said.

Similar sentiments were reflected throughout the country in spite of discouragement by security authorities. Perhaps the most manifest example of the change in mood took place at university campuses, where students renounced their decade-long heritage of political apathy. Last week, and specifically after the publication of pictures of 12-year-old Mohamed Al-Dorra being murdered in his helpless father's arms, students at Cairo University pelted riot police with stones after the forces attempted to disperse them with tear gas.

"I have never seen anything like it," said Fathi, a leftist student activist who has been involved in student politics for the past five years, alluding to student demonstrations that took place on 4 October. "Apolitical students were coming up to us and asking about Palestine and searching for reasons to explain the brutality they were seeing on TV. They wanted to storm the gates and go out on the streets to express their anger; they wanted solutions to the injustice of the continued Israeli occupation of Palestine, and they had had enough of hearing about a peace process that only seemed to result in the death of more Palestinians."

After a Thursday-Friday weekend, students returned to their campus, still seething with anger. Around 6.30pm on Saturday, approximately 6,000 students broke through the main gate of Cairo University heading for the University Bridge near which the Israeli Embassy is located. But security forces were lying in wait and it did not take them long to disperse the demonstrating students.

The confrontation between police and students tapered off afterwards. "Many students were kept at home by their parents, fearing they might be hurt by security forces," explained Fathi. Despite the relative lull, leftist students were allowed on Sunday to lead a 1,000-student procession carrying red flags, with signs of the hammer-and-sickle, on a brief march outside the university gates. On Monday and Tuesday, around 800 students gathered to discuss the formation of committees for support of the Palestinian cause.

At the other end of town, at Ain Shams University, the high point of student demonstrations came on Sunday when approximately 7,000 students, spurred by leftists and Nasserists, gathered at Qasr Al- Zaafaran (the central administration building on the main campus) and marched towards the university's side entrance. Before security forces could take action, the students were on the street and were joined by by-standers as well as students from the faculties of commerce and languages across the street.

According to witnesses, about 12,000 students marched to Abbasiya Square around 4.00pm, chanting pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli slogans. The students occupied the square, which was totally surrounded by security forces until around 8.00pm, when the protesters disbanded quietly.

The following day, 7,000 students staged a smaller demonstration that was confronted by police forces when the protesters attempted to come out of campus grounds. To date, the number of students arrested from both universities is still unclear although they are estimated to be around 25.

Clockwise from above: burning the Israeli flag at Ain Shams; AUC students take a stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people; entertainers and writers denounce Israel and its supporters, thousands demonstrating at Cairo University; ; journalists stage a sit-in; lawyers demonstrating at a frozen Bar Association photos: Amr Gamal, Yussry Aql, Khaled El-Fiqi & Abdel-Hamid Eid

At the American University in Cairo (AUC), students converged on the main university campus on 4 October, pulling down the American flag and attempting to raise the Palestinian flag in its place. "They did not allow us to fly the Palestinian banner and we draped it over the gate. The important thing is that the American flag has not flown over the university since then," explained Eyad, a student activist. "I think that what is happening [Israeli action] is not like any other time. Also, we saw students demonstrating at other Egyptian universities and we could not stand by and do nothing. We know that there are many other people who are just as angry and seething from within, but maybe they do not express their anger because they are afraid."

Students at the AUC are also collecting money donations, which are sent to Palestine through an account at the Central Bank of Egypt, as well as blood donations, which are sent to Palestinian hospitals in Cairo.

Hossam Hamalawi, an AUC student who took part in the demonstrations, was arrested on the street by security forces while on his way to a poetry reading by renowned poet Ahmed Fouad Nigm. "When we came to the university the next day and found out he had been arrested and that no one knew anything about his whereabouts, the students decided to stage a sit-in, demanding his immediate release. After a six-hour sit-in strike, we were informed by the head of security at the AUC that security authorities were angered by our protest and would not release Hamalawi as a result," recounted Eyad. All over campus, signs sprouted, protesting the arrest of Hamalawi.

Thousands of university students were reported to have staged protest demonstrations for three days running starting Saturday in the governorates of Sharqiya and Sohag.

Similar protests were staged by high school students in various parts of the country. On Saturday, hundreds of young boys in the industrial district of Amiriyeh in northern Cairo disrupted traffic on the Cairo-Alexandria highway. On Tuesday, hundreds of high school students demonstrated in Fayoum, south west of Cairo, as did girl students in Maadi and Qasr Al-Nil on the same day.

On Friday, thousands of worshippers converged on Al-Azhar Mosque for Friday noon prayers. They burned Israeli flags and spat at them. A woman standing in the women's car of the underground gave a lecture to fellow commuters on the situation in Palestine and the importance of Egyptian solidarity with it.

Political parties, however, appear to have been shy, if not intimidated by the public reaction. On Sunday, the Nasserist, leftist Tagammu and liberal Wafd parties organised solidarity rallies in which little more than rhetoric seemed on the agenda.

The day started with a press conference by the Nasserist Party in which party leaders reiterated oft-made demands such recalling the Egyptian ambassador to Israel and closing down the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. In the early evening, Tagammu followed suit but speakers were interrupted by young radicals who shouted slogans such as "Arab regimes are cowards; we have had enough of treason and cowardice" and "plant the earth with resistance".

Emotions ran even higher when Tagammu Secretary-General, Rifaat El-Said, tried to silence the young radicals, and fist-fights ensued. Eventually, the younger participants became fed up with the podium and emerged to the street where they were met with the batons of central security forces. The young men and women returned to the building's entrance where they continued to chant their slogans, though no "masses" were in evidence -- only the police cordon.

An hour later at the Wafd Party's headquarters in Doqqi, newly-elected chairman No'man Gomaa was more successful in controlling his rally. As a group of young Wafdists walked in chanting "our souls and blood for Palestine," Gomaa screamed, "I told young people that this would be an opportunity for us to get closer. So shut up. There is no reason to chant slogans." The young men became silent.

The scope of the Wafd rally reflected the liberals' flair for a good show, if little else. Present were people as politically diverse as Ma'moun El-Hodeibi, spokesman for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, who seemed to be nodding off at times, as well as Suheir El-Murshedi, a flamboyant cinema star. On the podium, and after Gomaa affirmed that the time had come to throw Israel into the sea (a somewhat bizarre leap of faith in light of the Wafd's consistent and largely uncritical record of support for the peace process), Supreme Guide Mustafa Mashhour spoke for the Brotherhood, and was introduced by Gomaa as a dear friend, Rifaat El-Said for the Tagammu, who basically repeated the same speech he had given a little while before, Hamed Mahmoud representing the Nasserists and Labour's Ibrahim Shukri, who called for a boycott of American products, singling out cigarettes.

On the ground, however, several Tagammu candidates in this year's parliamentary elections, found their campaign rallies attracting an unprecedented number of participants as the events turned into shows of solidarity with the Palestinians. A 4 October rally organised by Tagammu candidate Abul-Ezz El-Harriri, in the Alexandria district of Karmouz drew thousands, clearly as a result of its declared theme: "Conference to honour the martyrs of Jerusalem and Palestine."

The next day, in the Delta town of Damanhour, candidate Zohdi El-Shami was also able to mobilise thousands of people in an hour-long march that culminated in an Israeli flag burning ceremony in the town's central square. On Friday, Abdel-Aziz Shaaban, who is running in the Cairo working-class district of El-Wayli, had 2000 inhabitants of the district demonstrating against Israel in the streets. "Because of what happened in Palestine it was not possible for me to hold a meeting which did not focus on the issue. People were extremely responsive and women participated in burning the Israeli flag, an action that was repeated twice in three hours," explained Shaaban to the Weekly.

A number of independent candidates organised similar events, though, on occasion, at a price. In Shubra Al-Kheima, another working class district of Greater Cairo, candidate Mohamed Ouf began a solidarity march on Monday with 35 supporters and wound up attracting over a thousand people. "There was a wedding taking place and the ceremony was halted so the men could join, and when we passed coffee shops people would stand up and applaud and chant our slogans," said one participant who preferred to remain anonymous. After the demonstrators disbanded, however, State Security Forces arrested Ouf and a number of other participants who were released a day later.

Entertainers held two demonstrations denouncing Israeli violence, the Journalists Syndicate staged a sit-in and members of the Bar Association demonstrated under heavy guard on Monday. Also human rights organisations such as the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, the Land Centre for Human Rights and the Legal Aid for Human Rights Society released statements in support of, and solidarity with, the Palestinians.

On Tuesday, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, the grand imam of Al-Azhar called on the Islamic world to provide support to the Palestinians, arguing that what was happening in Jerusalem was a direct attack against the Islamic world.

Since its peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Egypt has witnessed several outbursts of anti-Israeli anger, but, according to one analyst, "if the scale of student demonstrations alone is any indication, the level of Egyptian popular anger against Israeli atrocities this time is totally unprecedented."

The Egyptian government, for obvious political considerations, has not responded to the students' and political parties demand to close down the Israeli embassy. The latter, however, has evacuated the families of staff "for security reasons".

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