Self expression…..treat yourself to a good reason to go in no man's land

Well an email sparked an idea that I started to promote. The idea was basically to allow people to express themselves about current events in Lebanon and Palestine, through sending messages to the children of Lebanon and Palestine. I suggested that people hang up paper to allow people to write their messages directly to it.

Considering that I strongly believe that if you propose something be done, you should be the first to do it, I started a page at my office at the research centre. I put a sign saying "write a message to the children of Lebanon and Palestine, it might reach them". The paper remained blank for a day, since people were intimidated to be the first to write. So again, I decided to be first to write. So I wrote a message and left on Wednesday.

I was no show at the office till Monday. As my schedule started to unfold I decided that I would skip going to the office, that was until I got a phone call from my colleagues. They were describing a scene at work, and as much as I could understand it was about the piece of paper hanging in the office. I couldn't make much on the phone and since I was so curious I decided to jolly on to the office.

As I walked in I noticed that the paper has been taken down and there seemed to be a colleague discussing getting it back. Apparently one of the security in the building had seen it and requested it to go down. I had stayed, so he mentioned it to people in the management who reacted quickly. I guess I forgot to mention one thing here, in the sign directing people to self-expression I placed the flags of Palestine and Lebanon. I guess that is what really caught there eye . The department head got an indication he would be held responsible for it and hearing that he didn't call to take it down, he went to do this challenge himself.

They pointed out that this can cause you problems, that can reach to the level of "national security intervention". And if you are from Egypt you can imagine what that implies (if you are not and from the west, imagine and multiple it 100 folds. To make it easier, think Guntanumo and increase it an order of magnitude). The list to go would be the institute head, management, department chair, head of security and all who have signed other than me. Me, well that is another story, I was after all the head of the gang, and they get special treatment. "Nezam e7nah betou3 eloutobess". For non-Egyptian culture oriented people, that literally means "we are from the Bus" which was a movie of some people that happened to be in a bus and suspected to be "against national security" out of the blue.

So if I disappear then you know I am with "betou3 eloutobess" somewhere in no man's land. Self expression can have its ways in some parts of the world :)