No one knows what’s happening in Egypt except for Egyptians themselves...

Egypt’s Latest Revolution

Millennial Letters - by Kristin Deasy

I first got the news while rattling down a California mountain on Wednesday. “Oh my gosh, Egypt,” I thought. “You’ve done it again.”

But that’s not what I said. What I said was, turning to my mother: “Did you hear about Egypt? They’ve had a,”—I paused, hesitant about the label favored by the media—“‘coup.’”

“Oh?” said my mother. “Didn’t they just elect a president? Democratically?”

“Yeah,” I said. There was a moment of silence. We let the confusion implicit in her question sink in.

“But you know, not everyone liked him,” I ventured, recalling the Egyptian voters I spoke with last summer in Cairo. I remembered the city’s famous epicenter of protest activity, Tahrir Square, exploding in celebration after the two-day vote. I remember watching long queues of voters snake their way through dusty voting stations. Some held their inked thumbs upright for blocks after walking away from the ballot area, as if unwilling to let the moment pass. The faces of some voters, particularly the elderly, shone with the trustfulness of a very young child. Egypt, it seemed then, was being reborn.

I spent two months in Cairo last summer and a heady 10 days reporting on the country in the company of over a dozen young Egyptians and young American reporters in October 2011. The friendships I forged with my fellow young Egyptians during that time have taught me more than anything I’ve read from “experts” on the country. Because really, no one knows what’s happening in Egypt except for Egyptians themselves.

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