Egypt's deep political crisis is not only playing out instreet protests, it is pushing its way into all social settings -- includingthe high-decibel clubland of Cairo's privileged youth. In one of the nightspots, the Nile Maxim, on a ship moored on an island in the centre of thecapital, cocktail-sipping patrons loudly voiced their opposition to theirIslamist president, who they fear is intent on curbing their cosmopolitan,Western-inspired lives. "Of course I am going to protest" againstPresident Mohamed Morsi, one 23-year-old employee in Egypt's vibrant movieindustry, Ines, claimed above a thumping dance track. "With (ousted leaderHosni) Mubarak, we saw we can change things. We're no longer afraid," shesaid. "We have always resisted, whether against the army or against theIslamists, We will continue to do so," she said in accentless Frenchlearned from her childhood spent in the city's elite French school.
The view from the three-deck club was a world away from thetelevised images of Egypt's poorer youth exchanging rock throws and blows insquares and in front of the presidential palace. The lights of Cairo glitteredthrough the smoked windows while the club's beams and strobes snapped theexpensively dressed clientele dancing or scoffing drinks sold at Europeanprices.
"I'd say 90 percent of the constitution doesn't poseany problem. It's the other 10 percent that is really worrying," said Aliel-Shalaqani, a young lawyer sporting a three-day beard and a soft leatherjacket. "There is no mention anywhere of social justice. But more thananything, the constitution will let Sharia (fundamentalist Islamic law) havemore sway over society," he said. Like many of his class and generation,Shalaqani took to the streets early last year as part of the uprising thattoppled Mubarak. Today, he maintains his rebel inclinations, this time on theside of those opposing Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing, theFreedom and Justice Party. Under Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned buttolerated. It only gradually and cautiously joined the 2011 revolt, which wasdriven by Internet-savvy youths before snowballing. Morsi won a mandate with 51percent of the vote in elections in June this year, but part of that supportcame from liberals who simply sought to block his chief rival, Mubarak's formerprime minister Ahmad Shafiq, from winning. Now those same liberals are rangedagainst Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The organiser of the club's night, Moez Annabi, flitsbetween the bar and DJ stand in his Pink Floyd T-shirt. "You see all this,all these people, this music? I'm afraid that with the Islamists all this willsoon be just a memory."
