Here is Cairo on Wednesday.
This time it was on Tahrir Square, another time on a bazaar street in Iran, in the textile factory in the Delta, or this time when Sami and I from Gaza would smell the orange blossoms. Every time I laugh out loud, because I am Swedish, but I remember how shaken Sami was when Hamas grabbed us in the orange grove and everything was my fault.
“Watch the orange trees bloom! Come on! We make it into the grove before the next interview – nothing smells like orange blossoms. ”
Apelsinlund your idiot, this is where Hamas hides its rocket launchers – Sami did not say that even though he might have thought so and it was not long before we were interrogated by Hamas and a tormented corpse pale Sami looked at the interrogator’s facial expression when I said:
“We would just smell the flowers.”
But I was never really scared, I have a Swedish passport. The same thing in Egypt when the military arrested me and Nagwa, and the interrogator denied that we were detained and said:
“Oh, no, madam you are our guests!”
To which I replied:
“So are we? But you have not offered us tea. ”
Nagwa, my Egyptian colleague, sat pale with sweaty palms while I confidently refused to take the situation seriously. I saw one of the soldiers’ handcuffs and said:
“Oh, I can not get a selfie with you, with handcuffs.”
It is a privilege not to be afraid, we Swedes who grew up with children’s programs where we learned to sing You should always ask why? have a hard time living into cold sweat.
WHY? Why?” I sat and said on a bench in Tahrir Square the other day. The square has been given a facelift – with palm trees, grass, solid granite benches. In the middle is a plastic-covered obelisk waiting to be inaugurated, it is surrounded by four wooden boxes containing sphinxes that have been flown there from the Karnak temple in Luxor. Although some archaeologists are worried about how the Sphinxes will feel in Cairo’s exhaust fumes, and despite the fact that revolutionary romantics are sad that all traces of the uprising ten years ago have been erased, the square looks pretty nice, I thought when I sat down on a bench.
Well aware about the security nervousness that surrounds the symbol-laden square, I decided to pretend to be a tourist who did not understand Arabic if anyone were to approach me.
It took 45 seconds.
”No. No sit here. ” Hani, a well-trained friendly security guard with a pointed nose, asked me to get up.
WHY? why?”
Then followed a 20-minute farce where I behaved like in a Swedish children’s program from the 70’s while four different security guards just tried to do their job – they are placed in the square to make sure no one sits on the benches.
“WHY?”
I heard how they said to each other: tell her that the square is being renovated. Explain that this is a political place that we must protect against terrorist acts. How do you say revolution in English? Young passers-by who, because of their dress, seemed to know English, were stopped to translate for the foreigner who continued to answer WHY as if she imagined that she could raise a security guard who was dependent on her salary and could not afford to ask why he will prevent people from sitting on the benches.
Finally, a senior officer appeared with three stars and strict supervision.
“But, tell her it’s forbidden to sit here!”
Hani looked unhappy.
“But your grace, she will ask WHY?”
Source: ICELAND NEWS