Taking to the street

Simple participation in Egyptian public life remains subject to undeclared prohibition. Ghada Shahbender* describes the challenges faced by those who refuse silence

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It has been almost two years since I unexpectedly became more involved in "public life". I had not taken a premeditated decision to do so, nor did I expect to be involved for so long. I reacted spontaneously to the events that took place on 25 May 2005, or what's now labelled "Black Wednesday".

On that day, I was submitting my final research paper for my Masters degree at the American University in Cairo. I was not going to cast a vote on the suggested amendment of Article 76 of the constitution, nor was I going to participate in demonstrations objecting to the referendum. I was simply going on with my daily life like the majority of Egyptians who had lost faith in the political system.

Standing outside my professor's office, I received a text message from a friend who was covering the events of the day as a reporter for an international news agency. She described an all-too-familiar scene of riot police cracking down on demonstrators and chasing them from the Saad Zaghloul mausoleum to the staircase of the Press Syndicate, Cairo's unofficial demonstration venue. How upset my normally composed and professional friend sounded when I called her back later astounded me. She described the now infamous scene of hired thugs attacking and sexually harassing female demonstrators with the explicit permission of the police.

Later in the day, when I watched television footage and saw photographs of the incident I understood why my friend was so angry. I was enraged by what I could only see as a flagrant and brutal attack on our beliefs, norms and values. I was further infuriated by the lack of response from our government and the National Democratic Party. No one was going to be held accountable and we, the people, appeared to find that perfectly acceptable.

One week later, for the first time in my life, I was standing at a demonstration on the Press Syndicate staircase, the venue of the violent events of Black Wednesday. By 1 June, I was one of 10 people who had decided that we could no longer stand on the sidelines and allow such happenings to go unchecked. We worked on defining our vision and mission and founded Shayfeencom, a popular monitoring movement that would allow for the participation of Egyptians in public life and empower them with monitoring wrongdoing. The 10 founding members all came from professional backgrounds. There were more women than men, and when we agreed on role distribution, women were chosen to speak on behalf of the movement.

Since then, Shayfeencom has monitored presidential and parliamentary elections, rallied support for the independence of the judiciary, campaigned for freedom of the press and launched an anti-corruption campaign. Its founding members were challenged in many ways. We were all newcomers to the arena of political activism and had to work hard to gain credibility, gather and research information, train as monitors, convince people to join the movement and maintain contact with those who did join.

More importantly, the founding members were challenged by the Egyptian political system and legislation governing civil society. The media, politicians and activists were all suspicious of our intentions. Most important of all, State Security did not welcome our existence. We were questioned, labelled and harassed for a variety of reasons, some of which were contradictory and most of which were unjustified -- at least by any activity we had undertaken or declaration we had made about our identity and intentions.

We were assigned to the officer in charge of "socialist movements" at State Security and were named the feminine (not feminist) velvet movement by the state- owned press. We were simultaneously accused of being an offshoot of the National Democratic Party, champions of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Western agents. We were considered inadequate and were held to account for not intervening in the Bird Flu crisis!

We became subject to State Security's unlimited scrutiny and inquiry into all of our activities; some of us were intimidated while others were fed misinformation about their colleagues. Professionally, we were ostracised by the business community and the governmental and non- governmental institutions we had associated with for years because no one wants to do business with the "opposition" (another label attached to our movement).

While I had intended this article to be about female participation in public life in Egypt, the truth is that participation is a challenge for both men and women. The socio- political environment, legislation, practices, and most importantly the political will of the government, are not conducive to participation.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, of the 10 founding members of Shayfeencom only three women remain active today.

* The writer is founder and spokesperson for Shayfeencom.