“Start your website” flashed on my laptop’s screen, inviting me to explore the world of blogging at a time when Facebook pages, blog posts and Tweets were particularly renowned for rallying the masses and equipping them with the power of information to battle inequality, corruption and authoritarianism like never before. As I sat in a university computer lab, more than 13,000 kilometers away from Egypt, I felt some anxiety – or was it excitement – as I slowly clicked through the pages to start a website. Soon enough, I entered two words that would have more meaning than I could have ever imagined at the time: Egyptian Streets. Within a day, I had squeezed in enough time between classes to work on a preliminary design (a rather elementary design, created entirely on MS Paint; see below and don’t laugh). With the difficult part out of the way, I started writing my first ever ‘blog’ post. I didn’t care if no one ever read it. Having a ‘platform’ to publish on, even if it was just for myself, was empowering enough. So, still flabbergasted by the takeover of the Muslim Brotherhood…
10 Years Later: Growing Egyptian Streets from a Blog to Egypt’s Leading English Voice
August 1, 2022
