Ahdaf Soueif prefaces her talk with the admission that this not a book she took on voluntarily, and that she wrote it primarily because she had signed on 15 years ago to write a book on Cairo and had long since spent the advance payment. That said however, when Ahdaf Soueif begins to read from Cairo: My City, Our Revolution and answers questions, it is immediately clear that it is not only her guilty conscience that is put to rest but that her publishers too must be glad that she had not fulfilled her obligation earlier.
Having been on the ground during the 18 days which punctuated Egypt's momentous revolution, and having marched alongside the masses; Soueif manages to mingle her awareness of the event and all its intricacies with the poetic sensibility of her earlier works, allowing her to bring the reader right to the centre of Tahrir (Liberation) Square. Furthermore, and what is equally important, is that in spite of all her attention to the movement, Soueif is constantly aware that the revolution, not unlike any other major event, will soon be dropped from television screens and that the world would forget about it. “This book,” says Soueif as she reads from Cairo , “is not a record of an event that is over, but an attempt to welcome you in to, make you a part of, an event that we are still living (through).”
What was perhaps the most noteworthy point of the talk, although the Mayfair theatre resounded with several of those that evening, was that Soueif’s work does not treat the revolution as an end by itself, as a standalone phenomenon. Rather, as the title of her book reveals, the revolution is but the subscript to the bigger envisioned picture of Cairo. This is why she stresses the point that even though it was beautiful in the way it came to life and stood up from the ground - a beast powered by the will of the masses, the revolution was in the long run however, a failure. In spite of its success in being an expression of the people unlike anything before it, “we had failed in the 18 days,” says Soueif, “failed to put forward a leader.”
But it is perhaps this admission that makes the reader realize that we are indeed dealing with “an event that we are still living (through).” Hence the author herself finds the writing of the book problematic on two levels. One is that while the 18 days of the revolution are locked in the past, the fight to keep its spirit alive continues. Soueif says that the other obstacle to the book is that although during the time of its writing the reader is absent and unknown to her, she wants that reader to connect the events in the book to the reality of Egypt at the time he/she is reading Cairo.
While the revolution may have fallen short of its ultimate prerogative, and though the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) - which initially helped oust Mobarak from power - has taken control and has stalled every possible move forward in this struggle for democracy, and many have lost their lives in this struggle, Soueif remains optimistic. On a personal note, it was inspiring to hear her say - in response to a particular question - that she saw no contradiction between an Islamic State and a democracy: a voice quite unlike the others which shrill the opposite. She mentioned that the Muslim Brotherhood has not only long provided social services to Egyptians but had also been the main opposition to Mobarak.
“On the ground,” says Soueif, “people are insisting on a new way of being, and if you witness this, you would have no choice but to be optimistic.” While at the end of the day, this is indeed a movement of and for Egyptians, Soueif remains hopeful that the world would read and acknowledge that, change has come to Egypt.
