The Republic of False Truths

by Alaa Al Aswany

  TESTIMONY OF NASHWA ABD EL AZIZ

  A master sergeant asks me, “Are you pregnant, girl?”

  I told him, “No, I’m a virgin.” He said, “Whatever. We’ll soon find out whether you are or not.”

  We went to the military prison at Hykestep. The first snapshot, as it were, that you see when you get out, inside the prison, is a picture of Mubarak staring at you, just like that, recently hung and brand new. We started going in for examination. They were using two rooms which opened onto one another. One room you went into and waited your turn to be examined, and in the other room there was a woman warder called Azza, who wore a black head-to-toe covering. It had a door that was ajar, not shut. What did the examination consist of, ma’am? It consisted of you undressing completely and standing without any clothes. Just imagine yourself standing stripped of your clothes and every bit of your body in full view and then they ask you, if you have some injury, “How did you get this injury?” and then you sit down and have to do sit-ups and the window’s open and the doors are open and the soldiers are coming and going looking at you—how do you feel? I can tell you it was a terrible feeling. Even up till today I haven’t been able to get rid of it. Up till today I’m still really suffering from the whole thing.

  The head of the police station came and spoke to me. At that moment there were girls inside, being inspected. He says to me, “What’s the matter?”

  I tell him, “Sir, women aren’t supposed to see one another’s private parts. They’re not supposed to be exposed, in Islam. Anyway, I don’t know why you think I’d do something like that.” He told me, “If you won’t let Madame Azza examine you, I’ll get a private to do it.”

  I went in and I was forced to let her examine me, which at least was better than some man coming and doing it. What would it have been like if a private soldier had come and examined me? Azza examined us so thoroughly she even took our hair down. She took out the pins in our headscarves. But one thing was special. She called out to the soldier when I was naked—can you believe it, I was inside naked and she asked the soldier and the soldier was standing there and we were all naked?—“Should I take this hairgrip out or not?” The woman really had no feelings. Seriously, she’s not human if she brings in a soldier when I’m naked and asks him something or other. She wouldn’t even agree to have him wait outside. No, she made him come inside when we were all naked and wearing no clothes. No matter how much I talk about it or describe it, I can’t tell you how I felt. I can’t describe that feeling but there was fury and huge anger, seriously. I don’t understand how they can treat humans worse than they treat animals. I can’t put words to it.

  After that a doctor came in to see us. He had some sort of blank list in his hand in which he entered each of us and if she was a Miss or a Mrs. and everyone went and put her thumbprint to it. After that, the master sergeant called Ibrahim came in and said, “If any of you says she’s a virgin and she isn’t, I’ll give her an electric shock and beat her,” and he said something else that meant that he’d have sex with her. In those terms, but a bit uglier and I can’t say it. We said to him, “No. Why are you saying that?” And he said, “Because there’s going to be a doctor’s examination.” We objected, “How can anyone do that?” He said, “It’s orders.” After a little while, the private came and took us. He took us into the second room, the one where there were thirteen girls when we were together. He told us, “The girls go to one side and the married ladies to the other.” There were seven of us young girls on one side. The married ladies were sitting down.

  We refused the doctor’s examination, but it was done against our will and in the most disrespectful way. I want you to understand. If you weren’t examined, you’d be beaten and given electric shocks and they’d still examine you. I went out and saw they were bringing a bed into the corridor between the two rooms. My turn was number five on the list. The people there were the master sergeant Ibrahim, the doctor, and the female warder. I was afraid, terrified of what was going to happen. Why were they doing this? Of course, the door to the prison was open, so there was nothing to stop anyone coming in when you were like that. Of course, I began to undress, and I got onto the bed and the doctor examined me. After he’d examined me and seen and confirmed that I was a virgin, he wrote a statement that I was a virgin and untouched and intact and I followed him. Put yourself in my place or your children in my place and imagine how you’d react. Think of your sister or yourself or any mother or decent woman who’s sitting at home and ask, “Why do you go down into Tahrir Square?” Imagine your daughter in that situation and ask yourself what you’d do.

  TESTIMONY OF LUBNA ASAAD MUHAMMAD GAD

  I am Lubna Asaad Muhammad Gad. I was part of the sit-in in Tahrir Square and then there was the shooting on Wednesday, and I went back to see what was going on and defend my colleagues and try to get them out because I was afraid for them. Suddenly I heard shooting and people trying to shoot anybody who was around. The army used live ammunition. To be honest, I’ve no idea where I found the courage, but I stood up in front of them and I said, “Either you shoot me or you bring me my friends!”

  Of course, no one paid any attention to me. After the shooting died down, I was going back, and I still hadn’t got to in front of the museum when I found I’d been arrested. Some member of the public told me “The army wants you” and there wasn’t just one, there were about fifteen standing round me. One was holding my hands like this, as though he was holding on to a thief or a thug. So I was walking in the middle of a group of men and they took me and delivered me to the general. I really don’t know what to say about that general, except God forgive him. Really, I don’t know what to say. When he first saw me, he told me, “Calm down, calm down.” I thought he must be a kind, good man but then I found him suddenly raining slaps on my face, saying, “See, you’re the prostitutes who’ve filled the country and got the people to march behind you and made out that you aren’t scared even though you’re really cowards. Look at you, frantic as a chicken now you’re in front of us!”

  I asked him, “Why have I been arrested, sir? On what charge? What have I done to you?” Bottom line, I was under arrest. Of course, the electric shocks began on my legs—something called “the electrics,” meaning electric shocks to my legs. Girls, by the way, they’d give electric shocks to on their breasts and on their legs. Something very improper and extremely impolite and with bad words no one ought to have to put up with. I was in a state of nervous collapse at that point and then one of our colleagues, as soon as he saw me, came in and said to the officers, “Guys, this is my fiancée!,” so they took him and beat him up. One of his arms was already broken so they broke the other for him and kept giving him electric shocks and then they took him and put him with the men. When me and the girls went to the military prison, we went into a room with two doors and a window. The doors opened onto one another. We kept pleading with this lady to close the doors and the window, but she wouldn’t. The girls would take off all their clothes and get examined and there were cameras outside that were photographing us so that prostitution files could be drawn up against us, but nobody knew about all that, nobody noticed. Not all the girls noticed the cameras outside that were photographing us, so that prostitution files could be drawn up against us, while we were taking off all our clothes. The girls who said they were virgins were examined by someone, we had no idea if he was a doctor or a private or which one of the people they have.

  42

  When Ashraf Wissa recalls what happened that day, he feels astounded. He was in the ground-floor flat with Ikram, two of the boys, and three girls. They were totally surrounded. Outside were more than twenty thugs armed with knives and crude, home-made guns who had actually begun to break into the flat, after first pelting it with stones and breaking the windowpanes. How had he managed to maintain his poise during those critical moments? The only thing that had mattered to him was to protect Ikram and the girls,
so he made them go into an inner room while the two boys phoned their colleagues, who quickly arrived from the square, and a terrible battle with the thugs began in which some of the young men were injured and taken to the field hospital. Faced by such fierce resistance, the thugs took to their heels. Three of them were seized and disarmed and then filmed on video as they confessed that they had received money from businessmen to attack the revolutionaries and evict them from the square. They also stated that officers from National Security had given them detailed instructions and a plan of attack for certain identified locations, among them Ashraf Wissa’s home, where the revolutionaries held their meetings. During the thugs’ confessions, Ashraf had to intervene to prevent the young people from assaulting them. One young man objected, shouting, “Mr. Ashraf, let us teach them a lesson! The bastards came to kill us.”

  Ashraf replied firmly, “You arrested them, so you’re responsible for them. To harm them would be dishonourable.”

  Ashraf smiled bitterly when he remembered that they’d handed the thugs and the videos of the confessions over to a lieutenant colonel in the military police; they would discover later that he’d let the thugs go. At that point, they still believed that the army supported the revolution, though its true intentions were soon to appear. How did Ashraf survive all these battles? Where did he find such strength and courage? Being an only child, he hadn’t even done military service. Now, he found himself in a strange and astonishing world. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was dreaming, or that the original life that he’d known had come to an end and he’d now begun a new one. How had he plunged into all those clashes and faced death without fear when he’d never till then taken part in a single fight? At the Lycée, he’d been a model student, and he couldn’t remember causing a single problem or taking part in any hooliganism. Being a Copt, his position had always been delicate. He’d learned to follow the rules and resort to good manners to overcome the aggression of others through friendliness. He’d learned to prefer peace to justice in a society that discriminated on the basis of religion. And being the son of an aristocratic family, he’d always been a polite, well-dressed student who’d arrive with well-ironed clothes and shining shoes. Then he’d graduated from the Lycée and entered the American University, where he lived in a well-off, closed society with little interest in what went on in Egypt. This isolation had left its stamp on his life. With the frustration of his hopes as an actor and the failure of his marriage, feelings of depression and bitterness had grown within him, making him take refuge in hashish. Now, it was as though he’d broken through the shell within which he’d been imprisoned all his life and had launched himself into a new, real life. He felt he’d begun to think, move, and walk in a different way. Even his voice became warmer and more confident. His life was now freighted with missions to fulfil—preparing food and drink, and organising the meetings of the coordinating committee, which were held on the ground floor. He’d never forget the moment he’d experienced on the square when the fall of Mubarak had been announced. He’d never imagined that he’d live to see a million people cheer and shout and weep for joy. He’d hugged Ikram, burst into tears, and begun crying out, “The martyrs have taken their first rights, Ikram!”

  He kept repeating this sentence at the top of his voice, though no one could hear it because the cheering was so loud. Hundreds of thousands were chanting, “Hold Your Head Up High, You’re Egyptian!”

  That night, he’d insisted that Ikram drink a bottle of beer in celebration of the victory of the revolution. She danced for him and the two of them passed a night he’d never forget. Mubarak’s resignation was, however, swiftly followed by other events. It had been Ashraf’s opinion, as well as that of some of the revolutionaries, that they should continue the sit-ins in the squares and elect a Higher Committee from among themselves to oversee the implementation of all the revolution’s demands. However, the dominant opinion was that everyone should withdraw and cede authority to the Military Council. Ashraf Wissa and those with him did, however, succeed in having the committee meet weekly at least, in addition to any emergency meetings that Dr. Abd El Samad, its head, or three of its members, might call. The morning after Mubarak stepped aside, Magda phoned him and said sarcastically, “I thought I’d congratulate you on the president’s resignation.”

  “Thank you!” Ashraf responded.

  “I suppose you’ll be going back to your normal life now.”

  “My life is normal, Magda.”

  “I meant, you’ll give up the revolution and all that stuff.”

  “Once the revolution has realised its goals.”

  “What else do you people want?”

  “The goal wasn’t just to overthrow Mubarak. The whole regime has to change.”

  “So you don’t want me to come home.”

  “You’re welcome any time you want to come.”

  “I can’t possibly come until the house is back to the way it was.”

  “It’ll never be the way it was.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the revolution has changed everything.”

  Magda was silent for a moment, then said, angrily, “You’ve really lost your mind, Ashraf. Goodbye.”

  She ended the call but kept up the pressure by various means. A few days later, Butrus and Sarah phoned him. They’d phoned him during the first days of the revolution, and he’d informed them of his participation in the demonstrations. At the time, he’d felt that they hadn’t really completely taken things in, but he’d reassured them without going into details. This time, he sensed a certain disapproval in their voices, after the polite expressions of affection. He realised that their mother must have phoned them. She’d always known how to influence them and make them do what she wanted. He had an affectionate conversation with them, then said, in a serious tone of voice, “Don’t worry about me, I’m doing fine. I have to go now because I have a meeting of the coordinating committee.”

  After the call, Ashraf felt sad. Why were Butrus and Sarah never convinced by his logic? Why was their mother capable of planting any idea she wanted in their minds? Was it because their mother was the successful model, he the unsuccessful? The thought pained him. Sometimes he sought to excuse them, on the grounds that she was their mother, but then he’d say to himself again, “Even if their mother’s influence over them was once so absolute, aren’t they supposed to think independently once they became mature young people?”

  A week later, he was surprised to receive a visit from Marina, Magda’s niece, who brought with her a large, empty suitcase. Magda had sent her to get her clothes from the house. Naturally, Marina was expecting a scene of high drama befitting the sad occasion on which a wife abandons the home and sends someone to fetch her clothes. She was amazed to find that he accepted the matter straightforwardly and talked to her with affection, as though they were at a picnic. Magda stayed on the phone with her while Marina gathered the clothes, and he noticed that she didn’t take all of them. He knew Magda would continue to try to exert influence over him, and he watched what went on calmly. Why didn’t Magda bring up the subject of Ikram at all? She fought with him over the revolution but made no reference to Ikram whatsoever. He was living on his own in the flat with her. Wouldn’t that make any wife jealous? But he knew her. She was ignoring the subject of Ikram because she considered herself far too superior to compete with a maid, and because talking about Ikram would stir up a lot of gossip in her family, which would be embarrassing for her, and also because she didn’t love him enough to be jealous or, to be honest, didn’t love him at all. He didn’t love her either and couldn’t care less about her, as though he’d been freed from her forever, as though she belonged to a past that was behind him and he’d made the decision never to look back. Now he was doing what he wanted and he felt, perhaps for the first time, that his life was useful. Now he had an icon in which he could find solace. Whenever he felt tired or was seized by
doubts as to the value of what he was doing, he’d recall the young man who’d fallen before his eyes on the Friday of Rage. He remembered his body stretched out on the shoulders of the demonstrators and his ordinary, cheap clothes. He remembered the jeans, trainers, and shabby black pullover. He remembered his fixed stare into nothingness, as though he’d seen in death something we can’t in life. When the army began its attacks on the demonstrators and the violation of girls through the virginity tests occurred, Ashraf had said at the meeting, “I’ve always thought that all those generals were Mubarak’s children and we shouldn’t trust them.”

  Then he proposed the formation of a committee to bring a case against the army. Some members threw doubt on the possibility of the idea succeeding, saying, “The case will be heard by the military courts. Do you really expect the army to condemn itself?”

  At this point, Karim, a lawyer, intervened, stressing that it was possible to bring a case before the administrative courts. Ashraf waited until they’d finished, then said, “The aim of the virginity tests was to break the girls’ will and to humiliate them. Unfortunately, the backward traditions of our society make that easier. The point of the case isn’t to win it before the military courts but to focus the spotlight on the virginity tests. We have to encourage the girls to talk and rid them of their feelings of shame. If we realise one of these two aims, we will have achieved something.”