…or at least something similar.
5 students are on hunger strike now and many others are camping in front of the main entrance of the university. Each day since the 27.02.2012 we have demonstrations now on campus.
The front between the GUC administration and the students is tougher than ever before. How this situation could happen is quite obvious. If there was any other option is a different question. So the GUC administration adressed the parents of the students and not the students themselves. The GUC admin suspended all students for one week from teaching because of security issues. (There was a video on youtube showing a person throwing a fuel can against the gates of the GUC). And the overall impression for me is, that the admin sees the students more as an enemy than as an equal partner for discussion.
On the other hand… most of the students do not join the protests but do proceed with their normal activity. Some of the them are afraid but most of them do only want to learn and are not interested in politics and some of them support the admin as well.
It is difficult as a german university, with german values, in a changing country like Egypt. There are fears, that too open discussions about everything may lead to an outcome, that nobody wants, that the students are separated in different groups of interest with no possibility to find an agreement.
But it happens everythere in Egypt. And why should it stop at the universitys? Normally the universitys are the first, now they switch the light off.