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Okay, don’t judge this as an article. It’s more of an emotionally heated diary entry I wrote on 3^rd July 2013.

About thirty months ago, the Egyptian society uprooted a tyrant. It was a bloody revolution, which took place over eighteen days, where tens of hundreds died in cold blood. Fast-forward to today, another tyrant, one of immense foolishness and absolutely no sense, has been ousted, this time, by a Coup d'état supported by the Egyptian crowds who rallied all over the nation forming the largest protests in the history of mankind with a total of twenty-two million civilians. This is not a political report so I’m going to cut to the chase. This is my story in the last two and a half years as an Egyptian, legally at least…

When the first revolution commenced, in the beginning of 2011, I was yet a resident of Dubai and was unknowledgeable about Egyptian politics of any sort. Luck came my way when I happened to be on vacation here and the uprising occurred. After lots of analytical reflection, pondering, and going through things in my head, I realized that I wanted to visit Tahrir Square so I did and it was a liberating experience. For a little while, I got the feeling that this place was ‘home’, but I was fourteen, naive and deluded, so makes sense.

On a personal and local basis, from the time that Mubarak was uprooted last year until this week was very chaotic. Nationally, the country went through several ups and downs with the Supreme council of armed forces taking over for a while then the Muslim brotherhood did. At that time, I moved to Egypt. The way I failed at relating with society as a whole got me thinking over my perception of home and how chanting and protesting in a place doesn’t make it home. It remains one where I feel secluded and left out. My introverted-ness along with the stagnant economy, lack of job security and overall decline in safety made me despise the nation as a whole. Being someone who always thinks things over, I realized that Egypt wasn’t my home and more importantly, I don’t have one, at least for now.

After having reached said conclusion, when my parents, politically aware individuals, started protesting, four days ago, I clearly told them that Egypt meant nothing to me and although my apathy annoyed them, they were respectful. I had a revelation when I discussed the issue with a friend who was caught in a similar dilemma but protested. He said, “If you don’t revolt now, minorities like us will still be apathetic centuries from now. If blacks, gays and women didn’t revolt in first-world countries, over the last centuries, they wouldn’t have become first world countries.” It took me a while to process that and I only went to Tahrir under immense parental pressure on the last day.

The momentum in Tahrir square said, “We can defy gravity if we want to. The sky wasn’t the limit, there was none.” I’m not going to elaborate on that because I did in an earlier article. When I went though, I couldn’t protest though. I just sat there, staring, preoccupied with the products of months of thinking. Why did I want to do this? Why did being here feel right? Would I do it If I were somewhere else? Am I Egyptian at heart?

The conclusive answer to me was when Ex-President Mohamed Morsi was finally ousted by the army. I was gloriously joyous. It wasn’t for me though. I was most likely out of there in a year and never coming back. I sat there, expressing my joy in ways differing from the rest of the crowd around me, talking in a different language. This was a victory for the world as a whole, the elimination of yet another tyrant. Things will get better for minorities in Egypt now and who knows what artistic or scientific achievement that will bring to us, and by us I mean the world as a whole. Cliché as it might sound, I truly do understand what ‘world citizen’ means now.