~~from my classmate~~

 One of my class mate is from Egypt and with that country hitting the headlines for the past one week. She was on the streets in Cairo protesting on Jan 25th but came back to NYC to attend the college.She sent a detailed mail to all our classmates under what circumstances that the revolution is taking place.

Hello fellow pepmers,

  As an Egyptian, I felt it was my duty to explain to u all the current situation in my beloved country; after all that is the only thing I can do at the time being, since im not able to join those brave protestors back home who are trying to free Egypt from its DICTATOR.

  As u all know, Egypt is an old, historical country(7000 years old); it’s known as the land of civilization, culture, history, prestige & wealth. Its current main sources of income are tourism (we have 1/3 of the world’s monuments),cotton & natural gas exports, revenues of the Suez Canal(one of the most pivotal and important hubs in the world) as well as remittances. Egypt is one of the most populated countries in the Middle East (84 million) and is considered the leader and most influential country in its region.

  Mubarak has been ruling us for 30 years now -since 1981. He is a military man and is now 82 years old- one of the world’s oldest presidents!!

  During those 30 years, Mubarak managed to DERAIL Egypt; turning it from a rich, strong, pivotal, leading and higly infleuntial country into a poor, weak and chaotic one.

  Latest data show that 40% of the Egyptians live in absolute poverty; the unemployment rate is 30%; we have very very high levels of corruption(everything now is run with bribary,embezzelment and nepotism); we have a very high level of income inequality (where 2% of the population possess 80% of the country’s wealth; with the middle class nearly demolishing!!).We also have a very low education quality,degraded health services and increasing levels of illegal external immigration.

  On the political side, Mubarak managed to stay president for 30 years through FORGING elections; both presidential and parliamentary(sometimes the voters lists would include names of dead people who have miraculously voted yes to him!!!!). He has been ruling us under the so-called Emergency Law, which gives him the right to jail and even shoot anyone who opposes him without any trial!! Ofcourse, his plan was to stay president till he dies, and then his son would take over- thus turning Egypt from a republic into a “republicharchy” ; a mixture between a republic and a monarchy.

  For all the above reasons, the Egyptians finally decided to stand up against this Dictator and tell him we’ve had enough (we were ofcourse inspired by the success of the Tunisian revolution that occurred recently).

  Our revolution started on Jan 25th. Since then, Mubarak did everything to make it fail; he blocked the internet, switched off the phone lines, suspended the trains, cut off oil & food supplies, killed the protesters (so far almost 500 were killed), spread fear, terrorism and looting in the streets.

  Yet, HE DID NOT SUCCEED IN KILLING OUR REVOLUTION; ON THE CONTRARY HE MADE US MORE ANGRY & MORE DETERMINED TO GET HIM DOWN & HE WILL BE DOWN SOOON.

Wish us good luck


Though she is feeling that she is not in her country when its making history ,she is creating awareness on whats happening there to  the outside world .