Freedom to Love in Egypt

One year on from the start of the Egyptian revolution, Manoj Dias-Abey talks to a gay activist about his involvement in the protests and the prospects for sexual freedom in Egypt.

I met Hassan on Grindr when I was travelling around North Africa late last year. Egypt has a chequered and complicated past when it comes to the persecution of the LGBTI community. Homosexuality is not an offence per se but practicing gay men are subjected to state-sanctioned harassment and have been periodically prosecuted for a range of related offences, including debauchery and contempt of religion. This makes online forums and social media tools such as Grindr essential devices for gay men to meet each other and form the semblances of a community.

It was a cold and wet day in Sydney when I sat down in front of my computer to talk to Hassan on Skype. Hassan – and no, that isn’t his real name – is a gay activist who has been involved in the protest movement in Egypt over the past year. The miserable weather in Sydney stood in stark contrast to the blisteringly hot days I had experienced just a few weeks back in Egypt. The weather was not the only point of difference between Sydney and Cairo.

Hassan’s moving account of living as a closeted gay man in Egypt made clear that the freedoms enjoyed by gays and lesbians in Sydney – the fruits of hard-fought struggle – are not yet a reality in much of the world.

I asked Hassan to tell me how he had become involved in the January 25 protests. He said that he had not previously been involved in any political groups or movements. He had gone along to the protests with a group of friends after being galvanised into action by the protesters’ demand for “bread, freedom and dignity”. It proved to be a portentous decision: the protests at Tahrir Square marked the moment when a young generation of activists confronted the fear that had paralysed those fighting for a future free from authoritarianism.

Wasn’t he afraid, given the Mubarak regime’s propensity to head off dissent with brutal displays of force? After pausing for a moment, Hassan replied: “I wasn’t afraid; that’s why I joined. I believe that if you have no dignity and no freedom then there is no need for life”.

The protests did not quite turn out as Hassan had expected. Shortly after he arrived, he was arrested. He spent 30 wretched hours in one of the despised police force’s holding cells.

The initial euphoria which greeted the news that Mubarak was stepping down gave way to anger as the protesters realised that the military establishment had merely served up Mubarak as a sacrificial lamb in order to maintain its entrenched position of power. Any concessions which have been made, such as the promise to hold Presidential election by the middle of 2012, have been made grudgingly in response to continuing protests.

I asked Hassan what he thought about the resounding victory of Islamist parties in the elections. The Muslim Brotherhood, the more moderate Islamist party, had won about 38% of the parliamentary seats, while the more hardline Salafists had secured about 29%. Although the participation of some of these groups in the January 25 protests were limited, they have reaped most of the benefits of the revolution.

“I don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood at all,” Hassan says. “They give Islam a bad name because most of what they want to do doesn’t come from Islam at all. All they are interested in is money and influence.” I could discern the steely look in his eye even from the pixelated image on my laptop screen.

Hassan went on: “They were hardly involved in the protest. They also thought that the protesters were a bunch of kids like the government thought. But then once they saw that things were changing, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood told their members to go to Tahrir Square. They joined the protest like cows, but it wasn’t because they believed in the revolution.”

This provided a partial explanation as to why the Muslim Brotherhood had done so well. It seemed that Egyptians who were not directly involved in the protests attributed the success of the revolution to the Muslim Brotherhood who had long been the public face of opposition to Mubarak and his cronies.

However, the success of the Salafist’s El Nour party was more surprising given that they had no public presence before the January 25 revolution; existing only behind closed doors. Hassan’s analysis of El Nour’s solid showing in the polls was that the party had capitalised on its association with Islam.

Hassan was particularly scathing about the Salafist’s prescription for Egypt’s political and economic development. Egypt faces a number of very significant challenges, including a moribund economy, low levels of education and the fact that its tourism industry, its largest export, has ground to a virtual standstill. Some of the Salafist’s early public pronouncements, such as their wish to cover the pyramids and ancient archaeological ruins depicting “idolatrous” gods in wax, and to ban tourists wearing bikinis in tourist resort towns, struck me as plain bizarre.

“If the Salafists really care about Egypt, they will wait until Egypt is more stable before they start demanding that religion should be brought into politics,” Hassan says. “There are more important things, like education. Most people in Egypt have very low levels of education and can’t think for themselves. This is a real problem and one which should be addressed first.”  

The military’s unwillingness to play a diminished role in the Egyptian polity and the success of political parties which advocate a fairly rigid and inflexible application of Islamic law did not fill me with confidence about the prospects for sexual freedom in Egypt. It was with some trepidation that I posed my next question to Hassan: “Do you think the lives of gay men and women will become easier now that Mubarak is gone?”

Hassan paused for what seemed like a long time. I wasn’t sure if this interregnum was the result of thoughtful contemplation or due to my Skype connection dropping out.

“I have hope that things will change because people are now freer to talk about a range of issues, including sexuality,” he says. “It’s early days yet, but there is hope. It’s my life and I won’t allow anyone to control it.”

“Is this what you meant when you said that you went to Tahrir Square to fight for dignity and freedom?” I asked.

“Exactly,” Hassan replied, “There are more protests planned. This will be the second revolution, when we inshallah will get what we originally fought for.”

Postscript: Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians converged on Tahrir Square on January 25, 2012 to mark the one year anniversary of the original protests and to demand an end to the military’s role in Egypt. More recently a general strike was called on February 11. The revolution continues.

Reprinted with kind courtesy of NewMatilda.com, where this article was first published.