Abul Khier’s launcher

Two weeks ago I was hanging out with a friend of mine. On our way back home the subway was disrupted for several hours. We waited for a while but the station was getting crowded with every minute and there was not a single metro passing through. I  began to look at those around me to try to understand what was happening. Some spoke of a burst of underground pipe, others confirmed that it is just an emergency situation and things would be settled. During these moments, a traditional actor popped in my head, it is Tawfik el-Deken and especially when he acted as Abul Khier in “Merati Moder Aam (My wife is a general director) who was charcherised by spreading news and guesses that are not true. The people in the station began to talk loudly saying: "The protestors in Tahrir disrupted the subway. They interrupt our life may God punish them. They are trying to control the country" and: "They should not speak on our behalf … I am against those in Tahrir Square" etc. The difference is that the quote which was said by Tawfik el-Deken: "Honour is above all" had been achieved simply because the honor proved to lead to zero achievements and that there are other components that may be more useful. The problem is that no one has conclusive evidence that his is the one who is right. The biggest problem that every one thinks that he understands every thing, and the rest are dumb. I could not bear the list of insults and curses against the Revolution and Tahrir Square and the protestors. I could not bear my dream being linked with drugs and adultery. The revolution is a dream around which we gathered, It revived hope inside each one of us.  There is no point in talking and convincing those who insulted the revolution because the issue is bigger than both of us. I and my friend preferred to go away. I kept on thinking: "Do people view the revolution this way? Have rumors succeeded in deforming the Revolution?" During the first weeks after the success of the revolution, I heard a sentence from a friend which I echoed also: "I hope to meet a taxi driver who says I did not protest in Tahrir". At a time when the revolution succeeded, everyone wanted to belong to it and called the protesters heroes and liberators of Egypt from the oppression of the previous corrupt regime. Everyone wanted to belong to this success or in other words to claim this success to be his.  I remember a lady whom I met in Tahrir in one of the Fridays after the stepping down. She told me she encouraged her children to protest in the square. I was astonished and told her that our problem is during the revolution our parents thought what was happening was just a game or nonsense and most of the parents prevented their children from participation, in spite of my objection to limit the revolution in Tahrir only or anywhere else. I used to dream that everyone was convinced of it in order to consider it a popular revolution , not  a partial revolution. The revolutionaries smashed the dark tunnel and dug a hole inside it, enlightening it with their  lives. The revolution broke out for  justice. On my way back with my friend, we went out of the subway station. We found no transportations except a bus. We took it and suddenly when we reached Mazlakan Ain Shams (launcher of Ain Shams) I found my friend yelling: "OH my God”. When I asked her what is going on, she told me to wait and see. If James Cameron, the famous writer and filmmaker made a decorative scene for a traffic jam it would not be with such magnificence and perfection. Once my friend finished her words ,  I looked out of the window to find  a terrible scene. The bus was in the middle, on the right there were cars destined for the left, on the left cars heading to the right, moreover , there were cars that were crossing to the other side and those cars behind the bus wanted to move forward, in the midst of all this there were so many taxis that were moving in unintelligible ways, one vertical, the other parallel, the third on the pavement along with a number of motorcycles and a carriage pulled by an exhausted horse. The scene paused for nearly an hour, no one moved. you did not hear anything but loud car horns. The high temperature was unbearable. Every driver believed that he was right and wanted the other driver to make a way for him to pass. Everyone held on to his opinion even if it was a mistake, everyone refused to announce his stupidity in front of such large numbers  of people and expose himself to mockery and ridicule? These were accompanied by a barrage of insults and screaming and fighting. Every component made the situation a legendary scene which I eagerly followed behind the dirty window. Passengers began to volunteer to solve the crisis by giving directions and saying: "Let’s go right, then left" which  reminded me of  Ramadan’s Coca-Cola commercial  for a soccer fan who screams in front of the TV giving directions to the players. The driver replied whoever that does not like the way he drives, could try and drive instead of him. I asked my friend whether there is traffic police here or not, she laughed and said: "You are dreaming." I re-asked her:  “Has not the police been deployed yet?“ She laughed more: "No, the police are not in the streets.” I told her: “You mean that the same problem happens every day in the same place without a solution?" She whispered: "You know what is happening in the roads is exactly the same that happens in the country. the only difference is that the road's problems can be solved randomly but the same logic can not be applied to the conditions of the country because it needs knowledge and cooperation. We are dealing with that country as if it is our Mother, if we betrayed her , whom is going to pray and work to develop her?" --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.