Al gunud yusafekoun lehamely al kotob (Soldiers Clap For Those Carrying Books) by Fouad Hegazy, Al-Mansoura: Adab Al-Gamaheer Series, 2011. pp.100.
Fouad Hegazy, a publisher, writer and activist, has experienced a great deal during his lifetime. He was taken prisoner during the 1976 war, has been an activist against the regime for many decades, and has had to endure imprisonment multiple times.
Fouad Hegazy lives in Al-Mansoura, capital of Daqahliya Governorate in the Egyptian Delta, and established the series Adab Al-Gamaheer (Popular Literature) in 1968, publishing novels, stories andpoetry. The series continued for many decades, completely independently, published through the efforts of a few donors.
His recent book, Soldiers Clap For Those Carrying Books, recounts the revolution in Al-Mansoura city, including the personal experience of the author during the days immediately before Mubarak was ousted.
In Al-Mansoura specifically, the revolution started on noon of January 25, when no more than 50 people gathered at a station for microbuses, in response to the call on the Facebook page called “We are all Khaled Said”. As soon as this small group started marching, the numbers increased, reaching the thousands. Nonetheless, the police were able to disperse them before sunset using force and tear gas.
The Facebook page played an important role in calling for the demonstrations on January 25, and in fact one of the citizens of Al-Mansoura, Abdel-Rehim Mansour, was among the small group who started the call, but he was drafted to the army just one week before the revolution.
The following two days were fairly quiet, and the police were keen to disperse any small crowds which appeared. But on Friday, September 28, new mass demonstrations broke out in various locations, and this time hundreds of thousands joined soon after the Friday prayer. By the end of the day, the demonstrators had set fire to the offices of the National Democratic Party (NDP), and the fire almost spread to the nearby city library. The young people rushed in and carried whatever books they could from the shelves to an unfinished building across the street, and tried hard to convince the fire services to move to the other side of the building to control the fire, but the police officer in charge refused, stating that he had received no such orders. The young people then rushed, with the help of the soldiers, to carry the books to the Mubarak Library 100 metres away.
Hegazy notes many fine details in the style of a true storyteller: the tracks of the large demonstrations, the battles with the Central Security Forces, the tear gas, and some protesters falling due to bullets. He shares experiences such as this one:
I walked in the street until I reached another motorway leading to the city of Mahalla El-Kobra. I crossed it, crossed the railway tracks, as if crossing to hell. A sudden burning in my eyes and tears falling uncontrollably. I don’t know why I behaved as if someone was peeling an onion in front of me: I didn’t rub my eyes and tried not to close them, and removed my glasses every now and then while continuing to walk. I met some young people coming from the side of Talkha Bridge who advised me not to cross it; the demonstrators were throwing stones at the police station, and those inside the station are firing back.
The stories of Hegazy are just a snapshot from the wide picture of what was taking place throughout Egypt: the slogans were the same, the enemy was the same, the demands were the same, and the violent encounters that killed demonstrators were also the same.
Hegazy also expresses the surprise about the sudden outbreak of demonstrations to this unprecedented extent, despite the injustice of decades, and the unemployment, the bribery, the corruption. Hegazy recalls, “The answer came from some of them: it’s the insult! We felt insulted and had to retaliate … and maybe it’s really the insult that brought about this heated reaction and broke the fire of revolution, not from the slums.”
Although the author stops on the nineteenth day of the revolution, right after Mubarak stepped down, he expresses fear ahead of the huge tasks laid out for the revolution and the demands it needs to fulfil. At this point in time, as the revolution seems in danger of going astray, reflecting on the hope and possibilities of those first days is more important than ever.
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