I wanted to interview activists as they walked me through the events of a specific day. Stations of the cross, but for the revolution.
Only not a pilgrimage. And no reenactments.
Just a tour.
I told them to pick the day they wanted to talk about. And to structure the tour however they liked. Put together their own story, in whatever way made most sense to them. An account in their own words. Of things they did, or things that happened to them. Things they saw or heard. Told to me on the same stage where the action had taken place.
I wanted them to walk me through their day, in the most mundane sense of the word. To take me, step by step, through the geography of their lives, using place and space to tell the story. I thought that this process might help produce an organic narrative structure, an unforced form, as well as bring back details otherwise forgotten.
K agreed to do it, as long as it was on a day where nothing was planned. At the beginning of our excursion he was hesitant. But he became enthusiastic as he walked me through what were for him the most important hours of the revolution. We met downtown and he paced me through the events of his January 28.
We retraced the steps K and his friends took that morning, from Abdin to Muhammad Naguib Square. K spoke while I struggled to keep up.
Bourse… tear cas canisters… onions… coca cola…
Then we went to Abdel Munim Riyad Square.
Gangs of government thugs entered from that side…
Every few minutes, we would stop and K would tell me about something that happened on this or that spot. I listened and took notes in my notebook as people walked by and stared at us. I took photos of each stop to remind myself of each scene.
Later, much later, we fled up here.
We were back on Talaat Harb when a large crowd of protesters came marching down Soleiman Pasha. It got so loud that I couldn’t hear what K was saying. We paused the tour for a few minutes as they went by, beating drums, singing songs and chanting slogans.
Eventually, they showed up and we started to run. Then we heard gunfire and we knew we had to get off the streets. See that building over there? The door suddenly opened up for us, and the doorman told us to come in. Then he locked the door behind us. They pounded on the door for minutes, but he wouldn’t open it.
As soon as we could hear ourselves again, K resumed his account.
You can find lots of things to use if you need to protect yourself. A car. Or a row of motorcycles. You know the small electric boxes next to streetlights? You can use them too. You can defend yourself with metal traffic barriers. Or curbstones. This stuff is everywhere. I met some guys who know how to use the whole street.
K explained everything to me and listened to my plodding questions very patiently. He looked at his phone then said, “I didn’t know there was something going on today.”
A few minutes went by before another loud march crashed down on us. Hundreds of young men and women went by, singing songs. We had to pause our tour again. No sooner had they passed than another group came behind them. K looked at me and shrugged. He texted a friend, then another. Then he told me more about his January 28.
The parades went by for about an hour until we finally gave up. As the daylight began to fade, we ducked into the headquarters of an officially-recognized opposition party whose leaders had condemned the protests during those first days. I suddenly remembered another time, in this same room, listening to Khaled Mohieddine deliver a rousing speech, long ago, on a sweltering September afternoon.
…the Iraqi people… and Palestine… solidarity
It was like visiting the stage of an abandoned theater.
K called out, “Anyone here?” A man walked through a darkened doorway in the back and waved to us, “Welcome! Come in!”
We went out on the balcony where K resumed his story.
Funny enough, later that same day, we came in here to use the bathroom, drink tea and catch our breath. I stood here on this same balcony for hours waiting. There were some MB youth who set up barricades over there. They were tough. Into weightlifting and karate and shit. If it wasn’t for them, the police would have broken through.
As he talked, another group of activists came marching down the street. Between them and the flocks of sparrows chirping in the twilight of the ficus trees, it was again too loud to carry on a conversation. K checked his messages while I made recordings of the songs. When it quieted down again, K returned to his story.
Suddenly, a huge crowd of Ultras appeared over there. Coming from Marouf. The police began to run. It was over just like that.
We smoked another cigarette and sipped more tea as K added other details. Like the sound a Molotov cocktail makes when it hits concrete versus when it hits metal. Or the piles of cheap black uniforms and cheap black boots the police left behind when they fled. I made a note of everything.
The man reappeared as we began to leave.
“Will you be coming back later?”
“No, Uncle. You can lock up for the night.”
K paid the man and suggested that we end our tour in Midan Tahrir. The square was, after all, the climax of his story, and the destination of our journey. We’d never spoken about it, but we both knew that that would be where we ended up.
We nearly made it there but were interrupted again by another group of activists on the march. At first, we stood there silently, waiting patiently for them to go by. And then, K began shouting to people who shouted back. Finally, K turned to me and explained, “Sorry, these are my friends. I’ve got to join them. Can we finish tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
With a sudden apology, the tour was over.
Of course, we never did go back to finish the tour. There was always something happening every time we tried to make plans. Things would come up—a sit-in, a demo, a meeting—and we’d postpone it again.
Months later, we laughed about it every time we saw each other at the Greek Club. Last time I saw K he said, “What were you thinking, Man? The revolution’s not something you can tour.”
