2 - 8 May 2002
Issue No.584
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 2 - 8 May 2002 Issue No.584 |
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The many faces of solidarity
Egyptians have devised many ways to express their support of the Palestinian people. Fatemah Farag investigates
"People think that the only way we can show our support of the Palestinian people is to take to the streets. But what if that is very difficult for us to do?" Amr Mohamed asked rhetorically as he was pinning a photocopy of a boycott list of US/Israeli consumer products to the entrance of his apartment building in the upper-middle class neighbourhood of Heliopolis. "Then we must find other ways to show what is in our hearts and minds," he said as he pushed the drawing pin in hard. I later saw a similar list posted in the elevator of the apartment building where I live.
Students in solidarity action;The AUC caravans parked on Mohamed Mahmoud Street before heading off to Rafah
photos: AP & Sherif Sonbol
Demonstrations have been a highly visible hallmark of solidarity action since Israel's invasion of the Palestinian territories; students, in particular, have regularly been taking to their campuses and to streets across the country, in angry protests that often exposed them to fierce police clamp- downs. These have hitherto resulted in one death and dozens of injuries, many serious. But while such spontaneous action continues to rage and ebb without clear leadership to direct its course, other forms of solidarity action has taken hold of popular consciousness.
Only the other day, my hitherto totally apolitical brother walked in with a huge Palestinian flag, demanding that I hang it from my balcony. In the latest hit by pop singer Mohamed Fouad, he asks God to make him a martyr for Al-Aqsa. The video- clip, in contrast to the usual lithe and pouting young women swaying to and fro, depicts Israeli brutality against a black background; Fouad is almost in tears. A long- banned song by the late singer Abdel- Halim Hafez (in the lyrics of which, the crucifixion of Christ is used as a metaphor of Palestinian suffering), is now played regularly, also to a video background of brutality. The track ends with the voice of Arafat calling, "We are all martyrs of Palestine."
State television, it seems, has taken the mood of the street seriously, airing feisty talk shows criticising the US, Israel and even the peace process. TV advertisements are exhorting Egyptians that it "is not enough to sympathise with the Palestinian people," as bank account numbers of Palestinian aid charities flash across the screen. A friend, whose eight-year-old daughter goes to an expensive private school in Heliopolis, came back from the school's annual show last week exclaiming that the predominant theme had been Palestine. Everyday, one's e-mail is filled with forwarded petitions and articles, photos and cartoons giving news or asking for help.
And the novelty has worn off. Solidarity action with the Palestinians has driven roots throughout Egypt; it's become a part of every day life.
Get into a cab and the driver will talk politics and not the traffic; walk into a cafeteria and your friends are bound to make a fuss if the waiter only has Coke on offer. "What! You serve products that are on the boycott list!" is the usual rebuke. The fact that there is no verifiable data available on the efficacy of the boycott action has not deterred 'somebody out there' from sending the SMS messages that have been appearing regularly on many a mobile phone screen. Urging the receivers to carry on with the boycott action, the messages claim substantial drops in the sales of American brand-names on the boycott list.
It is a mood that both inspires, and is inspired by, more organised action such as the sit-in and hunger strike currently taking place at the Bar Association's Cairo headquarters. Taking part in the sit-in and hunger strike are some of the country's most prominent literari and artistic figures, including novelists Ibrahim Mansour, Ibrahim Aslan and Gamal El-Ghitani; cinema directors, Tawfik Saleh, Ali Badrakhan and Dawoud Abdel-Sayed, and a dozen others.
One of the younger members of the strike group, 21-year-old Mohamed Sayed, was hospitalised on Tuesday after spending over 50 hours without food. Doctor Mona Mina, who followed his case, revealed that Sayed "has refused to end his hunger- strike. He knows he could die if he goes on, [but] he insists on doing all he can [for the Palestinians]."
In a statement issued by the strikers, they declared that the hunger strike and sit-in "will go on until the Zionist Ambassador is expelled from Cairo." The statement calls upon "honourable and active forces" in Egypt to "embrace this initiative; generalise and expand our solidarity with the fighting Palestinian people."
Then, there are the donation campaigns: the Egyptian Red Crescent, the Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Intifada (PCSI), the students of the American University in Cairo (AUC), professional syndicates and NGOs -- all are collecting clothes, food supplies and medicine to send to the Palestinians.
And then again, there are the convoys of humanitarian supplies being sent to the Egyptian/Palestinian border town of Rafah (see related article). The first of these, which was organised in late November 2000 by the PCSI, carried 90 tons of assistance to the Palestinian people across the border. Since then, "popular convoys" have regularly trekked across the desert from Cairo to Rafah, carrying much needed assistance to the Palestinians, though their final crossing into Gaza is invariably fraught with great obstacles put up by the Israeli authorities.
Going down the American University in Cairo's Mohamed Mahmoud St. last week, my cab driver and I looked on as an AUC solidarity caravan was being loaded up. Young people, the now ubiquitous black and white Palestinian Kuffiyahs wrapped around their necks, were lifting boxes of foodstuffs and medicines onto trucks; draping them with Palestinian flags. "God bless them," my driver exclaimed, "We always thought that the students at this university were khawaga. But what they are doing is wonderful. They have proved they are true Egyptians, because today, no Egyptian can desire anything greater than to be able to help the Palestinians free themselves of the murderers who occupy their country."
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