(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The cold slowly creeps over the tarmac. It eels out from under the bodies of the graveyard and the prison. November 2014, the end of a cold autumn, also feels like the end of the cold winter I saw almost four years ago, spread across the tarmac at Tahrir Square in February 2011.
Mubarak falls. The military council climbed up and took his place, with Tantawi in the lead. Armed gangs stormed the square and slaughtered horses and camels. The shots flew like fireballs, and the tarmac was covered with blood. It solidified where it rained. The faces lay there, stiffened, like rocks in a scrub.
The waves sweep across the square from all directions, but she stays put, she can't break. The waves crush for dignity and pride, but she doesn't bend. A graying stripe marches in over her black hair. She holds her head high, safe and steady.
Her eyes are two fields of force that extend beyond and beyond the horizon. They are covered with a shine that seduces both vision and heart. She doesn't blink, her eyelashes are motionless. Her face is tan, and the skin on her hands is cracked and dry from hard work.
Her lips are pulled back like a furious tiger. The rage she is carrying out on both tigers, women and slaves who have been fighting oppression since the dawn of time. She stands tall, like a lioness, who has been robbed of her children. She doesn't give up. Behind her are rows upon rows of mothers. Witnesses of strength, sorrow and anger. The strength of the mothers is not surpassed by anything. No force on Earth or other planets in other galaxies can compare with it.
Questions to Egypt. They killed her sons and daughters, treacherously and unfaithfully, without the children committing any crime or trampling – they did nothing but call for revolution for their homeland. Where is this homeland? Is not that the mother's embrace? Security, love, justice, freedom and dignity? How can a country kill those who live and breathe for this homeland? How can it steal and defraud billions, and then flee? How can a country kill its sons and daughters because they do not have property, political party membership, weapons, laws, religion, culture, education, ethics and honor, because they do not trade in stocks – yes for any reason. Everything from nationalism, religion, revolution, and even parental responsibility could be a pretext to kill.
In the square she stands, like a stone. She's not screaming. She's not crying. Her eyes do not get wet from tears. She does not move a muscle in her face. They tell her that her sons and daughters have been sacrificed for a revolution. Their breath meets her steady, crushing gaze. Her sons and daughters are not victims. Although their blood is spilled, they are not dead. They live on in the story – and who writes the story?
Is it not the same class that owns the papers and pens and the country, that keeps the court records and seals documents, and walks in the government corridors, and runs politics and owns the media?
Children of the Revolution. It was a cold night. Winter marched in February 2011. The rain was pouring over her bare, uncovered head. Her head is her greatest honor and pride. How could she hide it?
The place is empty, except for a child walking alone in the dark. She is carrying a small sheet. Her body is hidden in an old robe. The yellow plastic sandals she wears are drowning in ponds of rainwater and mud, and the wind is shaking her hair, which is tied up with a black ribbon. She walks with her head raised. She is not afraid of the guards who drive around in vans and look for her, among all the others who have had a picture of themselves pasted on the wall. They can not find her when she is in the morgue either. For the wall is wallpapered again, with shiny, glossy pictures of the candidates for the government election.
Three years and nine months have passed since they shot from the car and his chest was torn to pieces. His white shirt, which she had washed with her own hands, turned red. The blood ran over the asphalt. She picked up two torn pieces of cloth and laid them over the hole in his chest. His face fades and his chest empties of blood. He opens his eyes and smiles at her. He would recognize her among a million others. Her black eyes shine with love, and her face is as brown as his. Her long, thin fingers resemble his fingers.
The mothers' revenge. He moves his lips towards her. The skin on her hands is cracked and dry from hard work, from washing plates, clothes and toilets. She has worked day and night to save her children from injustice and humiliation. When she has taken a break from diet and caustic soda, she has taken up pen and paper, to fight for the right to be human, not slaves, for justice to prevail over power and the people over those in power.
Shouts and slogans about democracy and elections fight for attention with news about constituencies and parliamentary seats and the victims of the revolution. Those who had their eyes gouged out, those who were imprisoned and forgotten by billions. Not even the earth would swallow their blood. The blood that overthrew old rulers and lifted up new rulers.
Writers and journalists lubricate articles, as they always have. They follow the current, for the sake of the homeland. They forget everyone who has bled to save her. The story repeats itself to the stupefying, while the mother remains, unshakable as a rock. Behind her are rows upon rows of mothers. They are waiting for the moment when they will be transformed into tigers, who will crush those who ate their children. This is the unwritten part of the history of the people.
Translated from Arabic by Vibeke Koehler
Nawal El-Saadawi (b. 1931) is a physician, author, feminist and one of Egypt's leading intellectuals. She has been writing exclusively for Ny Tid since June 2009. In the online newspaper Egyptian Streets, El-Saadawi was listed earlier this year as one of twenty-three Egyptian women who have made history.
New Time December 12, 2014
