This is an account of how I
experienced the political turmoil of Friday, January 28th, 2011, aka
the “Friday of Wrath.” I apologize to my readers for not accompanying my
writing with any images. Though I had originally intended to photograph the
protests, I decided against it. The acts I witnessed were so unconscionable
that I felt it would be unethical to capture them and slap them all over
Facebook. The media does a good enough job of that. And they get paid for it.
I don’t.
Friday of Wrath
It
was 1 pm when I woke up from the previous night’s sleep. As I laid in bed,
my thoughts drifted to the Memphis, the Nile Cruise on which I was contracted
to dance. My musicians and I were scheduled for three sails across the
Nile starting that afternoon, totaling six 45-minute performances. I
wondered if they would happen—the country was scheduled to erupt into massive
anti-government protests, and I couldn't imagine business running as usual.
Not
knowing whether the silence of my 13th floor bedroom meant that the
demonstrations were off, I picked up my tiny Nokia phone to call my manager.
After several attempts, I couldn’t get through. I didn’t yet know it, but the
Egyptian government cut all lines of communication, including cell phones and
land phones and the Internet. It was a last-ditch attempt to prevent protestors
from mobilizing in Tahrir Square. When I finally figured this out, a pang of panic bolted through my stomach as I
thought to myself, the government controls the Internet?!
