Today, catching up on the 100 day anniversary since the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, I considered how desensitized I have become to discourses circulating through the Arab spring. Journalists for papers like the Observer, the Washington Post, etc., have cleverly narrated tales of disorder, revolution and counter revolution in the 'Arab world' since February, and I'm embarrassed to admit (even to myself) that I have become less interested in how the stories progress compared to how I sat on the edge of my seat during the bloodshed in Tahrir Square.
Additional rising and falling actions to these stories have come to be expected in world news, so much so that I cursorily scanned over Ian Black's graphic phrase, "Arab spring fades into a bloody summer." It seems the revolt of millions of people has lost its shock value, and now I'm impatiently looking forward to the resolution of the fairy tale. Yuck. And to keep me passively following along, the Guardian has semi-permanent banners between its International News and UK News sections called "Arab unrest" and "The new Egypt."
Again, what strikes me is how quickly the devastating aftermath of a major revolution comes to carry little emotional impact to me as a reader. According to a recent article by Ian Black, the Guardian's Mideast editor, there is real alarm in the Egyptian air and danger is rife. Hospital attendants are being beaten, streets are clogged with cars parked illegally and it's a well-known rumour/fact that counter-revolutionaries are to blame for stirring things up. Letting his article sink in, I'm sad that the ongoing attacks on public workers (women?) make for less glamourous journalism than do the deaths of heroic (masculinist?) revolutionaries.
To the counter-revolution end, Black quotes a middle-aged engineer living in Cairo: "I salute those who made the revolution [... but] we can't have these excessive freedoms." I cringe at the words (can true freedom ever be considered excessive? who gets to say?), but I guess I can see what he means. As Egypt transitions into a state of exception where lawlessness rules, lives are less livable than before. Short term pain for long term gain? Hard to speak this way when bodies are being killed in the interim.
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