Letter to Maikel

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aD3DOgP9uts/TfydkhgMuII/AAAAAAAAACU/oP1ZFxI2arU/s1600/maikel+nabil+sanad.jpg(Maikel Nabil was arrested 2 weeks after i left Cairo in March and senteced to 3 Years in Jails by a military trial, because of his criticial articles about the army)

Dear Maikel
This time in Cairo was much more relaxed. Had lot of time with lovely friends at Kristins, was often in Borsa, as you introduced to me as your thinktank, and could do some really cool video interviews. At least I get an overview over the new left, as this was very confusing the last time. The thing that was really missing, was you.
The day searching an access to you was the start in Cairo – we followed Maged to the burnt down prison administration building near Ramses, the backyard provisory spot with the families of prisoners, and then the office-hopping in this huge juridical building, that remembered me to the film “Brazil”, a science fiction about a world, where burocracy has taken total control. It was a little my fault, that it didn’t worked out. I tried it also via the MPs I work for and the german embassy, but it took minimum 2 weeks and I should have organized it longer before the travel. I missed you as my best analyser in march and as a friend.
This time I recognized, that this thing with Cairo was not a one-night-stand. I also visited Alex for 1 day in pleasure of the hospitality of peters family and the companion of my beloved doctors (I get badly travel sick but Hend and Peter saved me in a miraculous act), and Kiro and Sahar. I felt that at the moment there is some kind of draw between the movement and the governemental block. The 27. Of Mai, the call for a second revolution, seemed to be a powerfull massage to them, as Naguib described.
What really shocked me this time, was the fact about the power of religion in Egypt, and how deepen it influences the social life. Of course there are some values in the religion, that could be part of a progressive change for the society. But in its not-secularized form it will be a huge obstacle for transformation in the way I am looking for. Maybe it is inevitable that there will be a Brotherhood governement (but it is hopefully a weak one), and the experience with their unjust und pro-west politics would bring a disillusioning with the political Islam.
I don’t know if you heard about it, but there is a real funny thing going on in south Europe. It started in Madrid and now going on very strong in Athens: people started to occupy the central place in the city! In Madrid it was Sol-Place, and there was even a big banner there “Tahrir-Place” – it’s a new movement against the austerity cuts following the financial-crisis with a call for “real democracy”. In Athens there was a general-strike today, and the main place Syntagma is occupied by tens of thousands! I mean, the normal expectation was, that the arab spring will copy somehow the system of the west, but now people in the west start to use the methods of the arab spring! Later lot of historians will write this, but I am quicker than them and tell you my friend, you did history, on a world-scale.
Keep strong my friend, and soon we will have again an early Stella and sit in Borsa, analyzing the next steps of the good change for all, for the people, and for ourselves.
Endless hugs and kisses
Pedram

www.pedram-shahyar.org