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I´m Nada Zatouna, I´m 23 years old. I make films.
Before January 25th I used to live my normal life,
make movies, study... very ordinary life totally not related to politics.
I felt it didn´t matter where the country was going.
I was in a shell, inside my own self.
Until I understood what it means for a friend of mine to die, to be killed,
it was a very strange idea.
Irrespective of how they died or got arrested.
A lot of close friends got arrested, friends who
few days before were sitting with me.
I couldn´t understand that, it was a totally new thing.
So I was like I´m not going home again, I stayed in the square.
My mom would call me and I would tell her I was somewhere else.
Of course I was lying to her.
I didn´t sleep there all the time, only when I could.
But my friends and I insisted on sleeping together every night.
I´ve always lived in the capital, in Cairo.
We were always asked if we were Egyptian.
My sister is a veiled girl, very Egyptian looking,
She is also asked if she is Egyptian.
So I always felt that the people here forget that
there is a part in the map that is called Aswan,
Luxor and even Upper Egypt.
It is forgotten, it is not in Egypt.
Or they´d say "Oh are you from Sudan?"
or "Are you from..." any other country.
It is like, No! We are Egyptians.
It made me feel throughout my life that I can´t
feel that I belong to Egypt.
Because all of its people treat me as not Egyptian.
So I started asking "where are we from?"
"Who do we belong to?"
Is there racism within the Egyptian people towards people of Nubia?
Frankly, there is, of course. A lot of racism.
Social racism and political racism.
It is something that needs a lot of time to explain.
The Nubians & the people of the South were ostracized politically,
from right after the construction of the dam (Nasser´s Aswan Dam).
They were ostracized even socially.
All so that they won´t demand their rights to the land
that was taken from them with nothing in return.
They forced out of their houses, their harvests and lands were flooded,
and their history was intentionally erased, even their
language is being lost.
All under a false fabricated accusation that they want to separate from Egypt.
And there was a lot of political propaganda around this separatism accusation so they won´t demand their rights.
So people would label Nubians as separatists who want to divide Egypt.
And this is so not true.
Logically, how would we want to separate from a land
that has been ours since the old stone age.
Even from before the Pharaonic era. This is very much our land.
After the revolution, Nubian activists started again to demand their rights.
On the basis that there is a revolution and that the old regime has fallen.
And now everyone will have their rights, since there is justice.
There were protests (in Nubia) that were brutally repressed
by the military governor there.
On the political & social levels the discourse was
"let´s not demand these things now, it is something that can wait"
"let´s not wage an unneeded battle" the famous sentence
of all those who want to bury their heads in the sand.
According to this, it is not the time for it!
Then it is not the time for women´s rights, nor Nubian´s rights,
nor Bedouin´s rights.
This is not right!
It is the time for all of this!
This is specifically the time for all of this.
After I got arrested and I got out,
there is a fear barrier that got broken.
I felt that emotionally I´m stronger. I´m no longer afraid
of them the way I used to be.
On the contrary, this body, this violent system that is
against me and against the people, is no longer ....
Like seriously, now I pity them, if I can say so! I pity them.
Because they are mutilated emotionally.
I had to rationalize that to understand what has happened.
How they treated us, how they had lost the distinction between
what´s right and what´s wrong.
They lost the ability to evaluate us.
That we are not criminals, even the smallest policeman
knows we were not vandals. But it is a chain of repression.
There was around a 100 meters between the place of my arrest
and the kiosk next to the Ministry of Interior where we were held.
I was handed from one officer to the other, around four in total!
All with horrible insults asking me "how much did you get paid?"
"you ruined the country"
"We will smash you" "We will do not nice things to you" to me personally.
Of course all were threats of *** harassment, ***, public *** in front of all the soldiers & the people.
Of course while beating me and swearing at me.
This showed me something that relieved me.
It showed me that they were very terrified.
Terrified even of me, and I might not even reach their knees in size. Seriously.
I was thrown in this brown kiosk next to the Ministry of Interior,
A kiosk for the police, I don´t know what it is called.
In around two minutes, the kiosk was filled with around 30 youngsters, all boys.
We were all in this tiny 2 by 1.5 meter kiosk. Of course everyone was bleeding and bloodied all over.
I was also bleeding strange things, blood from everywhere.
And there were kids among them. We had a boy who was
not older than 12 years, and both of his eyes were this swollen.
This kid was even smaller than me in size.
I couldn´t believe the degree of violence. Very spiteful!
And of course, outside there was a whole battalion, a lot of them. I´ll never forget that.
All organized waiting for new detainees to beat them again.
They wanted to smash the kiosk and get me out. I was the only girl there.
To beat me, or kill me, or do whatever they want with me.
They were banging on the kiosk screaming "just bring her out"
In the police station, I was taken aback by their threat to
bring in a women to beat me.
Because this was a very advanced concept of torturing.
Even if it was just psychological or just a threat, though it does happen.
They bring women to beat women.
For a woman to beat another one terrifies me personally more.
Because she definitely knows where it hurts as a woman.
(I´m accused of) Vandalizing state property, causing the death or killing of policemen,
possession of white weapons, firearms, and explosives. And ... and...
Oh yes, the last set of accusations that I read in the newspaper,
they accuse me also of burning the Tax Department´s building,
which was burnt in February and I was arrested in November. Anyways!
And that five of my friends and I were heading to burn the Ministry of Interior.
And that I was caught red-handed which is very funny.
I was caught red-handed burning a police car and also caught red-handed with 5 of my friends
on top of the American University trying to burn down the Ministry of Interior.
Wow, what a fertile imagination.
(After release) I was going downtown, to Garden City.
Mohamad Mahmoud street was still closed down.
Passing in front of the Ministry of Interior was the only way
if one doesn´t want to take the metro.
I didn´t have any identification documents on me,
because they had taken my ID and had thrown it away.
And I still insisted to walk that particular street next to the Ministry of Interior
where I was dragged and beaten before.
I had to do that. If I hadn´t done that, I wouldn´t have
been able to look myself in the mirror.
I would´ve been a coward. Not in a revolutionary sense.
I had to break something that has happened in me.
Military rule or an Islamist rule?
I feel that we will end up under a military rule with a social Islamist hegemony.
This is the only way for them to be able to control the people.
I feel that the (Islamic) Wahhabi current is like
the "New Religion" which divided families.
I always told my mom, even from before the revolution,
that my end will be on their hands (the Islamists) .
Them taking power will be over my dead body!
I sometimes get discouraged, by the people honestly.
I feel, they want this, let them have it.
Let them live in constant wars like Iran.
No, not Iran, Iran is better off economically. Like Afghanistan!
We will never be like Saudi Arabia nor like Iran.
We are a poor country, so we will be like Afghanistan.
I will fight back, I will fight them with all my strength.
They are like the police, I hate them as much and maybe more.