As demonstrations in Egypt that began last Tuesday escalated to unprecedented levels and raised the once unthinkable possibility that President Hosni Mubarak may be ousted, Tufts students who have recently been in the country reacted with shock and cautious optimism for the country's future.
Meanwhile, students studying abroad in Egypt found their programs disrupted by the political situation, with Middlebury Schools Abroad canceling its Alexandria program and evacuating the country, and the American University in Cairo (AUC) suspending classes.
Tufts students have traditionally enrolled in these programs but Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler confirmed that there are no Tufts undergraduates abroad in Egypt this semester.
The protests, which began soon after the collapse of the Tunisian government, intensified quickly and spread across major cities in Egypt as demonstrators poured into the streets, calling for an end to Mubarak's rule. A violent crackdown by the state's security forces failed to contain the protests, the army yesterday refused to fire at demonstrators, and the government has offered to talk with the unified opposition.
Faced with the images of unrest coming out of Egypt, Tufts students who recently spent time there were taken aback by the chaos now affecting places familiar to them.
"Just today I was watching Al-Jazeera streaming and they're showing images of the national museum in the main square in Cairo … and there are images of broken glass and statues broken because the museum is being looted," junior Ariana Siegel said. "I was just shocked because I was literally in that museum months ago and that may be one of the last times it was ever whole."
Siegel returned in December from her semester abroad as part Middlebury College's program in Egypt. Junior Caroline Standke, who last semester had been directly enrolled at AUC, echoed Siegel's sentiments.
"It's a bit heartbreaking and a little worrisome because I have a lot of friends who are still there and live near where a lot ofthe protests are going on," she said. "The places where I used to hang out are now up in flames and that's very scary."
Students also questioned whether media reports accurately reflected the reality in Egypt. Junior Ahmed Hamdy, who studied at AUC in the fall, has established contact with family in Egypt who suggested that the media has overstated the extent of the disorder.
"I called my family yesterday. The general consensus among them … is that Al-Jazeera, which is doing the coverage, is greatly exaggerating the chaos," Hamdy said. "There are protests … other than that, they're all fine; the place my family lived in had looters and stuff but the army secured that area."
Likewise, Harvard University Arabic Preceptor Paul Wulfsberg, who previously taught Arabic at Tufts and served as associate director of Middlebury's Alexandria program until August, said that media reports about the protests have not been comprehensive.
"I've been in touch with several friends in Cairo and Alexandria; a few of them have been to the demonstrations and they said the demonstrations … were not as violent as they seem on TV and what they're most impressed by is the atmosphere within the demonstrations," Wulfsberg said. "There are Egyptians from all walks of life there, with families, old men, young kids. And most of them have never been in a demonstration before or been politically active."
Students all agreed that the intensity of the protests came as a shock, and said they had not witnessed any indication while in Egypt that demonstrations would erupt on such a scale.
"I never would have expected the protests to be so attended because what I had seen last semester is that the police is so strong and so entrenched," senior Michael Kremer, who studied in Alexandria last spring and spent winter break in Egypt, said. "If you asked me last week when I got back from Egypt if this week, Mubarak would be on the brink of falling — absolutely not, it would have been unbelievable"
Siegel explained that although there was popular unhappiness with the government, inaction seemed to be the norm.
"Some people were starting to have this revolutionary spirit but for the most part, people were very cynical," she said.
Both Hamdy and Wulfsberg agreed that it had been unclear whether popular grievances with the Mubarak regime would translate into significant political action.
"This pent-up frustration has been there for years and years if not decades, but nobody really knew what was going to set it off," Wulfsberg said. "In the years I was there, there were never more than a few hundred demonstrators at any political demonstrations. … It seemed impossible for a while for the anti-Mubarak movement to be able to break this movement of having just a few educated, liberal protestors and to reach the masses discontented with Mubarak."
Students expressed cautious optimism for Egypt's prospects in the future, with many predicting that Mubarak would not be able to hold on much longer.
"I'm very happy with the demonstrations and hopeful that Mubarak will be overthrown, but there is also a lot of reason for legitimate concern about will happen after Mubarak goes, as that seems almost inevitable," Wulfsberg said.
Hamdy questioned the effectiveness of the U.S. government's response to the crisis.
"I think the U.S. response has been very, very ineffective," he said. "Now the U.S. is trying to be more pragmatic and conservative … they're sort of taking both sides without fully supporting Mubarak or the protestors. They hope that they just work it out with each other which is never going to happen — that's just too idealistic."
Both Kremer and Wulfsberg shared this assessment.
"The U.S. is in a position where it could play a much more active role in brokering Mubarak's departure," Wulfsberg said.
Kremer has made contact with a friend in Egypt, who said that the withdrawal of the police from many remote regions of the country on Saturday had left a security void in those places.
"Apparently the police have completely fled and there's no authority anywhere. The army is in the big cities but not in the smaller ones like in the Delta. So he was telling me he was outside with other youth with homemade arms to act as local militia and defend against looters."
Wulfsberg provided a similar account, noting that local communities have rallied together.
"You have everyone bonding together to create these neighborhood watch groups which are guarding their homes and businesses from looting, and these just formed spontaneously all over Cairo and Alexandria."
At Tufts, the Institute for Global Leadership's New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP) and the Tufts Collaborative on Africa (TCA) last night co-sponsored a dialogue on the upheaval in Tunisia and Egypt as part of NIMEP's regular dialogue series.
"This is our first dialogue back and considering the events in Egypt and Tunisia, we believed it would be imperative to organize an event related to the monumental events that are currently happening," senior Khaled Al-Sharikh, a NIMEP co-leader said.
Kremer, who is also the president of TCA, hopes that an exchange of insight will take place.
"We want to get people together to talk about it and hear from people who have an in interest in the Middle East, who have been there and have friends there and discuss what's going on there as events develop," he said.
Kremer and Al-Sharikh both said that there are no plans for further events related to the protests in Egypt, but left open the possibility, particularly if the situation develops further.
