Cairo Revolution Anniversary

It’s raining today in Cairo on the fifth anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. A damp, flat atmosphere hangs over the city in comparison with the high-voltage energy that charged through its streets and squares five years ago as millions of Egyptians defied a corrupt, oppressive regime until it fell in the greatest short circuit of power Egypt has ever known.

Where has that energy and, along with it, the hopes for bread, liberty and democracy gone? It’s all been pushed off the streets through a series of restrictive association laws or dragged into police stations and prisons on trumped up charges or, worse, no charges whatsoever. People have had electrodes attached to their bodies and broom handles inserted into them, irrespective of sex or age. Not a week has gone past without a body being carted out of a police station having become deceased by reason of ‘respiratory failure’.

So-called stability - ignoring the guerrilla war in Sinai, the bombing of airliners, the massacre of tourists at the Red Sea - is given preference over freedom of expression and the older generation blames the active, impatient, globally-connected younger one for messing things up. No-one in authority is championing the aims of the revolution or celebrating its martyrs. To have participated on the streets during those eighteen days is seen at best to have been misguided or, at worst, a crime.

This morning a young American in Giza, just around our block, was arrested for mentioning the word 'revolution' in a cafe having been reported by a ‘model’ citizen. He's been charged with inciting an uprising against the government while he claims to have been practising his Arabic. A photo-journalist has been in prison on remand for over 800 days, nearly all of it without charge. Other bloggers and liberals are serving five year sentences for protesting too much. Journalists are intimidated and arrested. Newspaper editorial lines are trimmed, often needing a degree in reading between the lines to interpret them.

All the while petro-dollars are still invested by Arab neighbours and large companies from Asia line up to invest in infrastructure and manufacturing while several western governments, like France, sell-in warships and planes. Nespresso has opened a shop in an upmarket area that would look like a broken down hovel to most of you reading this. Its plate-glass windows and sleek interior fittings look quite out of place. All around the city new residential luxury compounds are being built for the tiny elite who can afford it.

The president will point to the opening of the Suez Canal expansion project and the re-establishment of a parliament as signs of progress. The latter ticks a box on the roadmap he set out when he overthrew his predecessor but its composition - largely independent wealthy men who support himself or the imprisoned Mubarak - the tiny voting turnout in the elections for it and the allegations of bribery directed at those who did find their way to the polling stations make it a less than robust mark on the paper.

How long will it be before Tahrir Square is called into use again as the fulcrum of national debate? Your guess is as good as mine but the events which kicked-off five years ago today set a precedent that only the foolhardy would ignore.