** was first published in Campus magazine September issue**
Few days ago, as myself and friends were at each other’s throats over the legitimacy of reversing a wild card and whether it should count as a move or not, I decided to check Instagram to see how other human beings are dealing with the curfew hours, as I skim through photos from el sa7el and abroad and while wallowing in misfortune over my presence in Cairo, I realized that almost every other picture showed a set of Monopoly deal.
I have never been a cards game person, of course I know my way around some games and had my share of addiction to the infamous Risk and Taboo board games but that was way more years ago than I would like to put in numbers and since then my time has been running too short to be wasted on a board games or so I convinced myself.
During the first curfew, I was on the street protesting so I didn’t really care about it, in my sub conscious it was an integral part in realizing the dream of freedom and victory. This time was different; at first it felt like Ramadan sans the Konafa b elmanga then it was more like house arrest then it started to feel as a compulsory time to chill and self reflect then eventually it became like spring break with the all-nighters, the excessive substance abuse and don’t get me started on the curfew flings that are solely based on geographical availability.
My life has become a series of monopoly deal games interrupted by few hours of sleep, hence I started to look deeper into the action cards and wonder how life would’ve been much better if I had plenty of the “just say no” ones or few “debt collectors” where I would just get a 5 million from someone every now and then, actually me and my curfew-mates started adding the terms into our usual conversations, at first it was like an inside joke then it became in our usual vocabulary that others think we are retarded or something.
As the events in Egypt unfold a quick look at social media one can realize that we as a nation are hitting rock bottom, regardless of the ” a coup or not a coup question” we have reached a severe degree of polarization on all levels, we are failing to even define what happens in front of us objectively, not to mention the scarcity of information and the one sided media whether pro or against, a situation that ultimately lead to chronic depression and the all the above mentioned symptoms of dissociation and alienation.
But, come to think of it as a game of monopoly deal, two and half years ago we used the “just say no” card over and over again until we had the “deal breaker” broke the deal and toppled a president then for another year we only had the ” rent, double rent, debt collector” cards that don’t ultimately make the opponent lose but weakens its position until one of the key players had the “forced deal” card and forced many of us into having a religious fascist ruling instead, we complied somehow, felt bad about it and thought it was the end. The following round started,we got a hand full of action cards that were played right just before another opponent drove us into playing the “forced deal” card and we gladly did to oust him off the table, now that he is out we are not the winners yet as we still have more opponents on the table to play with, we don’t currently have a good hand but we eventually will, coz if the past two and half years have taught us anything it should be that there is always a deal breaker card called the majority of the people, those who cannot be silenced again, those who would rise up and fight when needed no matter how many songs are made or conspiracy news are spread, people has a level of tolerance to get to their dream of freedom and social justice, they will endure, wait and encourage for some time but if it seems to be a dead end, they will use the “deal breaker” once more and turn this round upside down… again.
Z... space 