Episode
III – Haflatoun needs your vote
Caught between mild delusion and total confusion, Haflatoun abandons the cushioned comfort of an Athenian ‘soul asylum’ (aka psychiatric hospital) and the profound Pandora to return to Cairo and become the Political Apathy Party’s presidential candidate.
As retold to Khaled Diab
Date: Thursday 11 August 2005
Time: Mid-morning
Place: Athens
After my ordeal at Guantanamo Bay
and before I met Pandora, I was sustained mainly by hope. But despite what the ancients
say about her namesake, this all-gifted woman has brought beauty, form, music,
healing and wisdom into my life – and has helped thrust me out of the absent
Luna’s orbit.
I may have come to Greece on a reconnaissance
mission for the dastardly and evil Eye to
find ways of bringing the Olympic games to Cairo in 2016, but the pondering
Pandora caught my eye and now I carry a massive torch of Olympian proportions
for her. Almost immediately, strangers though we were, we began sharing
intimate thoughts in a dimly lit private chamber.
At first, it was rather one-sided, with her asking all the questions and listening attentively, while I kicked back on her comfortable leather sofa. But I soon turned the tables on her – an achievement made the more impressive by the fact that nothing that could immediately be identified as a table could be found cluttering her ultra-modern minimalist office.
Our liaison began in Athens where, unhinged by my ordeal in Camp X-Ray and with my faith in human virtue shaken, I became something of a cynic in both the ancient and modern sense. Taking a leaf out of the book of those anarchists and puritans of yore, I spent several days in a contemplative daze soaking Diogenically in the bath trying to restore my trust in my fellow humans. Bewildered passers-by would speculate as to what a grown man was doing bathing on Athen’s famous Syntagma Square, within splashing distance of the city’s spanking new metro system.
Haflata: Talking
drivel Aflatoun: Plato Haflatoun: Drivelling Plato
Then, on
Sunday, tourists began milling around my bathtub at around mid-morning,
shattering my weekend solitude. Although some were looking at me and pointing their
cameras in my direction, most were facing the Parliament building. “Look, the euzones
are changing guard,” one tourist told another as some pantomime soldiers
dressed in camp kilts, caps, clogs and pompoms and carrying rifles marched
theatrically past.
A shadow travelled across the still and
tranquil waters, darkening the brown mudflats of my knees and clouding the
horizon for my plastic duck with red horns. A friendly Athenian policeman
called Alexander Alexandropoulos looked down at me and asked: “Is there
anything I can do for you, sir?”
“Yes, if you
wouldn’t mind,” I replied decorously in passable Modern Greek (I am much better
versed in the ancient version of the language), “moving a little because you’re
in my sun.”
Many of the tourists turned their attention to
us and started giggling. Incensed, the police officer asked to see my ID. “I am
Haflatoun. I need no identification papers,” I responded candidly.
“You look Greek but you don’t sound it. Where
are you from, sir?”
“I was born in a sister country but I am a
citizen of the world – petty nationalism cramps my style and my rich ancestry.”
“Are you an illegal immigrant?”
“No, I am a philosopher and a nomad in search
of wisdom.”
“I’m afraid you’re just mad without the
prefixes,” the officer informed me. “I think you need psychiatric attention,”
he added as he informed his colleague standing behind me that it was time for a
tea break by miming a stirring motion with his index finger by his temple.
Psychiatrist – Psukhe-iatreia,
soul-healer – yes, indeed, I needed that after the trauma I’d experienced.
“After you’ve had your tea, officer, you may take me to the place where they
heal souls,” I determined as I stood up, water and soap dripping off my naked
body.
I could not contain myself – nor could a
straitjacket and five burly male nurses – as I was checked into the institute
for wounded psyches. What would otherwise have been a cold and sterile
environment was transformed into my very own soul asylum once Pandora – a
healer of lost souls – entered my super deluxe room which was lavishly fitted
with cushions everywhere, even on the walls and ceilings. I suspected that it
might have been she who had made these arrangements for my comfort, and my
heart fluttered to think that she cared so much for my relaxation.
“I hope the police and my staff didn’t disturb
your bath too much,” she said as she entered my room.
“Water off a duck’s back,” I said with a
bravado I did not feel as I stroked my plastic duck with demon’s horns.
“Good,” she said, her lips forming into a
gentle smile that took some of the edge off the stony cool of her black eyes
and the brooding darkness of her razor-sharp curls. “I’m Dr Pandora Angelis. Now, Mr Haflatoun, for me to give you a clean
bill of health, I need you to give me a sane and rational explanation of what
you were doing taking a bath in the middle of Athens.”
“I was asked to find out how Athens had secured
its Olympic bid by a group of interested investors who were considering their
own bid for Cairo,” I began. “Without wanting to take your name in vain, the
mission opened up an unexpected Pandora’s box of complications.”
“How so?” she asked, intrigued, and I told her.
After our first conversation, I heard her say
outside my door: “I think we can dispense with the padded cell, don’t you?
Please move him somewhere more comfortable.”
Over the following two weeks, our conversations
in her office took us from the depths of my soul, to philosophy, politics,
science, social issues, and, finally, right down into the gushing rapids of her
tortured soul. One day, during one of our long sessions, she confided:
“Haflatoun, I’m going to take you into my confidence. I have my own Pandora’s
box.”
“That’s hardly surprising, Pandora, I am sure
you have dozens of them.”
“I’m speaking metaphorically,” she said a
little irritably. She got up off her chair beside the coach I was reclining on
and went to her bookcase. Pushing aside a heavy volume of a psychiatric
encyclopaedia, she retrieved a small wooden box.
“This is it,” she said dramatically, the dark
matter of her black-hole eyes sucking me in. She handed me the box and my eyes
suffered from the G-force as I pulled them away from the gravity of her face.
Inside the box were multicoloured pills.
“I take uppers and downers to get me through
the despair of dealing with so many poor and helpless people,” she admitted,
the orbs of her normally rock solid gaze began blurring in pools of tears.
From that moment on, Pandora was transformed
from being my soul-healer and became my soul mate. And, a few days later, in a
carnal moment of passion, we became simply and primevally just mates.
Date: Thursday,
18 August 2005
Time: Crack of dawn
Place: Psychiatric ward in Athens
At the highly symbolic (or perhaps cheaper)
stroke of midnight, I received an encoded SMS telegram from Egypt. While I’ve
been tripping along from one form of detention to the next on two continents, a
lot of exciting things have been going down in Egypt.
Unbelievable as it may seem, the concession for
the presidential monopoly is up for renewal and, this time, there will be more
than one bidder for the contract. That means that the “Thou shalt have no other
President but I” pillar of the establishment is beginning to crumble.
Despite the profusion of election poster boys,
‘Blessed One’ is almost definitely going to win, but at least there are signs
that the popular will of the masses is rising from its slumber.
One sign of this was the telegram I received
from the secretary-general of Egypt’s largest – that is, in terms of passive
support – political organisation. It is bigger even than the outlawed Muslim
Brotherhood and the officially sanctioned National Democratic Party. It is the
monolithic and ever-popular Political Apathy Party, aka the Keep Out of Harm’s
Way Coalition of the Unwilling. I, myself, have long been a fully fledged, if
unsubscribed, member. The party’s platform is not exactly ‘middle of the road’;
it is more ‘close to the wall’.
“Haflatoun, you have been picked as our
candidate for the elections,” the coded message from Secretary Salim Amrak
Ilallah began. “Apologies for the last-minute nature of the message, but it
took us a while to get around to making the selection – you know how it is with
earning a living and bringing up a family. Besides, no one else wanted to do it
and we finally remembered you. We hope that you’ll take up the opportunity. If
not, then no hard feelings. Drop by for a cup of tea when you’re back in town.”
I was
flattered that Egypt’s largest political party had chosen me as its candidate. But
every sweet moment is laced with a bitter pill that must be swallowed. I told
Pandora the good/bad news first thing in the morning and tears welled up in her
eyes as she signed my discharge papers.
“The next time we meet I may be president,” I
said, the melancholy of the moment rising in my heart.
“Can I be your first lady?” she asked.
“You already are,” I told her and she promised
she would join me in Egypt.
Date:
Saturday, 19 August 2005
Place: Political
Apathy Party branch office
Time: Late
afternoon
After a late Friday night reunion
with friends, I only managed to get out of bed at midday. I then decided that I
needed to spend some quality time with Otter, my blind Siamese cat, and
Double-Click, his guide mouse. Of course, I had a presidential campaign to run
and if I was going to make an impression on the electorate I had to get out
there and feel some skin. But a principled politician needs to get his
priorities straight. Besides, hanging out with my pets would help establish my
street cred as a family man.
I finally arrived at the PAP party
office – one of thousands around the country – where I was due to meet
Secretary Salim. It turned out to be a half-empty – as a good politician I
should say, half-full – traditional Egyptian ahwah (coffee shop) and the party
chief was nowhere to be seen. To keep me company while I waited, I ordered a
tea so strong and sweet that it sat itself up, winked at me and said, “Call me
honey!”
Men of all ages sat around me
playing all kinds of board games: backgammon, chess, dominoes. I could only
detect a handful of women sitting around the place. Obviously, universal
suffrage had not yet taken off among the party rank and file, at least at the
social level, even if they have at the political one.
Some devoted individuals looked like
they spent most of their days at this party branch office, moving the pieces
round the board with a fluidity of motion that only comes with years of
practice. Yet, strangely, they did little to motivate or mobilise others
politically. In fact, some actively discouraged it. “Who are you going to vote
for in the elections, Alaa?” one young fellow asked his backgammon rival as he
rolled the dice.
“You see these dice,” Alaa said as
he picked them up dramatically. “Can you tell me where they are going to land?”
“No, not really,” his companion
admitted, a little crestfallen.
“Well, politics is like these dice –
you get the politicians fate deals you. Besides, better the devil you know than
the devil you don’t. Mubarak has brought stability to this country trapped in a
volatile region.”
“So, why don’t you go out and vote
for him?”
“You see these dice,” Alaa repeated.
“They’re not loaded. I’m thrashing you fair and square. But our government doesn’t
trust Lady Luck, so it creates its own. It can tell which way the dice are
going to fall, so there’s no need for me to vote.”
“Perhaps, if we, the electorate,
pinch the dice in a certain way, we can get a double-six and defeat the
regime.”
“Politics is not for the likes of
us, man, just play your roll, drag on your shisha and let’s talk about
something important.”
“I think Ahli are going to beat
Zamalek again tonight.”
“In your dreams...”
I’m no politician – I’m only a modest
philosopher prince – but the conversation between these two young men did not
sound encouraging and I felt that my dream of a brighter future for the country
was simply an illusion, worse, a delusion.
Secretary Salim finally arrived,
sweating profusely, with a newspaper under one arm and a watermelon under the
other. “So, you’ve decided to lead our campaign. Mumtaz! Splendid!” he chuckled
as he clapped his hands together to get the waiter’s attention.
“I’m not sure I’m the right man,” I
levelled with him in a rare moment of self-doubt. “Too much to do in too little
time.”
“Look, Haflatoun, we need you,” he
urged earnestly. “Our traditional support base is abandoning us in droves for
new parties, and even some old ones. They believe we’re too apathetic.
Naturally, we, in the party hierarchy, feel betrayed, after all these years in
bed together, they walk out on us because ‘we’re too lethargic’!” he bemoaned
with barely suppressed passion.
“And why do they think that?”
“I suspect it’s our name. Political
Apathy is not as popular as it once was. People are no longer content to sit
back and watch, they want more.”
“Well, give them more, Goddamit!” I
said as I rose to my feet and pounded the table, overturning my extra-strong
‘Call me honey’ tea and Salim’s watermelon.
“That’s why we need your help,
Haflatoun,” he said, drying the sweat off his forehead and mopping the beads of
perspiration off his upper lip with his carefully folded handkerchief.
“Well,” I mused, “first, you need a change
of name and then a change of platform to accompany it.”
“We’ve already thought of that. How
does New PAP grab you?” he announced theatrically as his hands drew apart an
invisible curtain.
“I don’t think it goes far enough,”
I reckoned.
“It worked wonders for Tony Blair’s
New Labour.”
“I think you need to drop the
Apathy, Mr Chairman,” I suggested.
“Even you, Haflatoun, are calling me
apathetic. I’m trying my best!” he complained.
“I meant the apathy in the party
name. How about you call it the Popular Sympathy Party?”
“Brilliant! Mumtaz!! Superb!!!” the praise surged out of his mouth.
“Just one problem: hasn’t the
candidate application deadline already passed?”
“It’s all right. We have a carte
blanche to field any candidate we want – the authorities obviously don’t
see us as a threat, especially when they learnt that we hadn’t decided on a
candidate yet?”
“Mumtaz, splendid,” I echoed,
“Surprise is always a good ally to have.”
_________________
Around the corner from the café, I
saw at least 10,000 people waiting for the number 77-with-a-dash bus. “The
public transport crisis must’ve got a lot worse since I left the country,” I
thought in concern.
Many of the people in the crowd were
holding up banners with the bold legend Kifaya! (Enough!) embellished
upon them. Had they really had it with waiting for the bus or were they
protesting against something more immobile?
“Kifaya! Haram! (Enough! It’s
a sin!)” the crowd shouted in classic football style, blowing whistles. “Mubarak,
salam (Mubarak, goodbye).” One guy was dressed in a referee’s outfit and
he repeatedly showed a red card to an effigy of the president which stubbornly
refused to move.
The chanting crowd was composed of
young and old, men in beards and men in ponytails, Muslim brothers stood
shoulder-to-shoulder with feminist sisters (although their shoulders didn’t
rub), women in summer dresses mingled with those in headscarves, Coptic priests
in their black gowns and big crosses and imams in white galabiyas and
embroidered skullcaps prayed collectively for a miracle. But one thing the bulk
of the crowd had in common was that it was young, educated and impatient.
Egypt’s various political colours –
pan-Arab comrades and Muslim brethren, strident socialists and nostalgic
royalists of the old Wafd – closed ranks and found common purpose which could
be summed up in one single word: Kifaya!
Then, off to one side, somewhat
leftfield, I spotted Kahka, my friend and existential baker. We greeted each
other with a warm hug. “What are you doing back in town?” she asked.
“I’m running for president,” I
explained to her.
“So am I,” she admitted.
Shocked, I asked her: “But doesn’t
that go against all your anti-authoritarian principles?”
“No, not at all. You’ve got to play
the system to beat it,” she said with a lightness of spirit I did not usually
associate with her. “Doesn’t running for president go against your nomadic
non-partisan philosophy?”
“In theory, yes. But Egypt is part
of me and if my fellow humans need me, who am I to ignore their call.”
“That’s so sweet but, even if we’re
friends, I will show you no mercy in the campaign.” Someone came up and
whispered in her ear and she said: “Touny, I’ve got to go now.”
“May the best human win,” I shouted
to her.
She jumped on to a nearby platform
which was surrounded by the young, radical and dishevelled. “Friends and fellow
anarchists, if you choose me as your next president, I will not only become
Egypt’s first female president, I will also become her last – I plan.
“The presidency has been more
trouble than it is worth and so my first act as president will be to abolish
the office of the president and put myself out of a job. Then, it will be up to
you, the people, to decide on how you want to be ruled,” she screamed to loud
cheering.
As I was pondering the implications
of her radical platform, I saw a dark car occupied by men in dark suits sidle
up to the kerb. Was it the Eye’s henchmen or State Security? I couldn’t tell.
What were they doing here?
No time for idle musings, I thought.
I have a campaign to run.
Will Haflatoun manage to make a difference in
the few short days left to him? Will Kahka’s radical ideas catch on? Who
exactly are the men in the dark car? Will Pandora join him or will his electioneering
open up a Pandora’s box of complications? Find out in the next exciting
instalment of the odd-ventures of Haflatoun, the delusional philosopher
prince. Click
here to find out
ã2005
K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the
copyright of Khaled Diab.
