I was walking home from the bus stop one day when I noticed a curious number of people outside the Algerian embassy. I thought to myself, “self, that is weird, perhaps something really cool is happening in Algeria and everyone got really excited about getting visas today or Algeria is giving away candy bars.” Logical right? I wish. Algeria was not giving away candy bars. Sad. Anyway, the next day on my way to the post office I glanced over to notice a bunch of people sitting next to the fence/wall surrounding the embassy. This is when my amazing logic told me something else was happening. So I promptly went home and asked my very politically informed roommates what they knew. Nothing. They had seen it too, at least I wasn’t hallucinating. However, there was absolutely no knowledge of what was going on.
During the next week signs went up – Arabic signs that is…all we could make out was students. Ok so they were students. But doing what? Everyday I walked past I thought about stopping and asking but it as always dark or I got intimidated by the number of people and my lack of Arabic skills. I started googling Algerian embassy protest searching in newspapers and all I got were that students were protesting outside the embassy. Thank you Al Ahram Weekly. Finally about 15 days into the protest there were signs in English. Still not all that telling but piece by piece we were able to work out that Algeria had decided to reject all of the diplomas students had received/were receiving from the Institute of Arabic Studies and Research, which meant that their college careers were meaningless if they went back to Algeria. Whoa. Talk about bad news. I cannot imagine having all the headache of homework, hours of your life spent in school and stress over exams all of a sudden meaning nothing. And why? Because the education wasn’t up to par? Because it wasn’t applicable in Algeria? No. Because of a political feud between two countries and allegations of corruption. Young people with a future, trying to make a country better are being punished for something that they had nothing to do with. Let’s eradicate poverty, what is the best way to do that? Through education. Yes I think it is a spectacular idea Algeria to negate and discourage student’s efforts. Iye…. So what of the students then?
They decided to do something about it. They sat outside the Algerian embassy, slept outside the Algerian embassy and some decided to fast until Algeria would accept their diplomas. They had a poster on which they counted the number of days in the protest. We watched each day as we walked home from the bus 20, 23, 26 and then all of a sudden, one day they were gone. Everything was gone. Their signs, their blankets, cleaned up just like that. It was eerily like a ghost town as I rounded the corner that day. Normally flooded by upwards of 500 students the sidewalk was completely empty. There was a sense of loneliness. I hoped that the students had won their fight rather than have been chased away by the police trucks that had been guarding the block for the last month and yet I missed them. A protest that had started quietly and been enacted quietly also left quietly. Not once did I hear people shouting or making demands. They just demurely insisted on receiving the recognition they deserved. It was an amazing display of peaceful protest. Producing what I later found out were positive results. After mediation by the embassy between the students and the Ministry of Education, Algeria apparently decided to recognize the diplomas.
So the story does not have an exiting battle or climatic ending but I feel like it is a display of the power of persistence, standing up for what you believe in and acting rationally. These students knew what they deserved and rather than act out to get attention they merely called for their rights to be recognized. There was only one news article* published about the month long protest in one newspaper, Daily News Egypt, the independent English newspaper. But apparently what they lacked in public attention, they made up in behind the scenes negotiation, which ended up working out for both them and my social movements class. So just keep in mind, next time you are complaining about that test, to be thankful you do not have to go on a hunger strike for 26 days for your diploma…
* http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=20231
About midway through the protest. No English yet but a tent emerges.
