The Republic of False Truths

by Alaa Al Aswany

  Imagine—because the priests had convinced them that there was no call for autopsies as those would mean the dismemberment of their dear ones, while a speedy burial would allow “Our Lord the Pope” to pray over them before he returned to the seclusion of his cell! Can religion influence a person so much that he waives his rights? I don’t blame the families. They are simple and poor. I ask myself, why does death reap only the poor in Egypt? After we’d convinced the families and the priests of the necessity and importance of autopsies, the public prosecutor’s office asked us for a written undertaking that we would be responsible for protecting the forensic doctors who would carry out the dissection of the bodies. Another attempt by the prosecutor to terrorise the families and prevent the autopsies. Imagine—in a country with a police force and an army, unarmed citizens are asked to protect the doctors who will dissect the bodies of their children, who were killed by the army! Mr. Ashraf went into the prosecutor’s office and said, “My name is Ashraf Wissa. I am a Copt and the oldest of those present, and I undertake to protect the forensic doctors.”

  Tragedy turned into absurdity. Instead of ordering that they be guarded, the public prosecutor placed responsibility for protection of the doctors on the shoulders of Ashraf Wissa. Mr. Ashraf signed the undertaking and we all signed after him. In the end the reports came out and we stayed with the families until the prayers for the martyrs had been performed in the church. I shall never forget these sorrows, Mazen. I shall never forget the cries of the mothers and the wives. I shall never forget the bodies piled on the biers. We left the church and I went home. I have three hours left before the meeting. I won’t be able to sleep, of course. I shall take a shower and drink a coffee and go to the meeting. I had to talk to you. I love you, Mazen, just as I love our revolution, which will be victorious.

  Asmaa

  54

  The moment Madany yelled, “Your Honour, I want to say something,” the courtroom erupted in turmoil. The guards rushed forward and surrounded Madany, who had surrendered totally to the fit that had come over him and continued yelling, face glowering, eyes shining, and kept waving his arms at the judge. The latter, looking alarmed, said in a loud voice, “Who’s that?”

  “Your Honour,” said Madany, “I am the father of Khaled, the student who was killed.”

  An expression of relief appeared on the judge’s face, and he said, “Very well. Approach.”

  Madany strode towards the dais and the judge, clearly sympathetic, asked, “What’s your name, Hagg?”

  “Madany Said Abd El Wares.”

  “Do you have an ID card?”

  It took Madany a few minutes to get the card out of his pocket and present it to the judge, who asked him again, in the same sympathetic voice, “What is it you want, Hagg Madany?”

  “I want to tell Your Honour a couple of things.”

  “Please go ahead.”

  The officer’s lawyer fidgeted and tried to object, but the judge raised his hand and said in a determined voice, “Kindly allow him to speak, Counselor.”

  Madany’s face showed a degree of calm and he cleared his throat, giving the impression that he was sorting out in his mind what he was going to say. Now, he was before the dais, even if he was still surrounded by guards who were prepared to seize him at any moment, and his young lawyers who were worried that the judge would become angry if he went too far. The assistant judges looked at him in a friendly fashion, as though affected by the sympathy of the president, who leant forward and rested his chin on his hands to listen to Madany. Madany said, “I raised my son Khaled well. I’m a simple man and I work as a driver. In other words, I toiled so that Khaled could receive an education and enter the faculty of medicine and then Officer Heisam killed him and all the witnesses have confirmed to Your Honour that he killed him. I want Our Lord’s justice.”

  In compassionate tones the judge replied, “You will get your rights, Hagg. We’re here to see justice done. The court is adjourned.”

  The judges rose and left, and Khaled’s lawyers and colleagues surrounded Uncle Madany, who didn’t seem to have taken in what had happened. Once they had left the courtroom for the lobby, the lawyers tried to explain to Madany: “The judge adjourned the session because if he’d uttered any word indicating sympathy for you, the officer’s lawyer would have had the right to have the court revoked.”

  “What do you mean, ‘revoked’?”

  “It means that he could request that what he said be set aside and that they bring another judge.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the law says that if the judge expresses his opinion on the case before the sentencing, he has to step aside.”

  Uncle Madany didn’t appear to understand. He’d throw out questions and not listen to the answers. He seemed nervous and kept looking at the people with him and then at the passers-by in the street, after which he’d light a cigarette and repeat his question: “Why did the judge go away?”

  The lawyers shook his hand and left, and Danya insisted, as usual, on taking him home in her car. On reaching the house, she noticed that he was still nervous and wasn’t responding to her questions, so she said to Hind, “Your father needs to rest.”

  Danya left, and it occurred to her on the way home that the driver must certainly be reporting all her movements to her father, though it also occurred to her that she’d told her father of her visits to Khaled’s family and that no one could stop her from making them. She returned to the house, greeted her mother, and went to her room, where she took a shower and switched off the lights. She was exhausted and yearned to sleep a little, but the moment she closed her eyes, the telephone rang, and Hind’s voice came to her over the line, weeping, as she said, “Danya. Father’s very sick. He keeps talking to himself and walking around the flat. Please help me.”

  55

  It was a big meeting. Representatives of the Enough! movement, April 6, the National Association, the Revolutionary Socialists, and some independent personalities who had committed themselves to the revolution attended. There were about twenty of them, and Ikram had to bring two extra chairs from the flat on the fourth floor. She had made tea and coffee for everyone and sat down next to the members of the meeting in silence, as was her custom, ready to see to anything they might ask for. Dr. Abd El Samad began by saying, “I’m happy that you’re here, in keeping with your unwavering commitment to your responsibilities. When we began this revolution, we were under no illusion that the battle would be easy. We knew that the road would be full of sacrifices. The old regime didn’t surrender, it sacrificed Mubarak so that it could itself survive. Our battle now, quite clearly, is with the Military Council and its allies, the Muslim Brotherhood. The counter-revolution’s plan was obvious—the withdrawal of the police followed by a security breakdown, the opening of the prisons and the release of the criminals to terrify the Egyptians and, at the same time, the defamation of the revolution via a gigantic media machine. Every day, the television broadcasts phone calls, videos, and forged reports accusing us of treason and of being agents of Western intelligence services. Naturally, we have submitted complaints to the public prosecutor accusing them of defamation and slander and we have requested that the telephone calls and videos be examined, to prove that they are fakes, but every one of these complaints has been set aside. Once the ground had been prepared, it was time for the massacres. The Maspero massacre targeted Copts who supported the revolution. Having them run over by armoured personnel carriers in front of the cameras was intended to terrify the Copts collectively, so that the revolutionary spirit wouldn’t spread to them. In my estimation, these massacres will continue. The Military Council will target every sector that took part in the revolution, one after another.”

  A young man from the Revolutionary Socialists shouted, “Listen, Doctor, we know all that already. We’re here to find out what to do.”

  The doctor looked displeased, but h
e kept his temper and told the young man, “Even if you do know it all, please hear me out. I’m getting to an idea that I want to present to you.”

  The young man apologised and fell silent, and Dr. Abd El Samad continued, “We need media for the revolution. We cannot abandon the masses to the lies of the counter-revolutionary media. Of course, we don’t have the same money as Shanawany and the big thieves who have inaugurated TV channels to defame the revolution, but we do possess the truth and the capacity to think rationally. My idea is simple: can you make a video that collects all the crimes of the Military Council, starting with the arrests of 9 March and continuing with the virginity tests and Maspero? Then we can publish such a video through a large social media campaign.”

  A young man from April 6 said, “Technically speaking, we could make the video because all these crimes were filmed. But why should we show it only on social media? We want to reach the ordinary people on the street.”

  Dr. Abd El Samad smiled and asked, “How, in your opinion, should we reach those people?”

  The young man said, “We should organise a campaign on the street to show the Military Council’s crimes to everyone. We should go from place to place, from street to street, all over Egypt.”

  Murmurs spread, and a young woman said, “Do you really think the Military Council will let you mount a campaign against it?”

  “Since when did we need the permission of the Military Council?” a young man responded immediately, and another said, “If we’d waited for permission, we wouldn’t have started the revolution.”

  Dr. Abd El Samad said, “If we mount a campaign, it must have strong security.”

  A young man said, “We at April 6 can, God willing, guarantee security and perhaps we can ask the ultras for help. After all, they have plenty of experience of standing up to the security forces.”

  Dr. Abd El Samad said, “Great! So the idea’s on the table—recording the Military Council’s crimes on videos and showing them anywhere we can. Does anyone want to say anything more about the idea?”

  No one responded, so Dr. Abd El Samad went on, “So let’s put it to a vote. Those in agreement with the idea raise their hands, please.”

  The proposal won by a large majority, only three of those present objecting.

  Dr. Abd El Samad, who had voted for the idea, smiled and said calmly, “Now, to the details. What do you need to implement the idea?”

  A young man said, “We need to buy lots of stuff. We have to buy tent material to make marquees, and chairs for the audience. We need to hire a small truck. What we need most is large screens, and at least three good-quality laptops.”

  Ashraf Wissa now spoke for the first time. “Please write down on a piece of paper everything you need,” he said, “give me an estimate of the cost, and I’ll pay for it all immediately. We don’t want to waste time.”

  56

  My beautiful Asmaa,

  It is our fate to wage battle against a vast criminal regime that owns the media, the army, and the police, while all we possess are our dedication, our dreams, and our readiness to make sacrifices for the revolution. I sometimes watch television and I’m appalled at the terrible deceptions it practises on the People. Every day, new lies are invented to persuade everyone that the revolution is a conspiracy. Were you aware that the private channels that have been opened by businessmen are losing millions? Why would a businessman open a television channel that he knows will lose money? To abort the revolution, because if it reaches power, he will lose all his wealth and probably be tried for his crimes and thrown into gaol! The old regime is fighting its last fight. Our problems at the factory remain unchanged. Attacks on the trucks carrying cement continue, following the same pattern: the truck leaves, loaded with tons of cement, then masked thugs hold it up, open fire, and force the driver and his mate down; the thugs then drive the truck and its load off to some unknown place. We have made numerous complaints to the police but unfortunately the police officer who showed such enthusiasm at first has done nothing. I met with the commander of the police station and apprised him of the magnitude of these attacks and asked him to guarantee the safety of the factory. I was surprised to hear him say, “Didn’t you mount a revolution, bring down the president and set fire to the police stations? Guard the factory yourselves!”

  I told him, “First, we regard it as an honour to have mounted the revolution. Second, we didn’t burn down the police stations, and you know who did, and who opened the prisons and released the criminals to terrify people. Third, I am a member of the factory’s management committee and I’m telling you that thugs are hijacking the cement trucks. If the police can’t provide security for the factory, then what is their job?”

  I shall never forget the look of hatred, and the vengeful smile, on his face as he said, “We shall just have to hope for the best. We shall make our enquiries and when we get somewhere, we’ll let you know.”

  I left the police station certain, of course, that the police would do nothing to protect us. I went to the military police and they asked me for a detailed written complaint, which I wrote and submitted formally to the colonel, who promised me that everything would be okay. But the attacks continued and increased, to the point that yesterday three trucks and their loads were hijacked. At the factory, we have a few badly trained security guards and about ten old registered pistols. We thought of having an armed security person go with each truck but then it occurred to us that so far the thugs had made do with chasing away the driver and his mate and taking possession of the vehicle. According to witnesses, these thugs are armed with automatic rifles. If a security person fired even one shot from his ancient pistol, they’d return fire and kill everybody. So we dropped the idea. We have a real problem. The factory loses the price of every load that is hijacked, plus the cost of the vehicle. Even worse, a state of tension has begun to grip the drivers and mates as they leave with each load, and of course, if these attacks continue, the merchants with whom we deal will stop trading with the factory and buy cement from other factories. We’re going to hold a meeting today with the department and division heads—we have to find a solution, and fast. Sorry, Asmaa, for spending the whole email talking about the factory. You’re the person closest to me so I have to tell you.

  I love you.

  Mazen

  57

  As soon as Nourhan took over as director of programming, she revealed her amazing administrative capabilities. It’s not easy to control twenty-five presenters, male and female, in addition to the directors, back-up staff, and artists. Nourhan would review the programme scripts one by one, then take recordings of the shows home with her to watch and the next day call in the director or presenter and offer him her observations with a sweet smile and a resolute and final tone of voice. Within less than two months, the Authentic Egypt channel had made it to the top and become the most watched in Egypt, according to the ratings agencies. Each night, Egyptians watched as confirmed and diverse evidence indicated that the revolution was merely a conspiracy to drag Egypt down into chaos. Each night, Nourhan would broadcast recorded phone calls between foreign officials and young people from the revolution as proof of their treachery. Each night, she allowed the viewers to read reports from official sources confirming the links between the young people of the revolution and foreign embassies, alongside spots on revolutions in other parts of the world that had been planned by the CIA. There were interviews with ordinary citizens who cursed the revolution because it had led to a downturn in the economy and others who believed the people had treated President Mubarak very badly by dismissing him and putting him on trial. Each such spot was technically accomplished, and Nourhan kept her eye on every minute detail, such as lighting, sound, and camera angles. Even though she had never studied media, she could discuss any technician’s work with him, silence his arguments, and, if need be, take him to task. Nourhan always kept the most important of these many success
ful spots for herself, the advertisements for her own spot running throughout the day until she finally appeared at 10 p.m. Some of Nourhan’s episodes were unforgettable and had such a strong impact that the next day people would be discussing them everywhere. In more than one episode, she hosted young people, their faces obscured, who all confirmed that they had taken part in the revolution and confessed that they had received money and been trained in Israel. In another celebrated episode she presented, she showed a video of young revolutionaries celebrating one of their birthdays and drinking beer. In this episode, she hosted Sheikh Shamel, who lashed out right and left at those who drank alcohol, asserting that such a person was less than a man and that his testimony could not be legally accepted by a judge. The camera moved to Nourhan’s face, which expressed extreme distaste. She asked the sheikh, “Revered Sheikh, can we place any trust in those who call themselves ‘revolutionary youth’ now that we have seen them drinking alcohol and mocking our religion?”