Archives for March 2014

Rocío Andrés, Spain, SSH Blog Correspondent

I am supposed to be in Cairo by now, visiting all of the places and monuments. What is a triangle and what is not.

Camera in hand. Ready to go. But, as expected, the calls advising me not to take the flight insisted on ringing. “Look after yourself”, they said, “whatever you want to see, you can see it at another moment.”

I folded my arms as I am told I do when I don’t like what I hear but, even if stubborn, the warnings were everywhere:

“Terrorism: There is a high threat from terrorism. We believe that terrorists continue to plan attacks. Attacks could be indiscriminate and occur without prior warning. Terrorists could target protestors and the Egyptian authorities. Attacks have mainly been aimed at the security forces, their facilities and other government buildings. You should take great care near these buildings. Attacks targeting foreigners can’t be ruled out.

On 16 February 2014, a tourist bus was attacked in Taba in South Sinai, close to the Israeli border at Eilat. It has been reported that 4 people were killed. On 7 February 2014, there were reports of 2 explosions near a police checkpoint at scheduled protests in Giza. At least 6 people were wounded.”

Following this, four blasts had also taken place on 24^th January during the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising against ex-President Hosni Mubarak, when six people were killed and some 100 others wounded. On that occasion, the Islamic Art Museum from the 19^th century was seriously damaged and, as a consequence, the building is now in need of being rebuilt, as the Egypt´s Minister of Antiquies claimed.

For months, I had been preparing myself for the sexual violence in Cairo but certainly not for bombs. I don’t need to say that I don’t like them, however, explosions aside, I never expected an easy trip.

I was meant to be arriving in the morning which, in truth, is something that worried me a bit. Although I’ve never been scared of too many things, surely not of travelling alone, brave or not, that time in Delhi, when my flight landed at midnight and saw myself in the middle of an empty city, all the newspaper´s articles came to my mind and that memory of emptiness still remains.

There was no one in the streets, but behind drawn curtains, with almost 18 million population, Delhi is an insomnia city. Like vultures, a few guys came up from different corners. One of them started to smell my hair. He was talking very close to my ear. I couldn´t understand what he was saying as he was speaking in Hindi, but I knew what was coming next. He knocked me down and held my arms. I was kicking the air.

A taxi driver arrived on time to stop them before they could rip off my clothes, before they could do anything bad to me. He drove me to a safe place and worried about me as if I were his daughter. I told him I was fine because I was fine but since then I like morning arrivals.

First thing I was going to do in Cairo was visiting a few organisations: Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault (OpAntiSH), HarassMap, Tahrir Bodyguard or I Saw Harassment.

I had already contacted some of them as I wanted to get a close picture of the sexual violence-sexual harassment-street harassment problem in Egypt. I would have asked them how it feels to be living in the worst place for women´s rights within the Arab world.

I could then have visited the City of the Dead, where more than half a million Egyptians are living and try to see how safe it is for women to have a home among tombs.

I wanted to record the street harassment so I was carrying a video camera with me to evidence what was exactly happening. I had a very flexible draft script. I would have talked to women about harassment, as long as they wanted. And to men, if possible, and carefully listen to how they could explain what leads them (– them in general terms) to harass women or the use of acid on them (in case they considered there is an explanation for that, which there is) or simply ask them what they understand by women´s rights. I thought, depending on the answers, I would have to control my temper at this point.

Although I didn´t want to expose myself to a very dangerous situation, I was going to visit Tahrir Square, epicentre of sexual violence. Not during a demonstration, which admittedly embarrasses me, but sadly, my fear is bigger than my shame. According to this, the www.gov.uk says:

“There is a serious risk of violence and sexual assault at demonstrations. NGOs report more than 100 rapes and sexual assaults against women in demonstrations since 30 June. Foreign and Egyptian women have been attacked. […] Stay away from demonstrations and large gatherings of people. If you become aware of any nearby protests, leave the area immediately”.

Next stop was university campuses. As you might know, a female student has recently been mob assaulted in public by dozens of male students at Cairo University. The excuse: she was wearing black trousers and a pink sweater. This happened in the law faculty, nucleus of future justice makers, which is not a joke, in the same way that it is not a joke that the head Gaber Nassar referred to the victim´s clothes as a “mistake.” In fact, it is far from being funny and it also makes me wonder how Cairo, also known as the “mother of the world”, whose universities pictured unveiled women in nice dresses in the 60s has become a place where 99.3% women severely suffer from sexual harassment in any of its forms. And I am sorry to say this, but if this is the mother of the world, we’re better as orphans.

Despite everything,“unfortunately” for me, instead I am in Spain, the country I was born, wondering if the Great Sphinx, the guardian of the horizon, lost his nose at the same time as men forgot that, after all the Tutmosis, all the Ramses, there was once, among others, a queen, whose name was Cleopatra, who, whether you like her or not, was a woman on top of a kingdom.

Rocío Andrés holds a Bachelor´s degree in Audiovisual Communication, History of Art (both Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) and a Master´s in Education (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain, 2010). She has six years experience as a TV and advertising producer.