A day only a few would remember

Jan 26th, 2011 will probably not be a day that would go down in history with bold characters, and would probably be dwarfed with the memories of Jan 25th, 28th and a long and hard spin of events till Feb 11^th and beyond. It might occasionally be remembered in association with Wael Ghoneim, who was arrested on the day and his release was a moment that helps reenergize the masses in Egypt’s revolution. That would probably also lose momentum in the history books as time goes by. However, with a limited few Jan 26th would probably be a day to mark, including myself. As grave as the events of the day were, I have to admit that it was also a day that my lucky stars were aligned to perfection.

The day started with a phone call from Kareem, who works with me in the start-up I am in. He was calling to take permission to go downtown and join protests he has heard happening there. He missed the event of the 25th and told me that he will feel very bad if he didn't participate on the day. I was hoping my partner would be available at the time, he would have talked him out of it. I on the other hand could feel for his ask and had to only allow him to go and asked him to take care of himself and stay safe. I headed to the office and shortly Kareem join us. He told me that he walked around for a long time in downtown and didn't see anything of any magnitude. He saw a few people here and there and a lot of presence from people on the outlook for protestors. People would come close to him and sort of question why he is there. He was disappointed and decided to come to the office for the rest of the day. However, his story was someone increasing my curiosity to know what was going to happen. I had rationalized with myself about next step later in the night on Jan 25th with Nafie and thought Friday was the next day, but with nothing being said around I was not sure what was going to happen. I continued my day and in many occasions was more interested in trying to find news online than anything else.

After the day I work, I decided to meet Atallah and Nafie, a couple of my friends, who were with me the day before and curious about what was happening. We have been hearing about protests in downtown all day. Some said there were gathering in Talat Harb square, some said in Ramsis, some said next to the Journalist syndicate but nothing confirmed. We meet up around 9pm to go together downtown and check things out (This same curiosity was probably what drove a lot of people down in Friday the 28th when they cut off the internet and mobile service).

I took my car and parked in Abdel Moneim Raid square next to the inter-city bus terminal and we started walking into downtown towards Talat Harb sqaure. Things seemed quite but with the halo of unease. Occasionally we would see people that looked weird as we walked through downtown. We arrived at Talat Hard square and nothing was notable in the square. As we made our way down Talat Hard Street we turned the corner in Abdelkhalek Tharwat street toward Ramisis square. The journalist syndicate had a lot of police force surrounding it and there were a few people inside the entrance but it seemed quite. As we made our way towards Ramsis st, things seemed to be a little more different.

At the corner of Abdelkahlek Tharwat and Ramsis st. is the lawyers syndicate. A significantly larger police force was present and surrounding the syndicate in multiple lines. The lawyers were protesting at the entrance and things were a bit more hyped, the street was more lit up and the voice of protestors was loud enough. At this point things started to unfold, quickly.

I had kept on walking and didn't notice that I was walking alone and that neither Nafie nor Atallah were walking close by. Suddenly a rugged man in plain clothes, obviously a state police thug, started telling me to get out of there and gave me a small push. I did the first mistake of the day, and talked to him. I was telling him who he was to tell me to go, as if I didn't know. He insisted and I suddenly realized that my call on talking to him was a mistake and started to move along. He kept behind me and gave me an occasionally push. Another guy started to come in and then more started to follow. I looked around with the side of my eye to see if Nafie or Atallah were around, but couldn't see them. I started to count more than half a dozen thugs walking behind me.

The group decided they need to push me on the other sidewalk and started to push us across the main street. They were now about a dozen and they started to use profanity. At the corner of my eye I notice Nafie, and he was being pushed by a thug and the whole group to get a bit more violent. Suddenly Nafie started to object to being pushed, and started to shout that right. We were closer to each other and I started to move towards him. The whole group of thugs were now following us and pushing us and we were at the other side of the street. Suddenly someone decided that they should arrest as and the over dozen thugs were now a circle around us. They started to hit us around and I was all over Nafie at the time. Slaps and punches started to be thrown at us and one took my glasses flying off. I managed to catch the frame in my left hand and continued to hold my ground around Nafie as they started to push us back across the street towards the police arrest truck which was parked not too far along the road from the syndicate. The group was getting larger and one old man, a police officer in uniform, started to join and sent a lot of profanity our way. The brought us around to the entrance and started to try to push us up the steps. Punches, slaps and profanity continued to fall on us. The protestors at the syndicate realized the events and started throwing stuff at the car. The car moved along the road and the circle of thugs started to push us towards the car. All through we kept our ground and that was probably another manifestation that my lucky stars were all lined up to perfection.

At the entrance, Nafie was comfortably between my arms ahead of me towards the steps up into the truck. Slaps and punches mixed with a lot of profanity were falling on us. More so now were central police soldiers hitting us with their batons from behind the steel fence on the edge of the sidewalk. They mostly fell to my back and they were taking a long time to get us into the truck. One baton hit me to the head and I lost control instantaneously and got pushed at that moment into the narrow space in the farther end of the truck, and the door was shut. There was another sealed door inside and a few people seemed to be in the cell.

The outside door opened and three thugs climbed in trying to push us to the truck cell. I managed to resist and push them out and stepped down the truck ladder with my back and had Nafie again in front of me on the steps. Thugs started to gather again and slaps, punches and batons fell on me from all around. As I turned to face them and held back the hits I noticed one of the thugs pulling my glass frame out of my hand. I don't think that I got pissed off from the events of the day more than this moment. With all this happening he had no shame in steeling my specs. I looked at him and talked to him about why is he taking them with a lot of disgust. I also think he wouldn't even be able to value them and would probably have no use for them. As I held back more of the things that were happening behind my back I received another blow to the head and losing control instantaneously I was pushed back into the narrow space in the truck and the door was closed.

The door opened quickly and again I stepped down and this time they were frustrated at the resistance and it probably got them more aroused and they started to hit with more viciousness. As the same course of events started again I throw my arm around and managed to get hold of one of the batons. Suddenly the circle of thugs and police ran away. Imagine the type of people they are, one man with a baton had 15 thugs run away. As much as I was frustrated and wanted to land the baton on them, I made sense of the situation and voiced that I will not use it as I held it up. I realized that while I am now armed with a baton they have live bullets around. As much as I wanted to keep my souvenir I throw it to the ground and they quickly regrouped around us again landing more punches, slaps and profanity. A baton hit me to the head and I was pushed into the truck, they quickly followed and pushed us this time into the truck cell.

Inside it was dark, except for a few small windows to the outside. There were six other people inside who apparently were there for a while. They talked to us on what we had. I was sceptic of them and didn't want to talk. All what I was thinking of was what I got myself into and how this would land on my sick father. Nafie realized that he lost his wallet somewhere in the street and started to panic more. I also started to feel horrible and guilty that I got him into all of this. After trying to shout outside that he lost his wallet we started to rationalize a little and decided to make phone calls. I pulled out my phone and called Atallah, he was nearby and his brother Ahmed was the deputy director in the Azbakeya police headquarters which was not far away, but he didn't reply. Nafie called his wife and she went on to call a relative in the state police. The reply came that there is nothing to do and that he will ask about Nafie in two days. Atallah called me back and I told him that we were in the truck and after a few moments he realized where we are.

One of the guys in the truck started to talk about the phone as we were talking, and that they would come and take them. I was still sceptic of them but took their advice and put my phone safely in a very private place. They seemed to have been in the cell for a few hours and they were complaining and argue amongst themselves about what to do. I was more apologetic to Nafie and feeling guilty about it and worried dearly about my father hearing the news.

Time went slowly as we waited, I think that the whole arrest took about 30 mins or more that passed quickly. I heard Atallah outside the truck calling and then he went away. More time passed, about 20 minutes or more that felt like a lifetime, and then I heard someone calling Nafie's name and making sure that we were in the truck. More time passed as we waited inside. The door opened and we got called to come down. The closed behind us and a group of people including Atallah and Ahmed were around. We were explaining that we were just walking and then pushed into all of this. We were directed to be quite and walked along with Ahmed and Atallah passed a lot of central police trucks and soldiers till Gala Street. He was talking sense to us that we shouldn't have been here and that we should be more reasonable and that the situation in the country is all stressed out. We crossed to the other side of Gala Street away from the action, thanking him and left on our own. Things started to hit me and I was thankful but I was still pissed off from the guy who stole my spec frame. My upper half was all hurting and I also occasionally noticed a black flash at the top corner of my eye. Nafie was also hurting, mostly in his hand and had a black eye.

Nafie called his wife and started to try and cancel his credit cards and stop the frantic spread of word on the ordeal. As we walked down to the car I realized that I might not be able to drive and had Nafie drive my car (Atallah never drove stick) to the cafe we meet in earlier as he continued to cancel credit cards. A few minutes after we arrived he got a phone call from his wife that someone found his wallet, found a number in there called it. The number was one of his far relatives that he didn't recall, and he in turn called his wife who got to him. We took Atallah's car this time and made our way to downtown to meet this guy. We noticed how big the army of police was in Ramsis Street at Main Ambulance headquarters and decided to wait in July 26^th Street next to the theater next to the Supreme court. The size of the force got shivers into my body. Two guys came with the wallet, which was emptied from all the cash but with all the plastic intact. We gave them money and left.

Pain started to sink in more, my arms and back and Nafie’s hand were the worst, so we went to a hospital in Dokki to do X-rays. We walked to the X-ray and got our images out and examined by the technician. He told me I was ok, and that Nafie's hand had a fracture. We went to the resident orthopaedic and he put in a cast for Nafie. Nafie’s cast was the icon of our group all through the revolution.

We then went to sit down in the same cafe we started the evening in and things started to sink in and we started to get a better understanding of what happened. The staff soon realized that cast and we talked a little about what was happening and that people should start to move.

So what happened, as we turned the corner to Ramsis street, Atallah got distracted by a young man and women asking one of the officers how to get into the lawyer's syndicate. He was replying calmly that they have to go around the corner and in, a seemingly long way taking into mind that they were right in front of the entrance but behind the lines of police soldiers. That event made him fall behind us and not get caught into all of this.

When I called him he got a hold of his brother who was in the same place. As he walked with his brother to the officers from the state police, who had been with him since the day before, they seemed to shun him away literally asking him who he was. He told him that the key to this truck is with the Minister of Interior himself. After almost giving up, one of the soldiers in his group pointed out that a senior officer he knows was around. He was the director of the police headquarters of Azbakeya when Ahmed was first appointed there, moreover he had asked him for a favour about a week before and he managed to help him out on it. He pointed him to another senior officer that was around that would manage more. Our luck was also in a peak there as that officer had just asked Ahmed for a favour a couple of days ago and Ahmed helped him out and he remembered him. He started to talk to the state police officers and finally, with a grudge he finally decided to open the truck cell and let us out.

As much as the turn of events were frustrating and had me full of anger and hate on Friday the 28th, as much as I realized that my (or Nafie's for that matter although he ended up with a cast and a surgery to fix the bone structure) lucky stars were aligned to perfection. Not only have we stepped out of this at the same place, but that we were generally in good shape (I didn't get any fractures) and that the hits to the head didn't do damage to the retina (the black flashes slowly went away). I prayed to God thanking him once I arrived home.

Before we parted for the night I gathered my ideas about a reason why I changed my glasses to an old one I had, I looked so red on the face and had my lips swollen from the punches and my arms all swollen and painful (although I looked like I working out in the gym) , and I left my car at the cafe. I also made up a story for Nafie to explain himself and why he has a cast on his hand other than being arrested. One this that also annoyed me, although was a good thing, was that the following day no one at work realized what happened. I had decided to be quite about it. Moreover, my wife didn't notice much and only later noticed that I changed my specs to an older one (l arrived after she went to bed and left before she got up). She seemed to buy into my story that I tripped while walking to my car the other night and that my specs were broken. Later in the night I self-photographed myself in the mirror to capture what my back looked like. I gave my wife the full details on the Friday after I came back from the events of the 28th, explaining why it has become personal.

After things settled I felt for those who stood at the front lines of the protests and took all the brutality. Those who have went through injustice and how they feel the anger and frustration from within and how more of this would have made a much bigger mark on me. I am still thankful about all of this and still holding the details from my father (If you read this and know him, please keep it to yourself).