Sipping juice in one of downtown Cairo`s heirloom coffee houses, Khadiga Hennawi lights a cigarette with her hand bound in plaster, which is the only indication of what she has witnessed since the revolution. A steady stream of young adults approaches her table, alternatively encouraged or admonished by the lady they call “Mama” who flashes kind looks from her remaining good eye. She may only have three biological children—grown-up and working overseas with high-paid jobs—but to thousands of Egyptian revolutionaries, Khadiga Hennawi is a mother.
"I first went to [Tahrir Square] on January twenty-eighth, when I went with the young people from Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque,” she says. “Since that moment, I’ve spent time with them in the square. I ha`ve been through all the attacks against them and saw many young people taken."
Hennawi, who started out bringing food to protestors camped in the historic square, earned the moniker “the Mother of Tahrir” by taking care of younger activists, often offering refuge at her home from attacks by security forces. The fifty-nine-year-old divorcee has become a figurehead of the struggle for freedom and democracy, the self-appointed matriarch of a group comprised of secularists, Islamists, leftists, and liberals, who continue to demonstrate for demandstheymadeayearago. In the weeks after Mubarak`s fall, Hennawi witnessed harsher crackdowns against protestors in Tahrir.
“I saw violence in all methods. From the gas we inhaled, the beatings with sticks and tasers, to blank and live rounds being fired on protestors,” she says. “Everything imaginable, everything that could be done against us, was done.”
For Hennawi, the defining moment of 2011 came on 8 April, when dozens of Army officers joined mass demonstrations calling for an end to the military’s grip on power.
"The attacks [against us] started at three a.m.,” she recalls. “It was horrific. There was random gunfire at people. Some of the young people took me and we ran down the street to the Four Seasons Hotel. That is when I met people who were taking off their clothes and giving them to an officer so that no one would recognize he was in the military."
It was then, in a move that would risk her life, that Hennawi resolved to help a young officer named Hussein to elude security forces. Under constant threat of arrest, Hennawi harbored Hussein with other revolutionaries at her home for eighteen days. Three youths were detained when mukhabarat (secret service) officers raided her property, but Hussein managed to escape to a safe house before returning.
"One day, we had gone out to get coffee with Hussein,” she says.” My doorkeeper called me and told me not to come back home because security forces had broken into the house to see if I was hiding anyone there. I was very nervous at that time, and that day Hussein and I were alone outside the house."
After receiving the “all-clear,” Hennawi and Hussein made their way back home, unaware they had already been betrayed. “The authorities began asking about me,” she says. “The man who informed them that I had been keeping Hussein was an Army officer too. He had been with me and the other young people at my home.” After meeting with Hussein’s mother, Hennawi decided he must hand himself in to military intelligence, and that she needed to do the same.
“This was important because Hussein was an officer and they had suspicions about me. I had to explain who I was,” she says. “Before I went to the intelligence headquarters I called my children in London and told them I was going on a trip to Libya. I`ve been on many trips to Libya, and my children know this, so it seemed like a good excuse if I was really going to disappear for a while.”
The military has detained dozens of army personnel who joined popular protests. An intelligence source with knowledge of the situation told Jadaliyya that thirty-four officers were arrested for dissent in one province alone during 2011. Many were charged with subversion and defection, and received long jail sentences.
Hennawi was interrogated about her involvement in the officers` revolt, but has been allowed to see Hussein and others in prison, where they remain.
She continued to attend the subdued marches calling for the officers’ release as the summer wore on. The first time she was arrested came during the November clashes on Mohammad Mahmoud Street that killed forty-five. Hennawi was taken from the street, held underground, tasered and beaten so hard that her arm was broken.
"They beat me with sticks and electrocuted me, but that did not bother me as much as the altercation I had with a far higher-ranking officer. That really hurt. He was using such obscene language with me. I told him: “You should not speak to me like that, I`m as old as your mother.” He became hysterical. He started beating me really hard. He slapped me, and my right eye, even now, does not work properly."
She remains in legal limbo, under surveillance by intelligence forces, and is unsure if she has been charged with any offense. “Last week I was taken from in front of the Military Court and blindfolded, I do not know by who. I was kept for five hours and they made me sign something while I could not see. I don`t know what I signed but I have no fear,” she says.
As protestors prepare to come out in force on the anniversary of 25 January, Egypt`s ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) has announced that high-ranking officials will receive medals for protecting civilians during the eighteen-day uprising. For the small but vocal group that supports the detained officers, SCAF`s declaration is nothing short of egregious.
“We want Egypt to know that there are officers who sacrificed their families and children for the sake of the principles of the revolution, so that the demands of the revolution could be achieved,” Shireen, a friend of an imprisoned major, told Jadaliyya.
Hennawi says she will not stop trying to get Hussein and the others released, and will return to Tahrir Square with thousands of other protestors on 25 January:
"Even if none of my children are [in Tahrir] except for one, I will still stand with them and support them. We have been humiliated beyond belief but I have tasted what it is to be free.The SCAF wants to make 25 January a celebration, but how can we celebrate with hundreds of martyrs and thousands injured and in prison? How can we celebrate when we are still being humiliated?"
A small group of young protestors has squeezed around Hennawi`s wooden table. She lights another cigarette and, with the slogan of a revolution yet to be fulfilled, addresses her children.“How can we celebrate when none of our demands have been met, with no bread, no freedom, and no social justice?”