Al-Ahram Weekly On-line
19 - 25 October 2000
Issue No. 504 
Palestinian flag over the Nile
By Fatemah Farag
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2000/504/pal62.htm
A mother and her son haggle in front of McDonalds. The boy wants a Happy Meal; his mother won't let him have it. "The money we give them to buy the hamburger is eventually used to provide the weapons that kill Palestinian children," she explains. Strangely enough, the boy stops whining and starts discussing other fast food options.
Across the nation, people are manifesting an unprecedented solidarity with the plight of the Palestinian people. There have been individual acts, such as refusing to buy American products; collective action undertaken by associations and syndicates; and spontaneous mass demonstrations. On Friday,sermons at mosques throughout the country were dominated by angry denunciations of Israeli brutality and calls for a boycott of Israeli and American products. The speakers of neighbourhood mosques blasted out heated sermons, and following Friday noon prayers worshippers poured onto the streets to chant slogans of resistance.
The largest turn-out was at Al-Azhar, where Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Imam, asked the faithful to "boycott Israel and all who support it in aggression and injustice." Thousands of men, women and children gathered outside the mosque and then marched down the road, ignoring the truckloads of riot police around them as they shouted out anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian slogans. Eventually, they peacefully dispersed.
The following day ushered in a further escalation in the expression of popular anger. Thousands of students at Cairo University demonstrated on campus and, at about 3.30pm, made their way out onto the street. There they were joined by passers-by. In an act that seemed to symbolise opposition to America's support of Israel, protesters smashed a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. Security forces clashed with the students, who eventually returned to the university campus. Several policemen, and about 60 students, were injured in the resulting scuffles, and three activists were later arrested at their homes.
Security forces also used force to break up a protest by approximately 8,000 students calling for "war against Israel" in the Upper Egyptian town of Minya.
Also on 14 October, thousands of students demonstrated in Alexandria, calling on Arab leaders to take a bold stand by allowing them to fight beside their Palestinian brothers. Indeed, the slogan repeated over and over by students during the past two weeks has been: "Where is the army? We want war!"
On Sunday, and in what seemed to be an attempt to pre-empt repeated demonstrations at Cairo University, 65 students, three of them women, many of them leftists, were arrested at the university doors. Seven were remanded in custody for 15 days. The rest were released in the early hours of Monday.
The next day, an estimated 10,000 students rallied at Alexandria and Mansoura universities. At Cairo University, some one hundred professors from the universities of Cairo, Ain Shams, Helwan, Alexandria and Assiut held a silent march during which they raised banners that read: "No to Barak on Egyptian territory" (a clear reference to the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit) and "A Free and Arab Palestine." In a statement read to students and presented to the university president, professors urged the release of detained students and for freedom of speech to be respected. Other demands included the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, the severing of all ties with the state of Israel, and an end to oil sales to Israel.
Despite the arrests, Cairo University on Monday witnessed yet more demonstrations. This time, the influence of the Islamist movement was very much in evidence. Student activists argued that the government's clampdown on the left had given the Islamists an opportunity to fill the void. "The day before the wide-scale arrests, the head of security [at Cairo University] told students that they should follow the example of the [outlawed] Muslim Brotherhood," a leftist student, who preferred to remain anonymous, remarked. "The Brotherhood is known to follow security orders and was actually hostile to our demonstrations. It is the same old scenario: the government supports the Islamists to hit at the left, but by doing so they risk creating a monster."
By the end of Monday, another 28 students had been arrested, four of whom were remanded in custody for 15 days. Three more students were arrested at their homes in the early hours of Tuesday. Later that day, 7,000 students demonstrated at Ain Shams University, denouncing the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit as "shameful".
As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press, 15 students from Ain Shams University and 14 from Cairo University had been remanded in custody for 15 days.
Twenty-three students, wanted by the police, are on the run. It wasn't only university students who were bent on expressing their anger.
One of the most extraordinary manifestations of popular outrage was the engagement of primary and high-school students. Almost every day there were reports of children leaving their schools in groups, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and carrying hand-drawn Palestinian flags. They were surrounded by the police and reprimanded by their teachers; and yet they continued to come out in droves. Mothers told their work companions how their children, aged seven, eight or nine, had drawn Israeli flags with the intention afterwards of burning them. A Monday sit-in at the Press Syndicate initially attracted only dozens, but the number was boosted when students of nearby schools heard the loudspeakers and decided to join the rally. The protest, organised by the Freedoms Committee of the Press Syndicate, gave its support to a boycott of Israeli/American products, support for arrested students and condemnation of the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit. A more elaborate solidarity event is planned for 7pm today, where singer Ali El-Haggar and poet Ahmed Fouad Negm will appear. Similarly, lawyers held a second sit-in at the headquarters of the Bar Association on Tuesday.
The most comprehensive action by professional syndicates came from entertainers. The General Federation of Entertainers Syndicates (including the professions of acting, cinema and music) held a rally on 13 October.
They also sent a telegram to the minister of tourism, requesting him to prohibit the entry of Israeli tourists into Egypt; a telegram to the minister of agriculture, requesting him to dismiss Israeli "agricultural experts"; and a telegram to the minster of information, requesting him to remove "frivolous" TV programmes and make room for individuals to express their nationalist sentiments.
"We have prepared a draft statement that we will submit to the Arab summit. We are holding a daily sit-in between 8 and 10 pm until the Israeli ambassador is thrown out. Theatres will fly the Palestinian flag at their entrances, and all shows must begin with observing a minute's silence in honour of the Palestinian martyrs and actors will take time to explain to the audience what the Arab-Israeli conflict is about and why we should take a stance," explained Nasser Abdel-Moneim, a stage director. "We are also concerned with organising a longer-term campaign and, towards this end, we have established a Boycott Committee which will prepare lists of American and Israeli products. Moreover, actors will distribute copies of these lists on the streets and talk to people about the importance of the boycott.
Finally, we are organising a concert, the revenues of which will go to support the Palestinian Intifada," he added. The Tourist Guides Syndicate also released a statement, which articulated its anger in the form of an English-language poem entitled "Storms of violence."
Artists in solidarity: In support of the Palestinian Intifada, a four- day plastic arts exhibition was inaugurated on Monday with proceeds going to victims of the violence in the occupied territories, reports Nevine El-Aref.
Ahmed Nawar, head of the Plastic Arts Department at the Ministry of Culture, opened the exhibition, For You Jerusalem, at the Hanager Centre where more than 1,000 works are on display. "This is the first time such a large number of artists have participated in one exhibition," Nawar said. They included Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, Nawar, Helmi El-Tuni, Mustafa El-Razaz and Esmat Ouda Basha. Unsold works will be displayed for four days at the Ahmed Shawki Museum in Giza.
A late-comer to the solidarity action was non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The Arab Organisation for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession deplored the Interior Ministry's refusal to allow entertainers to proceed to the Rafah border checkpoint in a pro-Palestine rally. Thirty-three Arab human rights organisations and NGOs collectively denounced US policy and called on the United Nations to take decisive action. Five Egyptian women's groups demanded of women's and human rights groups worldwide that they "support all action against the barbaric and brutal murder of unarmed Palestinians." A statement issued by the Arab Women's Solidarity Association called for Arab unity and declared its solidarity with the Palestinian people.
A group of approximately 20 NGOs and 20 individuals also formed the Egyptian Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Intifada. According to Hala Shukralla, one of the committee's founding members, "we issued invitations to all grassroots organisations to take the initiative of forming similar committees, and all should encourage Palestinians and Egyptians to coordinate their actions. So far, the ideas we have come up with include organising blood and money donations, preparing lists for the boycott of Israeli products and distributing them to grocers, and printing stickers.
There are many different forms solidarity can take, but the important thing is to organise the movement and link it so that we have a concerted effort all the way from Aswan to Alexandria."
The Committee is also organising two petitions, on each of which they hope to collect one million signatures. One is addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, calling for the immediate formation of an international investigation committee, the formal protection of Palestinians, and the endorsement of the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. The other is addressed to President Hosni Mubarak, urging him to close the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and bring to an end all movements towards normalisation with Israel.
One of the most common demands by all the different groups of demonstrators was for the boycott of Israeli and American products. Although an Anti-Normalisation Committee has been debating this form of resistance since 1979, it has finally caught on in the street. Last week, high-school students in the Pyramids area attacked a Sainsbury's branch after rumours spread that the supermarket chain was Israeli-owned. Since then, campaigns under such banners as "Boycott a product, protect a Muslim" and "Boycott is the simplest way to burn the forces of darkness," have become all the rage.
At the American University in Cairo (AUC), students distributed a list prepared by the Egyptian Chambre of Commerce that detailed products which should be boycotted, including Coca-Cola, most fast-food chains, Barby dolls, Proctor and Gamble products, TRANE air-conditioners and the Egyptian-American Bank. Alternatives were suggested.
On Sunday, hundreds of businessmen assembled at the Chambre of Commerce, whose membership amounts to 3.5 million, to raise the slogan: "No to Israeli industry." Head of the Chambre, Khaled Abu-Ismail, told reporters that "lists of products people should not buy have been widely distributed."
How effective a boycott would be and what should be on the list are controversial issues. Israeli exports to Egypt in the year 2000 reflect an 80 per cent increase over 1999 figures, reaching a total of LE52 million Apparently in a panic, Sainsbury's took out a front page advert in a daily newspaper that stated it had never had any Israeli connections. Capitalising on the situation was a major supermarket competitor, which took out a similar advert in the same newspaper, highlighting the fact that they are 100-per-cent Egyptian.
The wide variety of other actions including some 20,000 people marching to the Palestinian-Egyptian border at Rafah on 15 October demanding entry in Gaza, only to be dispersed by police and their tear-gas canisters; demonstrations in Port Said and Sadat City; and a blood donation campaign organised by the Ministry of Health for its employees on 16 October, which was inundated by passers by.
(Money donations in support of the Palestinian cause can be made to the Palestinian Red Crescent, account number 756350, the Arab Bank, Heliopolis branch, 49 Beirut Street. Donations to the Palestinian Red Crescent can also be made through the National Bank. The Palestinian Embassy is also accepting donations through all branches of the Arab Bank, account number 865183.
Blood donations can be given at The Palestine Hospital, seven days a week from 9 am to 9 pm, Thawra Street, Heliopolis.
