The View From The Bridge

A year ago, the Presidency of Mursi here in Egypt was toppling and we were being told to pack our bags and leave. The deposition itself came on 3rd July (we left three days later) and so the Parade of Presidents advanced by one; my blip of 8th June refers. We will be airborne and out of here in just half an hour after this is published, leaving, as always, so many millions and millions behind to their unknown fate under President Sisi who marks his de facto first year in charge. Here he is above top left, and I wonder what he sees as he gazes out over his capital city of Cairo, Umm al-Dunya..."The Mother of The World''

Does the view from the street auger well, or otherwise? Well, this week we have seen the trial of 24 young intellectual protesters who were arrested for peaceably demonstrating against the anti-protest law, postponed until September without bail. They are being transferred to prison as we 'look on'; a prison, at least the one for the males, that houses the three Al-Jezeera journalists sentenced recently on spurious charges to between seven and ten years imprisonment. The extra three years for one of them being for having picked up a spent bullet cartridge after a street protest and putting it in his pocket; not exactly an incentive for the civic tidiness which is being so encouraged at the moment.

And if we peer further into that prison we see many more people embarked or embarking on hunger strikes against the injustices they too have been subjected to. Many of their mothers outside the prisons are saying they will join them on strike, too. What else? Well, former President Mursi supporters are being sentenced to long prison terms (some warranted for brutal lynchings, many not so clearly congruent with the crime) or death (never warranted), and his wider supporter base are calling for a further uprising on Thursday. Further, we see the emblematic Tahrir Square being cordoned off again as we try to cross it of an evening, with barbed wire pulled across the entrances backed with machine gun bristling armoured personnel carriers. And let's not be blind to the six policeman who were blown up in both Cairo and the Sinia in the last couple of days, nor the requisitioning by the government of major supermarket chains whose ownership was deemed to be in the wrong, political hands. So far, then, so bad.

On the plus side, the one ace is the energy of the youth who must surely come out to shout again with increased rage, as they slowly come to realise the price they are paying for so-called stability. Real dignity and development have a yet higher price that requires further courage to pay. The 'Club of the Good' have paid it before and may have to again; let's just hope they don't leave it too late and allow those with their fingers on the triggers consolidate their oppression for, let us make no mistake about it, that is what it is.

Until next time.