THE PENDULUM
NEWS
PAGE 2 11 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9. 2011
Elon students
abroad in Egypt
evacuate safely
Kassondra Cloos
News Editor
In response to the current
unrest in Egypt, Elon University
students studying abroad at the
American University of Cairo
have been safely evacuated
from the country. According to
Paul Geis, assistant director of
affiliations and exchanges at the
Isabella Cannon International
Centre, all of the students are
safe and have contacted their
families.
Elon canceled its affiliate
program at AUC Jan. 30, and
of the six students studying
in Egypt, five were evacuated
together to Istanbul Monday,
Jan. 31 by flights organized by
the United States government.
The sixth evacuated with his
family, who was also in Egypt,
during the weekend.
According to Geis, the
students did not know the
evacuation location until they
boarded their plane. Flights
left as soon as possible to one
of three “safe-haven” locations
in Istanbul, Athens and Cyprus
and flight destinations were
determined based on the airport
that was able to receive the plane
first.
All U.S. citizens evacuated
in this manner were required
to sign promissory statements
ensuring they would pay for the
flight at a later date, once the
cost was determined. According
to the website for the U.S.
embassy in Cairo, all evacuated
parties will need to make their
own lodging arrangements and
plans to return to the U.S.
Although the main AUC
campus is in the desert, away
from the protests in Cairo, Geis
said that Zamalek Island, where
the students were living, was not
isolated.
“Trouble could have easily
spread there," he said, adding
that there was a significant
concern for the lack of police
and the lawlessness that was
spreading. “It's absolutelyunsafe
for students to be at or near the
protests."
Geis said the students
expressed interest in staying
in Cairo, but that if they had
chosen to stay, they would have
had to continue the semester as
non-Elon students.
“Our primary concern
absolutely is student safety and
well-being,” he said. “We would
not be able to support them
there.”
Any classes they would have
taken would appear on their
transcripts as transfer credits
and the grades would not be
reflected in their Elon GPAs.
Elon-administered financial aid
also would not have applied.
Geis would not release the
names of the students abroad,
but said the five who evacuated
to Istanbul will soon head to
Israel to start the new semester
at the University of Haifa. He
said he was not informed of the
plans of the sixth student.
There are no current plans to
cancel the fall program at AUC,
but Geis said the situation will be
monitored closely and Elon will
not allow students to go if there
are safety concerns. He said it is
not typical to allow students to
apply for multiple programs, but
that they are looking into the
possibility of allowing students
interested in AUC to choose a
backup program.
“This is a fluid situation,”
Geis said. “If someone had
called us a week ago, we did not
think there would be any issues
for fall. This can change as the
situation evolves."
He said he expects the
decision to be made within the
coming days.
Protests should not
deter study abroad
programs in Jordan
BRIAN ALLENBY 1 Staff Photographer
During her first and last attempt to vote in Egypt,
Elgamal said she was threatened for supporting
the opposition and left without casting her ballot.
Shereen Elgamal on
voter fraud in Egypt
“My husband was actually serving the one
year that the Muslim Brothers were allowed
to run, I think it was '92; my husband was
representing one of the candidates in his
neighborhood, or in his precinct. And he
said ‘I sat there and people would come
and give their names and we would look for
their names and I saw so many deceased
relatives. My grandfather had a check mark
next to his name; he voted, my uncle, my
great uncle, he had a check mark next to his
name; he went and voted.’ They had died!
These people were dead at this time, so he
tried to raise this point and the other person
said, ‘You want to sit fiere and preserve your
well-being, or you want to make noise?’ So
he said he wanted to sit and observe. They
actually undid the tape that was securing the
ballot box and started filling out the papers
and putting them into the box (unfolded), just
throwing them into the box. So he said ‘what
are you doing, this is totally unacceptable.’
He was beaten up really badly and put in jail
for this and he was roughed up a little bit in
jail and then they usually just let them out
because in ‘92, he was 30 years old. They
called it teaching him a lesson. These are the
elections. That’s why I said when Americans
say, ‘I didn't vote, or I didn’t go or 1 didn’t
have time,’ I find it very offensive. I find it very,
very offensive."
MORE ONUNE: NEWS
Audio; Hear S^'een Eigamai
share her preOiCtwns tor Egypt in
the coming days
tiTtp:; brt iy/Elgama,
Anna Johnson
Editor-in-Chief
Elon University students interested in
studying abroad in Jordan will still be given
the opportunity despite recent protests in the
Middle East.
There is not an Elon-sponsored trip to
Jordan, but there is a semester-long affiliate
program through the Council on International
Educational Exchange that students can
participate in, said Woody Pelton, dean of
International Programs. The program to
Amman will begin in fall 2011.
Jordan's King Abdullah II fired his cabinet
and named a new prime minster after several
anti-government protests in early February.
CIEE’s website says it is still hosting students
and the Amman campus was one of the
alternative locations considered by Elon
students evacuated from Egypt.
Elon senior Andrew Black went to Amman,
Jordan during his spring semester and
summer junior year with a different program,
AMIDEAST.
“What was unique about the program was
you can live with host families,” Black said. “So
I stayed with a Jordanian family and it was a
tremendous experience. You learn things that
you never learn in a classroom.”
During his seven-month stay, there were
protests between a tribe and local police forces
around the area. From what Black saw, the
monarchy was a unifying presence rather than
the source of tension.
Regardless of the protests. Black intends
on applying for the Fulbright Program and
traveling to Egypt this summer. The protests
should not deter students looking to study
abroad, he said.
“1 mean, obviously you want to plan
carefully as not to get interrupted by
domestic or international crisis, but I wouldn't
discourage those from continuing studying in
the Middle East,” he said. “It’s such a wonderful
experience and the people are amazing. It
would be a shame to abandon your (study
abroad) ambitions all together.”
Offering more programs in the Middle East
is part of a push from the Isabella Cannon
International Centre for students to visit places
outside of Europe. For the 2012 Winter Term,
a study abroad trip to Turkey, Greece and
possibly Morocco is currently in the works.
“We're not exclusively pushing Middle
East trips, but (we're) trying to get students to
consider places beyond Europe,” Felton said.
“This is a big world and there’s a lot of places.
So think about the Middle East, China, India
or Africa.”
Egyptians risk lives to fight ‘y^a^ of oppression’
EGYPT from PAGE 1
are Egyptians currently
living in North Carolina, said the violence in Egypt was
difficult for her parents.
“They’re taking it hard," Ataalla said. "We have property
in Egypt, family in Egypt.”
Ataalla was born in the United States, but she and
her family return to Egypt every other summer. She
said her family has several houses in different cities in
Egypt, including Alexandria, and while she said their
property is fine, some of their neighbors’ property has
been damaged. Some of her male friends have had to act
as security guards outside their homes.
“I feel like it’s great people are fighting for their
rights," Ataalla said. “I’m not liking the ending. I like
how it started.”
Ataalla said many of her Egyptian friends are pro-
Mubarak and those that are not did not participate in the
protests. She said the first protests, which were peaceful,
started as “educational." Now, she said, the toll the riots
have taken is too great.
“The people don’t know how to deal with each other
now," she said. “There’s too much fighting going on in the
Egyptian race. It’s very sad to see."
Elgamal, however, said people need to continue with
the resistance.
“People need to continue to die, actually, in the
thousands," she said. “So that at least they would leave
behind the legacy of a huge smear on this system. The
system that is sacrificing thousands for one person who
is in the eyes of many, useless, and in the eyes of some
others, valuable, depending on who’s looking at it.”
Elgamal said the protests turned violent when
policemen in street clothes went into crowds and
instigated fights in order to have reason for retaliation
against otherwise peaceful demonstrators.
According to Elgamal, her brother-in-law, Mahmoud
Abouzeid, is still awaiting arrest at his home. Abouzeid
is on the advisory council of the Muslim Brotherhood,
a banned party that Elgamal said is moderate and
represents about one-third of Egyptians.
Elgamal said Abouzeid was taken from his house at
3:30 a.m. Jan. 27, just after the protests started picking
up momentum, but was freed when a prison break-out
was staged by the police.
“Another technique the police use lately is to free the
prisoners, set the facility on fire and claim the prisoners
had an uprising or something,” Elgamal said.
While Abouzeid returned to his home, she said she is
sure he will be apprehended again.
Elgamal said when Abouzeid was taken into custody,
the police turned the house upside down before taking
him away.
“‘It is not enough that they take my husband,’” Elgamal
said, quoting her sister’s account of his arrest. “‘They take
the car.' Anything that has value, computers, cell phones.
If you have $5 in a drawer, it is gone. If you have a ring or
a nice necklace, nothing. Nothing stays.”
Senior Sheehan Kane, who studied at the American
University of Cairo in both the spring and fall of 2010,
said she always felt most uneasy around the police when
she was walking through the streets of Cairo.
“They’re the ones who harass you, as girls,” Kane said.
“The police are the ones who will harass you on the street
and whistle at you and try to talk to you. It’s very weird.”
Senior Molly Harmen, who also studied at AUC last
fall, said she felt the same way.
“I feel like if there was a real emergency, I don’t think
they’d help me out,” she said.
While Elon canceled its spring AUC program and most
of the Elon students planning to study in Cairo will be
studying at the University of Haifa instead, Harmen said
she has heard from friends at AUC that many of the other
American students seemed to be staying put.
“Some are just really worried about what’s going on,”
she said. “I guess it’s harder because a lot of the Egyptians
who go to AUC are from a very wealthy part of society, so
there are a lot of mixed feelings about what’s going ori.”
Although Ataalla said her parents are pro-Mubarak,
“The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic collective
organization, and its members belong to the
Egyptian society; they... call on all citizens of
Muslims and non-Muslims to cooperate in the
good, to achieve justice, to lay the foundations
of the right and to put the interest of the nation
before the personal interest. They call on all
to unite against injustices and corruption,
effectively and peacefully without causing any
damage to any public and private properties.
They stress the importance of the cooperation
between all political and partisan forces to
maintain a unified national stance.”
-Muslim Brotherhood’s official English website
she said she is unsure of her position.
“I’m conflicted,” she said. “My dad loves him, he’s very
pro-Mubarak... but I feel like (Mubarak) knew all this
would happen and he let it happen.”
Ataalla said she thought the protests started going too
far when clashes between pro- and anti-Mubarak forces
became violent and the numbers of dead and severely
injured people began to rise steadily.
Elgamal said the group of anti-Mubarak protesters is
composed of people who are willing to die in order to
instigate change.
“Some of them are people like me,” she said. “Or people
who think that if we can’t live with liberty and justice, it is
not a bad thing to die after all.”
She said many of the protesters she saw interviewed
on TV echoed similar sentiments of feeling as though
they had no futures or promise in life, and many were
unable to support their families.
Blood is really inexpensive,” she said. “There is no
value to human life in the system, the Mubarak system.
There is absolutely no value."