Details: Today

I woke up around 10 am, really depressed and not wanting to think about the day ahead. I had a couple of things to do, my goals for the day so to speak : 1) try to salvage the day and get the permit; 2) tell everyone what happened in case I can’t salvage anything; 3) ensure that the whole thing doesn’t turn out to be a fiasco. Somehow I couldn’t decide which one was harder. Anyway, until noon I was working on accomplishing goal #1: getting the permit. I was trying to reach someone that has more influence on this national security guy, but his phone wasn't ringing. So around 11 I figured I should start the damage control campaign and send out text messages informing people that the event was cancelled. I e-mailed people that showed their interest in coming and posted my message that the whole thing was over. I then had to call the other people helping me organize and plan this and inform them that the whole thing got cancelled. That part sucked. How can you explain to people the logic behind the illogical? Forget that, how can you put them in the same situation you were put in? After all the work they had to do to lobby for this thing to work, they had to call all of those people and convince them not to go, because the vigil was canceled, just like that. And the worst part is: you will no longer have any credibility with those people. You won’t be able to get them to come the next time. No one will believe you. Or they will just think you will just cancel on them in the last minute. No one will take you seriously the next time. So, even if we wanted to do another one like this, we can't. No one would come. ( I sometimes wonder if that was the goal for their revoke permit this late in the game: to ensure we wouldn’t attempt to do anything like this again. This time it was against terrorism, the next time it maybe against the government.) Anyway… So, after bumming everyone out, I call A. and see what he is up to. He is acting as if nothing changed. Like we still have the permit: "You are still coming, right?". When I wince he assures me that he knows what will happen with the security people : nothing. As long as there are foreigners and press, there is nothing that they can do, he assures me. Yet still I am not convinced. Part of the initial agreement I made with Karim is not to do this unless it's 100% legal and safe, and this promised to be neither. Not to mention, if it gets ugly, it will harm Egypt's reputation. I inform him that that would be unacceptable to me :"I don’t want to sell you out, but I don’t wanna hurt Egypt's image as well", I told him. He claimed he understood, but he was going to do it anyway. "Only people who are willing to gamble end up winning", he told me. I told him that I agreed, but I am not going to gamble with this country's reputation, betting on a bunch of foreigners showing up when they may not do so. Not to mention, I was told specifically not to go. I am not going to disobey the orders of the national security people. I don't like my phone tabbed, thank you very much. But before we hang up on each other and part ways, I ask him to of me a favor " If you are going to do this anyway and succeed, I promised someone I would light a candle for this American girl named Katrina. Can you light one for her?" He said he would, and I believed him. So he goes his way, and it’s around 4:30 when I find out that Karim is sending his friend Aly to ensure that our people, if they show up, would leave and know that the thing was cancelled. To ensure that the "Pray for peace" name is not used. I remember that my name is on the requests for permits, so I call the higher-up guy and he is nowhere. So I call his underling and declare that I have nothing to do with the vigil that's about to take place. I am not going, and A. is completely acting by himself. "Whatever he does" I tell him, "is not sanctioned by me or my mother", because he knew who she was and felt that he could use her name to get his way or get this thing to happen. I can’t be there, so I can’t be held responsible for the people there. The guy understood, and said it was fine. I take the chance to ask him " so, how were those riots you guys expected today?" to which he replies " oh, the demonstrators decided to reschedule their demonstrations until tomorrow. Not a single riot happened today. That whole Azhar area has been entirely peaceful today". WTF? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR So, all of this, all of the canceling and the " we have to ensure everything is safe" and "we are revoking your permit for security reasons" crap was bullshit? You have got to be kidding me. I was fuming, and all that I could think of is one thing : I want to go! I just want to see it. I want to see if A. will be able to pull it off. So I call GM. "Hey GM, how are you doing" "What do you think? Feeling like shit and depressed." "What do you say we take a cab to the vigil site and see how it's like?" " Ehh, not a good idea? You were told specifically not to go!" " Yeah, but that A. dude is going and he is going to do that vigil without a permit or anything. I wanna see it. We wouldn’t be participating. We are bloggers, we will just observe and blog. It's our duty!" "I don’t know. Maybe" "Come on man. It will be fun. It will be like an adventure. Plus, are you telling me you don’t want to see what it's going to be like?" "Fine, fine. I am coming. I swear to god that one day you are gonna get me in some seriously deep shit." "I love you too man. Come on. Under my house in 20 minutes." "Fine!" So now I am feeling all giddy again, and I go down to the atm machine to get some cash, to have the damn machine- I shit you not- eat my card. The reason? The machine says the card is expired, which is bullshit, because it's valid for another 2 years. Today just sucks. (God is telling you not to go, I think) So I head upstairs, meet my aunt, borrow some cash and head down and meet GM. We get in a cab and we start formulating strategies on how to handle the situation. It basically came down to this: If the situation seems too policed, we will just ask the driver to take us back. No harm, no foul. We arrive there and we are faced with this scene: 4 huge riot police trucks, with at least 50 riot police deployed in full gear, 30 regular police soldiers, 20 police officers and 10 suits, and one of them was the Higher-up guy who rejected our permit. It was a freaking army and that's just the outside people: who knew how many were inside! They were stopping cars it seems, and interrogating their inhabitants and the Higher-up guy was looking at our direction. I started shouting at the cab driver "keep going, take us back, step on the gas. Move it" and we escaped the area. ( I am such a coward) So we arrive back at my place and we decide to go somewhere and chill and relax, when my phone rings and its my mother, complaining how the national security people were upset at her because this A. guy came over with foreigners and press and wouldn’t leave unless he has his vigil and he is claiming it's our responsibility to get rid of him. Lots of talk and backtalk ensues, and in the end we agree with A. to end the vigil around 8 and then leave. We inform the security people the same thing and that we have nothing to do with this and we hang up on them. My Mother wasn't amused at all, especially that A. apparently was on the national security lists and has prior incidents of "troublemaking" and that by affiliating with him they will put me under suspicion and surveillance. Great. So me and GM just go somewhere and get something to eat and drink, with a giant watch in front of us showing us the minutes as they go by and the time gets closer to 8. We discuss how the whole thing was happening without us and how we both chickend out when the moment of truth came. Dealing with the Egyptian authorities is not fun, and we didn’t even deal with them really, not like the other people who get jailed and tortured by them. I tell him how they must have his phone tabbed and are monitoring his internet activity since I call him and he calls me, and he informs me that from now on no more writing about Egypt: "I will get back to writing about Iraq. What made me ever stop writing about Iraq?" he joked. But half what's said in jest… So anyway, time goes by, we get a phone call that the vigil ended and that 30 people were present and that all the cameras got confiscated, probably out of embarrassment. I can’t seem to decide whether I feel admiration for A. for doing this, anger for using my name, or jealousy for actually accomplishing what I set out to accomplish. Hmmm… But then I remember that we started this thing, even if we didn’t finish it. Without us there wouldn’t be a vigil today. We made the calls, we got the place, we got the ball rolling. In some sense, the fact that it wasn't us out there today, but rather 30 complete strangers that got together to protest terrorism ,because of something we started and planned, is more of a success then if we were involved. We are not alone. We are not an anomaly. Others exist, and they are willing to make that point regardless of police intimidation or fear of retribution. I take some solace in that. I mean, at the end of the day, It doesn’t matter who did it, what matters is that it happened. Right? Yeah. Thought so too! Sigh...