Egypt - Children of the Revolution This World

For a year Tahrir Square has been at the heart of a tumultuous struggle for freedom.

Last February, people from all over Egypt united in their desire

to bring down a dictator and build a new country.

This World has followed three young revolutionaries.

Ahmed's came from Cairo's backstreets to fight for an Egypt

where he can find work.

For Gigi, it is a battle for freedom.

While Tahir wants to build an Islamic state.

GUN SHOTS

Some dreams have been crushed.

Others have come closer.

It was a year which has divided families.

And a year that risked dividing the nation.

Once just another roundabout in Cairo,

Tahrir Square became the crucible of the Arab Spring.

Could Egypt become the model for an Islamic democracy in the Middle East?

Or would the dreams evaporate into intolerance and another dictatorship?

The battle begins on Police Day, 25th January, 2011.

Inspired by the successful uprising in Tunisia,

unofficial opposition groups called for a demonstration

against corruption and police brutality.

The 25th January, I remember that the first thing I did that day,

I went to get another battery for my BlackBerry.

At 24, student, Gigi Ibrahim, is a veteran of illegal protest.

Going into residential areas for people to join us.

We started being tens, then grew into hundreds and grew into thousands.

But I didn't realize the impact until I reached Tahrir.

CHANTING

I was so happy.

I have this clip on video, the exact moment

I knew this was a revolution.

We were in Tahrir and a huge wave

of central security officers started to run.

The people first ran as the normal reaction.

But then they stopped, some people started attacking.

And then a wave of protestors ran after the officers.

And the officers actually ran away.

SHE SCREAMS

I'm like, "Let's go! We've waited 30 years for this!"

This is the moment I physically saw people not being afraid and running after officers.

SHE SHOUTS

That night the thousands become tens of thousands who begin

to camp out in the square.

Ahmed Hassan joins the demonstration,

angry after years of suffering every day humiliations at the hands of the state.

Over the next 17 days, as the confrontation escalates,

hundreds are killed.

Instead of leaving, the crowd grows.

Ahmed is still there on February 10th and watches on an improvised screen

as President Mubarak appears on TV to calm his people.

The vast crowd, now made up of every strand of Egyptian society,

are united in their response, waving their shoes,

the ultimate sign of disrespect in the Arab world.

That night, the army, for years a mainstay of the Mubarak regime,

takes control.

At 6pm, a general arrives at the state TV building

with a recorded message from the vice president.

He orders it to be broadcast immediately.

THEY ALL SHOUT OUT

SHE LAUGHS WITH JOY

-THEY CHANT:

-Finish, Mubarak. Finish, Mubarak. Finish, Mubarak!

Finish, Mubarak!

The army joins the protesters on the square,

promising to oversee a transition to a democratic Egypt.

The morning after, Gigi and fellow revolutionaries celebrate

by clearing up their mess.

There is a sense that a new era has begun.

My dad, my dad. Hello.

He's asking about what happens next. He's asking me!

My dad asking me. That never happens!

Life has to go back to normal.

Like, people have got to go back to work.

Now, we fight,

we fight legitimately for free and fair elections

where the people are going to choose democratically for the first time ever.

Now, the real hard work starts. Really. It begins now.

Across Cairo,

Ahmed returns home to the slum of Shubra,

where unemployment runs at over 30%.

He lives with his widowed mother, Awatef, and younger brother, Amrr.

They are glued to the new debate shows on TV.

Ahmed is convinced that his life has changed for the better.

-TRANSLATION:

-God willing I will find work.

Now, after an employer finds out that I was part of the revolution,

he will never treat me badly like before. Impossible.

At his barber shop, Ahmed is the local hero.

They are conscious the world has been watching.

Every day at dawn,

Ahmed's mother Awatef gets up to purchase the vegetables for her market stall.

Not everyone supports the revolution.

Under Mubarak, the police were seen as a constant menace.

Harassment of a market trader had sparked the revolution in Tunisia.

-TRANSLATION:

-That boy set fire to himself. You'd never catch me doing that. Poor kid!

Government trucks would clear the street by force.

My friend, the baker, suffered more than any of us.

Since the day he moved in by my stall,

he's been dragged to and from police station.

They wouldn't let him go till they took a £100 bribe.

No-one dared to speak, or they'd get beaten and get taken to the police station too.

That's how we used to live.

This is the Nile River. Smelly.

SHE LAUGHS

I wish I had more time to come here more often.

My dad is here every single week.

Gigi inhabits a different world.

She is the American-educated daughter of a wealthy industrialist.

My dad is a business man, you know.

He has benefited but, at the same time, in the past few years

he really has suffered also from the regime.

SHE LAUGHS AND GREETS HER FAMILY

-She let me feel I am a failure.

-GIGI: No!

Honest, true. After this revolution, how come we stand?

I'm 55, 56 years old now.

I stay with the Mubarak regime for 30 years

and I didn't even think, think even to change.

How many generations were useless not to stand and say no?

This is what I feel. I feel bad.

Not everyone buys into the euphoria.

Gigi's aunt and sister are worried.

THEY ARGUE

Before the revolution, religious groups were ruthlessly suppressed.

The only real opposition to Mubarak was the illegal Muslim Brotherhood.

Now they are in the open, along with other Islamic groups

such as the ultra-conservative Salafis.

24-year-old Tahir Yasin is a Salafi.

HE SINGS TO HIMSELF

He has been in prison seven times from the age of 16

for organising Qu'ran classes.

For the first time in his life, he is free to preach as he wishes.

Tahir was held here, in the state security prison at Giza.

He claims that, like thousands of others, he was routinely tortured.

Tahir comes from a religious family of teachers and scholars, Salafis,

inspired by the Saudi Arabian model of Islam.

For Tahir, his family and friends, the Mubarak regime had sold out to the west.

They were all imprisoned for their beliefs.

The fall of Mubarak after 30 years has unsettled the whole country.

The head of the new military council, General Tantawi, appeals for order.

Gigi's father owns a clothing factory on the outskirts of Cairo.

Since the revolution, his workers, like many all over Egypt,

are demanding more rights and better pay.

He can't even visit his own factory.

I don't go to the factory because, if I go,

maybe 80%, 70% will strike.

If the workers stop working, it's a disaster.

Everyone thinks the new revolution, that means, I'm getting a salary now

1,000, I'll get 5,000. This is what you call freedom!

Gigi went to my factory and she turned the people against me.

My workers, turning against me because of Gigi. They tell me, "Ask your daughter!"

I think she's a Communist.

Gigi and her comrades are using social networking

to agitate across the country and organise strikes.

This is how exactly I would have expected our revolution to go.

There is a striking school at least in every governance,

doctors are also striking.

The fall of Mubarak is just the beginning.

Gigi wants to destroy the old system that made her father.

This is the disagreement that I've had with my dad.

It's like, he wanted to engage in the corrupted system

to make his life and his family's life better.

Why am I OK with this?

The revolution has done nothing to help Ahmed.

Even though he has a diploma in telecommunications,

he is still looking for work.

-TRANSLATION:

-When I go for jobs that suit my qualifications,

they only take people who bribe them or who have contacts.

I think it's high time for me to repay my mother for everything.

As a widow, Awatef put her sons through college herself.

-TRANSLATION:

-So many times I haven't eaten so I can feed my kids.

I lay on the bed all night with a stomach ache so painful I couldn't sleep.

Mubarak did nothing for his people.

He never felt anything for the suffering of the people.

There are so many much poorer than me.

Despite his diploma, the only work Ahmed has been offered is in a clothing factory.

-TRANSLATION:

-He's scared of me

because I was part of the revolution that toppled the Mubarak regime.

The revolutionaries are the bravest men in Egypt.

Ahmed decides to rejoin the revolutionaries on Tahrir Square.

MAN SPEAKS THROUGH MEGAPHONE

For so long driven underground,

politics is now on the streets all over the country.

Tahir has joined the new Party of Light, born out of his conservative Salafi movement.

Under Mubarak the Salafis operated as a secret charity.

Now they work from district to district,

openly using donations to win over possible supporters.

Accompanied by one of his party leaders, the purpose is to get noticed.

Tahir relishes the competition with more established groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

MAN LEADS CHANTING WITH LOUDSPEAKER

On the weekend of July 28th, the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood come together

to put on a show of force and claim the revolution for Islam.

Ahmed is concerned that the Islamists have a different agenda from the revolutionaries.

By chance, he runs into Tahir.

MAN LEADS CROWD IN SHOUTS OF "ALLAHU AKBAR"

Speakers call on the military to fulfil their promise of elections

and to try Mubarak.

The next day, Ahmed's mother, Awatef, sets out to fight.

The Islamists have taken over the square.

She discovers that women no longer have a place there.

As she tries to make her way through, the men object.

Finally she has to meet Ahmed on the edge of the square,

but her problems are not over.

SHE SPEAKS ARABIC

TRANSLATION: "Why are you sitting on the ground? You look like beggars."

I was upset when he humiliated me.

They were like Iranians, not Egyptians.

To be honest, I don't know anything about Iran, but I hear they're evil.

They don't act like normal people. I don't like it.

MUEZZIN CALLS

If they come to power, will they let women work?

Will they give me handouts so I can sit at home,

or are they going to make mincemeat of me for working?

Within days of the demonstration,

the military high command fulfil one promise.

They deliver Hosni Mubarak, their former commander in chief, for trial -

the man who for 30 years had been seen as crucial for maintaining peace in the Middle East.

He is accused of ordering the killing of the protesters in January.

THEY CHANT

Tahir watches the trial with his mother and brother-in-law,

along with the whole nation.

Watching this makes me remember all the chants, all the chants.

"We will put you in the cage when the revolution will come."

It's like all of our hard work are finally paying off.

SHE SPEAKS ARABIC

It's good.

No, this is too fattening.

Back at her sister's, Gigi finds that even her aunt has changed her tune.

Success!

At the same as putting Mubarak on trial, the military clear Tahrir Square of protesters

and clamp down on any form of dissent.

Over 12,000 civilians have been tried in military courts.

Gigi has been briefly detained by the military for filming at a strike.

As soon as she's released, she's back in front of the military courts,

tweeting to her 30,000 followers.

He was yelling and he was just like, "I'm gonna kill you," and I'm like... I'm looking at him

and I'm just like, "I wanna know why am I arrested, I need a lawyer, don't touch my stuff."

If you show them that you are weak or afraid, they really crack on you,

so I knew that I have to hold it together.

Filming on her phone, she and a friend confront an army officer.

Back home, Gigi's father is worried for his daughter.

Here is a good one.

You don't know the bad side of the country.

-You don't know the ugly face of the army...

-Luckily...

-..and the ugly face of the government.

She want it...quick. This is the youth people.

The youth, they are always...hurry. They are always... They want it fast.

This democratic, it take time. You have to teach the people how to think.

He now wants the army to remain in power.

Something is going on, we don't understand it really.

It's not clear yet to everybody.

-But...

-It's the army trying to stay in power.

-Well...and the army HAVE to stay in power.

Because we don't know the democracy.

This is the first to time to feel free, to feel this...

-SHE SPEAKS ARABIC

-"Freedom"!

Politically we just...arghh!.. completely disagree on everything.

I mean, you've heard... It's...

It's very difficult to talk about it with him,

cos it's very personal to me, and it's my dad...

'If I look at him in a political way it will be very, very conflicting,

'to the point that I would have to choose,

'and I never want to put myself in this position.

'If at some point I have to choose...like...I might just not choose my dad.'

On September 26th, the military council

finally announce parliamentary elections for the end of the year.

All the polls point to a win for the Muslim Brotherhood, who have a presence all over the country.

For Tahir's Salafi party, the campaign is an opportunity to spread their more conservative message.

He is proud of their new election posters.

The Salafi election advert confronts popular fears of their extremism.

The message has a strong appeal in the conservative countryside.

Tahir travels out of Cairo to secure the support of an old friend and village mayor,

Muhammed Abdul Sumed.

Tahir invites his friend to his wedding at the end of the year.

I wait number four!

Muhammed has been in power for as long as Mubarak.

This, to Tahir, is Salafi Egypt.

October 6th is Army Day, Egypt's annual holiday,

which this year would dissolve into violence that threatened to derail the elections.

As usual, the holiday begins with celebrations

of the army's victory over Israel in 1973.

TRANSLATION: I pray that I can join the army.

Maybe there are people waiting for someone to say no,

and we can all say no together.

# Get in, just get in

# Check out the trouble we're in... #

HARD ROCK PLAYS

The holiday gives Gigi the chance of a weekend on the Red Sea.

Ohhh! Look at that!

Oh, it's so beautiful.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, off record, the Salafi guys and all his family won't be happy seeing this part of Gigi!

That's never gonna happen, they're never gonna ban the bikini.

This is like...suppression of... you know...freedom of expression!

-INTERVIEWER:

-If the Salafis get power, would you regret the revolution?

It's not going to happen.

I really, really, really believe that it will never happen in Egypt.

We will never be another Iran, where there is an Islamic government,

or the Salafis would get in power or the Muslim Brotherhood would get in power,

because... it just does not work in Egypt.

Back in Cairo, a protest by the Christian minority against discrimination

is broken up by soldiers guarding the state TV station.

It turns into the most serious violence since the January revolution.

The authorities clamp down on reporting.

Independent TV stations are broadcasting live clashes between the demonstrators and the army

when soldiers appear in the studio to take them off air.

State television appeals to the Muslim majority,

accusing the Christians of setting out to destabilise the country.

Friends call Ahmed to come down to the demonstration.

Using his own camera, he decides to take on the role of reporter.

Gigi is stranded at the beach.

She is told the army and Islamic groups are forming an alliance to crush protest.

Something seems to happen and people are chanting, "Islam and the army are one hand."

From Democracy Now - "Egyptian state TV is completely distorting tonight's events,

"airing interviews of soldiers saying the Christians began by beating and shooting them."

27 protesters die.

The authorities accuse "invisible hands" for the deaths -

until footage appears online showing army vehicles running over protestors.

The dead are brought to the morgue of the local hospital.

Among them is one of Ahmed's fellow fighters from the January revolution.

Another of his friends is injured. They both feel the army has betrayed them.

CROWD CHANTS

The military continue to blame the protesters for the violence that is putting the elections at risk.

BOY RECITES VERSES

At his weekly Qu'ran class, Tahir is clear who is at fault.

The demonstrators are now labelled as enemies.

When Ahmed returns to the barbers,

his friend Imad from the Muslim Brotherhood openly challenges him.

-ALL:

-Salaam.

Find people, prepare the place, get the car,

get my suit, get her dress, get the...

Tahir has both an election and a wedding to organise.

Where are you?

So many ambulances are going to just pick up the injured... injures from Tahrir Square.

God be with us.

SIREN IN DISTANCE

OK. Who else? Ah, Wael, my cousin Wael.

For Tahir, the violence is now a conspiracy to subvert the elections.

With a week to the elections, downtown Cairo is a battleground.

The revolutionaries, who had inspired the January uprising,

now see the military council as a brutal continuation of the Mubarak regime.

They want justice for those killed.

Just a few streets away, campaigning continues -

the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis are determined that the elections go ahead.

So is the military council.

On 28th November, Egypt's first ever democratic elections are held.

CAMPAIGN SLOGANS THROUGH SPEAKER

For so many, this is the triumph of the revolution.

Just a year ago, Tahir was living under constant threat of imprisonment

for his religious activities.

He voted!

Now he is confident that the elections will bring real change.

You are not going to get down to the street and find alcohol market.

You are not going to find that, in Sha'allah.

The government is not going to support that any more.

Gigi spends the day filming and tweeting as an unofficial monitor.

She refuses to vote,

because of the violence and the continued detention of her fellow protesters.

Of course what we are living under right now is much worse than Mubarak days,

but that doesn't mean that we want Mubarak days to be back.

No, this means that we're that much closer to freedom.

If Egypt become a Muslim state,

Gigi might leave or she will fight and she will go to jail.

She doesn't understand yet.

She still thinks she can change, she can do more.

Even if she lose her life.

This is... For a father, this is very scary for me.

This is the revolution. Freedom doesn't come easily.

We have to pay in sacrifices of blood, arrest, injures

for us to win this battle and at the end win this war.

Ahmed is back on the square, with no intention of voting.

When the election results are announced,

as expected the Muslim Brotherhood end up as the biggest party.

Tahir's wedding turns into a double celebration.

His Salafi party have taken almost a quarter of the vote.

I feel like I am flying in the sky.

His father wants an end to chaos.

Tahir's plans for an Islamic Egypt are a step closer

and if the military attempt to stand in the way

the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood now have the strength to challenge them.

WOMEN ULULATE

For the Islamic parties, Egypt's revolution has for the first time brought the chance of real power.

But for many of those who went to Tahrir Square last January to overthrow a dictatorship,

the new Egypt has yet to be born.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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