Interview Transcript (Cover page)
Interviewer: Nadine El Shiaty
Narrator: Ahmed El Shiaty
Dates: 08/03/11
Place:
Narrator’s home
4 Ibn Marwan St, Dokki
Cairo, Egypt
Date completed: 8 March , 2011

Transcript page
Nadine El Shiaty Ahmed El Shiaty Interview 2/8
8 March 2010
Persons present: Nadine El Shiaty, Ahmed El Shiaty and Wafaa Fadel
Nadine : Good evening, this is Nadine El Shiaty, a journalism student from
Multimedia Writing class and this is my Story Corp. project. Uhhh, for this project I am going to be conducting an interview about the Egyptian revolution with Mr.
Ahmed El Shiaty, my father, who was the first to kindly accept my interview request.
Mom did accept too but she had one condition which is to remain anonymous (a serious frown from mom). Sorry mom, this is a recorded interview and I can't grant you anonymity! So, dad, could you please introduce yourself to the listeners (name, age, profession, area of residence etc...)
Ahmed El Shiaty (smiling): yes, my name is Ahmed El Shiaty, I am a pharmacist, my age is 56 years old and we live in Dokki.
Nadine : okay, my first question to you, the Egyptian revolution as we all know began with mass protests in Egypt on Tuesday, January 25 th
. When did you start thinking of these protests as a revolution?
Shiaty : well, to be frank I had no idea about that kind of movement. I only heard from some of the youth that they are conducting some sort of demonstrations, they would like to express their anger, their will that they can have a better life or may have a better life, they may have better freedom and quality of life meaning that they are free

Nadine El Shiaty Ahmed El Shiaty Interview 3/8 to express themselves. They feel that there is a lot of injustice, uhh, just happening, so they just want to say no, we just don't like what's going on.
Uhh, well, to be honest, I didn't really, uhh, what do you call, uhh ..
Nadine : you didn't think that ..
Shiaty (interrupting): no, no it wasn't really serious, it is just like you know , when everybody was uhh, when I was young I had some uhh enthusiasm that I would like to everything to be perfect. I mean it's a way to express oneself. So I felt that they will have some time and then this will all subside (pause). But actually I was really shaken on Friday when I heard and seen the people not only youth just marching to Tahrir
Square. Uhh, well what they were saying that what everybody wanted actually, but we didn't dare to say so. It was really courageous for them to say so, uhh, maybe we are elder, we didn't have the guts to say so out loud.
Nadine : okay, you didn't go to Tahrir Square, but seening what's happening in the streets on television, how did you react? What was your main concern from what's happening?
Shiaty (sigh): uhh, well, it was really a shame that the Egyptian television did not really cover the incident in a .. you know ,, in a, in the professional sense, uhh..
Nadine: transparently you mean ?
Shiaty : no, no , no I mean they were pro-government, they didn't show what the people want. Actually I was watching the other satellite channels, Al Jazeera, Al
Hurra, Al Arabiya, they really have a better coverage and meanwhile they had some guests to interview so that these guests were trying to explain what's happening, what

Nadine El Shiaty Ahmed El Shiaty Interview 4/8 are the ideas, what are the strategies, it is not like what really the Egyptian media has said. They were all ..
Nadine : looting and spies
Shiaty : no, no, no before, uhh
Nadine : Ah the agendas, hidden agendas
Shiaty : yes, hidden agendas belonging to Iran, to Israel or whoever. It wasn't really, uhh, it wasn't really true and it was funny. So when I was watching the Egyptian television, the Egyptian coverage it was really embarrassing to feel that our media is not really honest in demonstrating what's actually happening.
Nadine : so, uh, my next question, in your opinion why did this revolution happen now? Why not earlier?
Shiaty (sigh): well, uhhh, you, you can't tell if there was any actual, uh, let us say predisposing factors, but uhh I mean the people were undergoing stress, and injustice and you know that we all say that the Egyptian are like "Camel". The camel is very tolerant, so it takes you know injustice, it takes, uhh what you call, uhh,
Nadine : perseverance?
Shiaty : no, no, no, no uhh abuse, I wanted to say abuse, but it's always patient but you never know when the camel is going to, to, to strike back.
Nadine : okay. Uhh do you think that Facebook was the main force driving somehow the revolution ? because of like the quick pace of information ..
Shiaty (interrupting): no, it was like the spark, it was like the spark. Many people wanted to express but they didn't know how, they didn't know, uhh, where to go and

Nadine El Shiaty Ahmed El Shiaty Interview 5/8 how to start, so uhh, actually the youth were the, uhh what do you call ,, the fuse that has just started the revolution.
Nadine : okay.
Shiaty: It is also injust to say that it is only a youth revolution but it was a revolution that comprised all the Egyptians, all categories of Egyptians, old, young, the poor, rich..
Nadine (interrupting): even kids
Shiaty: cultured, yes, what do you call, uhh ignorant, sophisticated people, artists, everybody. Everybody was participating; they just felt that they are saying what they wanted to say. So they were all going to express themselves right now.
Nadine : okay, umm, what were the main issues, in your opinion that were wrong in
Mubarak's regime or his government?
Shiaty: it's a.. what do you call it's a "one man's show", and this is since the Pharaohs that Egypt was always ruled by one man. It is maybe the .. what do you call the nature of the Egyptians, they love heroes, they don't only love heroes but they make some
Gods of the heroes, so, uhh it actually happened after the king has gone, they felt that
Nasser would be that hero, would be the first Egyptian after long time , he was the first Egyptian to rule Egypt since the pharaohs so they were supporting Nasser, uhh feeling that he will do the best for Egypt , unfortunately, starting from Nasser's regime it was a police uhh, state. Everybody was watched, everybody was monitored, you cannot say except what the president want, you never have the chance to protest or there was no places, uhh let us say there was no institutions where you can go and

Nadine El Shiaty Ahmed El Shiaty Interview 6/8 express yourself freely, without being punished or without being uhh, uhh put into prison.
Nadine: so what you are basically saying at the beginning that uhh
Shiaty: no, Mubarak's regime is an extension to uhh, Nasser's regime uhh, Egypt, uhh
July revolution has started.
Nadine: 1952
Shiaty: yes it was a military revolution so this is normal happening with the military regime, all military just feel that everything is in order , is by order, not by negotiations, no.
Nadine: uhh which scene from the revolution (pause) that would always be memorable to you? From the looting, the people killed, the reporters severely injured, the people who were riding horses and camels and holding whips?
Shiaty : no, the people (laughing) riding horses and camels this was a really very funny comic situation , but this is not the scene I, I remember, but the scene that really shocked me , uhh those two cars, one was a diplomatic car and one was a police car, they were ramming people, they were just throwing people away, they just ram about
maybe 20 people they just killed them in cold blood. This really shook me.
Nadine: yes, it shook us all. (pause) uhh, some people say and actually my mom is one of them : " I'd rather accept some injustice in the regime than living in this condition of total chaos." Do you agree with this or not and how would you convince people who think that way that they have a wrong reasoning?
Shiaty: you know the history always say that during any revolution, there must be or let us say after, or post revolution there must be some chaos. Because nobody knows

Nadine El Shiaty Ahmed El Shiaty Interview 7/8 how to start or from where to start, because you're simply just turning upside down everything. You just, uhh, uhh, the people who are taking over are new people, new faces, so they are knew to what they're doing, what they are going to do so everything should be stagnant for some time, in order, might happen sometime, uhh and the people are in a place of absolute freedom. They don't know how to act, what is the best to do and what to do and what not to do, so this is basically normal in every revolution that this is happening but I believe and hope sincerely that within few months , things should go better. Because even if it happens, I mean uhh, what is going to happen is never better than what we had. (he meant to say "worse" and I knew it but we kept going)
Nadine : yeah, definitely, I totally agree with you. Uhh, I'd like you to tell the listeners your feelings when you first heard that Mubarak has stepped down.
Shiaty: well uhh, joy, of course, that he responded and I was thankful to God that he didn't really insist on staying. There might have been some bloodshed. So he made a good choice.
Nadine: okay, Egyptians made two governments to resign, and they made Muabarak step down, they also want to reform the parliament, reform the State Security, reform the entire constitution and cancel the emergency law, do you think this is enough? Do you think they should stop?
Shiaty: yes, to start with, this is the least the revolution should have because these were all drawbacks.
Nadine : so you think they should keep going?

Nadine El Shiaty Ahmed El Shiaty Interview 8/8
Shiaty (sigh): no, to start with, this is very good and then after that you achieve these things or even parts of these things you can just aim to others. But you can never do
10 things at one time. Nobody's able to do that, they should give some time to the elected government, their own government, Mr Sharaf 's government , they should give him some time, they should be a bit patient.
Nadine: uhh, could you, like for our final question could you please describe the revolution in one word?
Shiaty (long sigh): A "Gift of God" to Egyptian people. (Smiling) it is only a gift of
God. Nobody can claim that he was the the the, let us say the mover or let us say the president or the chief or the leader of this revolution. I think it's like you know, it's like 6 th of October . It's a miracle that god has given to the Egyptian people and we just hope to appreciate what God had given us (smiling).
Nadine : that's it for our interview, dad, thank you so much for your time.
Shiaty (smiling): thanks to you
Nadine : and before we finish I would like to wrap this up with a comment from, from the blog of the Guardian newspaper that I found very interesting to end our interview with. It says : " The democracy people in Egypt never cease to amaze me.
I would have thought that they would have been pleased that Essam Sharaf came to address the crowd in Tahrir Square and relax a bit. Instead they used it as a stepping stone to move on to the next objective." Thank you and Goodbye.
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