The Egyptian Revolution

The Egyptian Revolution

by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

Young babies, young children,
young people out welling, youngling,
unwarping. Christians and Muslims
taking us to the edge of intention and
showing us what lies beyond doubt?
Old men down warping, fathers and
mothers. The Israeli press called
them stray dogs. But the figures kept
ballooning. It started with tens of
thousands,
then
hundreds
of
thousands, then millions… Cairo is
bustling; a mass mortality horizon,
Alexandria and Monsouri city are
swamped. Tahrir, the liberation
square is the hub of this monsoon
chanting

“the nation wants the ouster of the
regime.”

The day’s song is a lament drawn out
like a final breath lost in the stars. Its
millions wearing the country’s flag
as if the pharaohs have thumped
every other country at the CAF
African nation’s cup to win it again.
Jubilant, passionate, angry… It is a
carnival atmosphere. It is a nation
raising its bread, the symbol of its
suffering and hunger. It is a nation
crucifying effigies of its napoleon. It
is a nation waving placards written

with the fine point of their anger and
pain

“Mubarak go to hell”
“America butt out”
“Tel Aviv is mourning”
“Mubarak leave-
we want to live.”

They name the forms of control,
youths screaming for an open road to
somewhere. Over 30 years of mis-
governance, human rights abuses,
curfews…, suffering. It is over 30
years in which America and Israel
ruled by robot controlling Mubarak.
Giving the top brass of army and
security the loot of the 2 billion
dollars, American taxpayer’s money:
just to protect Israel. Israel would
joke

”we have one person controlling 80
plus millions of enemies”

Now they have to face the 80 plus
million enemies across its borders.
Israel is a bubbling “spoilt” child,
afraid, scared….


Tendai Rinos Mwanaka has published over 200 pieces of short stories, essays, memoirs, poems and visual art in over 100 magazines, journals, anthologies and websites throughout the USA, UK, Canada, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Kenya, Cameroon, Italy, France, Spain, Cyprus, Australia and New Zealand. Other works include Voices from Exile (2010), a collection of poetry on Zimbabwe’s political situation and exile in South Africa, andKeys in the River (2012), a novel of love, political, social and life stories in contemporary Zimbabwe. Logbook Written by a Drifter and Voices from Exile were both short listed by the Erbecce press poetry prize in 2011 and 2009, respectively. Mwanaka has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2008 and 2010), and commended for the Dalro Prize in 2008.

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