Jan 25, 5 years on : The only words I can write are about losing my words | Mada Masr
▻http://www.madamasr.com/opinion/politics/jan-25-5-years-only-words-i-can-write-are-about-losing-my-words
Témoignage de Alaa Abdel-Fattah, un des principaux acteurs du 25 jnavier 2011, actuellement en prison.
But by early 2015, as I heard my sentence, I had nothing left to say to any public. I could only write personal letters. The revolution and, indeed Egypt itself, would slowly fade out even from those letters, and by fall 2015, even my personal words dried up. It’s been months since I wrote a letter and more than a year since I’ve written an article. I have nothing to say: no hopes, no dreams, no fears, no warnings, no insights, nothing, absolutely nothing. Like a child showing signs of autism, I am regressing and losing my words, my ability to imagine an audience and mentally model the impact of my words on them.
I try to remember what I wrote for the Guardian five years ago on the last normal day of my life. I try to imagine who read that article and what impact it had on them, I try to remember what it was like when tomorrow seemed so full of possibility and my words seemed to have the power to influence (if only slightly) what that tomorrow would look like.
I can’t really remember that. Now tomorrow will be exactly like today and yesterday and all the days preceding and all the days following. I have no influence over anything.
But one thing I do remember, one thing I know, is that the sense of possibility was real. It may have been naive to believe our dream could come true, but it was not foolish to believe that another world was possible. It really was. Or at least that’s how I remember it.