January 25, 2012 - Car alarms and the odd cacophony of horns wake me like a distant atonal symphony - backed by the haunting refrain of the muezzin calling believers to mid-morning prayers, voices below in the street talk in high-pitched Arabic, and the quiet thud, thud, thud of a tennis game echo from the courts nearby. The Revolution's Anniversary dawns in Cairo.
I'd stepped off the plane two days before to the burnt smell of Cairo's air - caused by the torching of rice patties and the burning of coal. Its a smell that I will forever connect to that first visit some four months before, when this was new to me and the task daunting. I arrived on the day of the first sitting of a nearly fairly elected Parliament or People's House. Each member of the 508 person body took their oath to the constitution - though some Salafis added a line to their oath that said they swore it as long as it did not contradict the Word of God... A move that led to outrage and declamation from the more secular and liberal members of the body. Speeches honoring the martyrs of the last twelve months - over 800 dead over 6000 injured were contrasted with thank you telegrams to their executioners... the contradictions were manifest, but the promise still real.
Today its estimated that as many as a million people will attend events in Tahrir Square, on one hand celibrating the change to a new government, an overthrow of an old regime and the promise of a new beginning. While still others will March for the unfulfilled promise of those first heady days of January 2011. When anything seemed possible - even the imagining of a new, free future.
But power intervenes. And personality ends u facing personality, party against party as those that once marched hand-in-hand (or as they say here: "on one hand") find themselves at odds - struggling. So how did it all turn out after the House elections? The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and its allies gained roughly 47% of the vote. Their once allies and now adversaries on the Islamic front, the Salafi Nour Party and its allies came in second with as many as 29% of the vote. They were followed by a virtual tie between the Egyptian Bloc and the old Wafd Parties - the liberal stalwarts of this election - each with about 10% of the number. The remainder of the seats fell to Islamic and revolutionary parties that split their votes and consequently their power in the first breath of an election. As many as 13 parties will be represented in the new Parliament: a prescription for inaction and chaos that serves the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) well.
About three weeks ago, as almost a metaphor for the liberals loss of hope, Jimmy Carter came to town to pronounce all is well in Egypt. His comments were perceived by many here as a thinly veiled bid to preserve his Camp David Accords from the potential rise of Islamic forces in the nation. He exacted promises from the parties and in the end wrote a report and held a press conference where he legitimized for all the false claim of Tantawi, the head of the SCAF, that the photos of the women stripped and dragged through Tahir square was a fabrication. For those of us who saw the videorather than just the photo, it was a shocking travesty of leadership to hear this former Nobel Peace Prize winner say this.... For the Egyptian liberals who not only witnessed it, but who documented reliably over 500 cases of fraud and as many as 900 violations of election law, it was unconscionable.
The process of a revolution does not happen over night. In Libya yesterday remnants of Gaddafi's old regime have fought back. In Afghanistan, the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban has ended in a stalemate of civil war and suicide bombing. In the United States, we fell into Civil War some 85 years after our Revolution and change is still a struggle. In Egypt this Revolution or what Thomas Friedman has called an "uprising" is far from consolidated and very, very fragile. The military carefully steps forward trying to control its economic clout and preserve its members from prosecution. The play the Muslim Brotherhood off against others with a promise of power - for the MB have thirsted to rule for a long time - while at the same time ensuring fraud holds them in check by elevating their rivals the Salafis... Sidelining the liberals who would prosecute these so-called "heroes of the revolution" for their crimes against their people, their 12,000 political prisoners still held and their still extant emergency detention law.
And so today while some celebrate a Revolution others call for its completion and even some for its renewal. It is an auspicious day here, and the future can be found in Tahrir Square. But will we see it?