Interviews with Sally Sami

I was asked by Amnesty to go to Tunisia. I was supposed to be there before [former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali ran. But I had to stay for personal reasons. But then I went a day after Ben Ali fled, spent a week in Tunisia, went around. And the more time I spent in Tunisia, the more convinced I was that this would never happen in Egypt. The society in Tunisia is not as complex as the Egyptian where there´s no big sectarian division.

It is mainly an economic division. People of Tunisia, even though the poor– if anything Ben Ali did was he kept the education. And nearly everyone in Tunisia is very well educated, even those who are living in poverty. It was just– you know, and I went to slums in the poor areas, in the internal areas of Tunisia. And I met young Tunisians who were very proud of the revolution. And they were very sophisticated. And I was like, “This is not in Egypt.” You know, we don´t have this. If you went to a slum area in Egypt– I feel ashamed, yeah, for thinking so.

Tunisia was an inspiration, of course. And Tunisia played a very important role. And we Egyptians always thought we pioneered. We take the lead. But it was basically this. Everyone in the region saw Egypt as needing– whether when it comes to resistance or when it comes to negative policies, and if the Egyptian government issues a law that restricts more freedoms, other countries they have the right to do so also in the region here. For it to– it was a slap in the face that the Tunisians proceeded. But also, the Tunisians taught us that things can happen. It can actually happen.

Sally Sami has been a human rights defender for nearly a decade. She was one of the main coordinators of the Front to Defend Egypt’s Protesters (FDEP) during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Sami continues to defend human rights, but has become involved in politics and currently is a leading member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and has been elected its Secretary General for Civil Society Affairs.

Twitter: @salamander