Reaching Across the Divide

The frustration that drove the anti-government demonstrators to the streets and the violent resistance they encountered united the people in ways that melted the normally rigid class barriers.

It is rare to see people from different socioeconomic classes mingle at all, much less as equals. The divide is as much physical as it is financial, with the elite or A-class society residing in gated communities on one side of the spectrum and those living below the poverty line in slums and shanty towns on the other. Their lifestyles, their clothes and even their accents are different.

 Yet on January 25, rich and poor took to the streets of Egypt together demanding social justice and equality. It didn’t matter who wore designer clothes and who wore torn socks, they all stood in solidarity, united over a primary demand: the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak and his oppressive regime.

Twenty-eight-year-old El Alfy is the editorial director at Core Publications, which publishes magazines targeting the nation’s elite youth. Personally, he says, he detested the regime for imposing “unnecessary” censorship on the publications he worked on. The lack of freedom of expression frustrated him, in addition to the condescending way policemen treated citizens, something he says he has experienced firsthand.

Despite financial stability, El Alfy says he has always felt for those in need. He went out on January 25 and almost every day after. And in the protests, like fellow Egyptians, he stood alongside the less fortunate and shared tents with them at night.

“All the myths of economic differences appeared to be nothing,” says El Alfy. “At the end of the day, we all ate fuul and tameya, we all used the same public bathroom and we all smelled bad after sleeping there all those days. When you experience the same things, you become one, you understand each other.”

Aly Sabry is among those who are struggling. Starting at the bottom in a small production company, he gradually got promoted and, step by step, is getting to where he wanted to be. Still, he continues to strive for a better life.

It is the corruption that Sabry feels has hurt people the most. Connections and bribes, he says, have become at times the only way to get essential government papers processed, avoid punishment or get a job. It was the only way to survive in this system.

Sabry recounts a personal story: He had a small quarrel with a well-connected neighbor living in a villa next to his building. Afterward, he says, he was unjustly detained for two days without reason, which the officer justified as lawful under the Emergency Law. Sabry says he was treated in a demeaning, offensive manner, and he was verbally abused. Sabry felt defenseless and hurt — he had no rights, it seemed.

“By what rights can they implement the Emergency Law on regular citizens, who are not terrorists or [pose] a threat to the country?” says Sabry. “They broke into my house and took me [as if it were normal to do so.] Everything in the old regime was solved through connections. It’s unfair.”

But it wasn’t solely personal injustices that drove Sabry to the streets to protest on January 25; he was motivated by a sense of patriotism, one not dampened by tear gas or the rubber bullet he took in his leg.

“I went due to the amount of corruption we’ve reached,” he explains. “Our image in front of the world was ruined, our relations with Arab countries are deteriorating. Our dignity was long taken.”

Sabry brushed shoulders with all of society in Tahrir Square. “I saw all kinds of people, talking and chanting together,” he recalls. “I dealt with everyone and didn’t feel any kind of discrimination.The purpose we were there for was enough for us to dismiss the social divide.”

El Hussein Ali Taha is mired even deeper in economic troubles. His first job offered only LE 150 a month, but he had to give that up when he was conscripted. Since completing his military service, he has tried desperately to find a new job “without connections,” but his search has been in vain.

Taha says he was lucky he was able to build an apartment over the house his father had left him, meaning he had a place, however modest, to get married in. Many of his friends do not even have that, as they wrestle with inflation and a lack of resources.

Like El Alfy and Sabry, Taha didn’t hesitate to join the protests on January 25, and he was in Tahrir almost daily. “I don’t want my kids to live the same life I lived or feel the same things I felt,” he says.

Taha admits that his struggles to find employment, impeded by his humble background and lack of connections, has left him feeling insecure. Yet the compassion he saw in Tahrir between people from all backgrounds fascinated him.

 “All in all, we are a kind nation, I’ve always known that, even the differences we foolishly created sometimes vanished in Tahrir,” Taha says passionately. “You wouldn’t imagine how united everyone was, no matter who they were, and how polite people were treating each other. Even the rich went down to the streets to clean up after the fall of the regime.”

A sociology professor at the American University in Cairo, who has requested anonymity since statements by foreigners remain a touchy issue with local security officials in the current political climate, says that the lack of economic reforms became an equalizer that helped unite classes during the revolution.

“The same forces that suppress wages for the lowest paid workers also prevent educated young people from chances of getting decent employment in Egypt,” he explains. “Mubarak’s biggest mistake was not opening the economy up and paying better wages at every level.”

The professor, who also went to the protests, says that it moved him to see people of different economic backgrounds uniting together. He notes that even some of the elite’s sons and daughters, many of whom pass through his classroom, went discreetly to protests to support the people. But the professor says he has been most struck by the change in those far less privileged than his students. “The low-paid construction workers and street sweepers look at me with more dignity in their eyes,” he says. “Like a new hope exists within them.”