Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter

Stories from Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter

Let freedom ring with a blast of underground music
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Dina Meky - Staff Reporter
Sunday, November 20th, 2011
Music can unite people under a common goal. During the Egyptian Revolution, the patriotic music genre boomed with popular songs such as ‘Sout el Horeya, ‘Mish Ba'eed,' a rap album by artists in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and ‘Ezzay?' by Mohamed Mounir.

Egyptian youth have taken the revolution as an opportunity to expand their creativity and passion for music. It has become a method for them to express their hopes, concerns, and fears for their society and their generation.

Disabled
Cairo’s physically challenged seek rights in post-revolution Egypt
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Farah Najjar - Staff Reporter
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
Life in modern Cairo is sufficiently full of challenges and hardships for most people, navigating through the raucous traffic-infested streets, etching out a living to put food on the table and a roof on their heads.

But for the millions of Egypt’s physically challenged persons, the obstacles can often appear to be insurmountable.

ElBaradei
AUCians launch Facebook page in support of ElBaradei presidential bid
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Sunday, May 15th, 2011
Motivated by the new spirit of engaging youth in political activism, a number of AUC students recently declared their intention to campaign for presidential candidate Mohammed ElBaradei, and have created a Facebook support group, “AUCians for Baradei.”

Ahmed Aboul Enein, majoring in journalism and English and Comparative Literature, is the creator of the group, who says that he will dedicate some time to campaigning off campus.

“[ElBaradei] is one of the catalysts of the revolution,” says Aboul Enein, who is also an editor for the campus newspaper The Independent.

Hisham El Kheshen
Seven Days in Tahrir: The romanticism of revolution
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
Inspired by the life-changing events of the January 25 Revolution, the novel Seven Days in Tahrir, tells the story of six people who arrived at Tahrir Square during that historic period.

But author Hisham El Kheshen, who wrote the novel shortly after Mubarak stepped down on February 11, says the story is not about revolutionary ideologies or populist revolt.

For some, Arabic is just not 'cool' enough
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Sunday, May 8th, 2011

Walking around the AUC campus one day, I chanced upon a number of conversations that immediately stood out not, because they revealed scandalous secrets but because they comprised a symbiotic, often bizarre, combination of the English and Arabic languages.

While contemplating why Arabic phrases are so readily Anglicized, it struck me that the number of AUC students who speak the language well continues to dwindle despite the fact that we are in Cairo. Yes, the Cairo located in Egypt, once considered the intellectual and literary heart of the Arab World, not West Virginia.

Many AUC students have long since stopped speaking Arabic by itself. They mainly type in English and if they include any Arabic at all, it is mostly ‘Arabish’ - Arabic words, but in the English alphabet.

Festival of Freedom to honor revolution
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Thursday, March 31st, 2011

Highlighting the sacrifices and courage of Egyptian youth during the January 25 Revolution, the April 9 Festival of Freedom hopes to raise enough funds for a planned martyrs monument in Tahrir Square.

The Mass Communication Association club (MCA) and Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) students planned the event, which will be held at Tahrir Campus.

Nadine Dafrawy, an IMC senior and president of the Festival of Freedom organizing committee, said the “meant [is] to somewhat stabilize our vision towards [the revolution’s] aftermath and embark on a new era – which basically is freedom.”

Stock market 2
Anderson rings ceremonial bell at Cairo Exchange
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
The stock exchange had been closed as of Janu­ary 27, and tentatively opened its doors on March 23, after several postponements and false starts. Some analysts said had been real fear that the ex­change would collapse.

“I think the reopening of the stock exchange was a very positive sign, and I was very happy to convey our support,” Anderson told The Caravan.

Zumba dance
Ole! Zumba gets AUCians to dance the stress away
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Sunday, March 20th, 2011

After a long exhausting day of running to class, sitting through hours of lectures, and waiting for the minutes to pass, many students seek an escape. That’s where the sensuous lure of the Zumba dance comes in.

Denise Yevette, a dance instructor at the sporting center, instructs a Zumba class for girls twice a week; the exotic beats keep drawing students back every week.

Name Change
Students petition to rename AUC spaces
Nora El Hariri - Staff Reporter
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
In light of the January 25 populist uprising, some students are moving quickly to have the Suzanne Mubarak Hall in the HUSS building renamed.

AUC student Omar Omar started an online petition to rename the Suzanne Mubarak Hall because he believes removing the “remnants of the previous regime” will allow the country to move forward.

Shortly after former President Hosni Mubarak left office, his pictures in government buildings and installations were taken down. Sites named in honor of his family members - chiefly Gamal and Suzanne Mubarak - have also been renamed.

In Minya, for example, city residents have called on Suzanne Mubarak Square to be renamed “The Martyrs of the January 25 Revolution” Square.

In some cases, anti-government protesters took matters into their own hands and began crossing out Mubarak’s name from some installations even before he stepped down and handed power to the military.

They scratched his name off the Cairo Metro Station but an alternative has not yet been proposed.

Protesters have also called on the authorities to change the name of the “Mubarak Police Academy” on the Ring Road to “Khaled Said Police Academy"  in honor of the 28-year-old Alexandria native who was beaten to death by Egyptian Police last year.

Said became the namesake of a Facebook group which is credited with mobilizing anti-government activists and inspiring the January 25 revolt.