Waves of the popular discontent that recently erupted in Egypt have stretched to Auburn and are creating a similar stir among the members of the Egyptian Student Association.
With approximately 17 group members, the ESA could be viewed as a microcosm of the political atmosphere currently spread throughout the state of Egypt.
Haitham Mohammed and Haitham Eletrabi said the ESA is divided in much the same way the citizens of Egypt are divided.
Mohammed and Eletrabi are both administrators of the ESA. Mohammed is a Ph.D. student pursuing his degree in the School of Fisheries. Eletrabi is a Ph.D. student in Civil Engineering and is in the process of getting a Master's in Business Administration.
According to Eletrabi and Mohammed the divide breaks down into two camps.
One camp wants the return of the recently ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. The other camp that fought for his removal and succeeded with the help of the Egyptian military is against him.
A motivating force behind the revolt that swept across Egypt, which drew larger numbers from both camps respectively than previous protests, is rooted in a dysfunctional state and an ailing economy, Mohammed and Eletrabi said.
Both have family members in Cairo, close to the heart of the protests in Tahrir Square. Some have participated in all the decisive protests in Egypt's recent history, spanning from Hosni Mubarak's ousting to Morsi's actions during his year as president.
"My father and my brother voted for Morsi in the second round of elections. My brother was in Tahrir Square during June 30. He was one of the guys supporting or collecting signatures for Tamarod. I talked to him the day he was in Tahrir Square," said Mohammed.
Tamarod, which translates to "Rebel," was a grass roots movement to collect signatures of anyone who was in opposition to Morsi. Numbers of signatures collected have been cited at over 22 million.
One man present at the protests in Cairo said he had nothing to do with politics, but without enough gas to drive his vehicle to work and make money to support his family, he had nowhere else to go, according to Mohammed.
Mohammed said he also had friends in Egypt who waited upward of six or seven hours in lines for fuel, taking lunch breaks and having food delivered to the gas station as they waited.
One ESA member who disagreed with the views of Eletrabi and Mohammed was a supporter of Morsi and expressed the view that the current state of affairs in Egypt preceded Morsi and had been used opportunistically by opposition groups.
The ESA member did not wish to contribute to the article, but acted as a moderator posing questions during the discussion.
Mohammed and Eletrabi agreed it was going to be difficult to find one leader who would satisfy and represent the various political and religious groups defining Egypt's political landscape.
However, there was consensus in an opposition to a Muslim Brotherhood presence at the helm of political power in Egypt.
Regardless of the Brotherhood's backing of Morsi, both Eletrabi and Mohammed said at the outset of Morsi's time in office they were both hopeful that he would succeed.
They said the notion of supporting or not supporting Islam is a divisive ploy and does not accurately represent the situation Egypt faces and the sentiment of all its Muslim population.
Who the next president is does not matter according to Mohammed and Eletrabi.
"If we have a good parliament, good constitution and good government then we're not going to be very worried about who takes the presidential," Eletrabi said.
However, what does matter is inclusiveness; that all sides somehow find common ground.
"What we are trying to say is basically everyone, everybody, should be represented," said Eletrabi. "We are not going to exclude any group of parties like what happened last year. Everybody should count. The Christians, the women, the youth, the Islamists, any group that basically presents their ideas in a peaceful and nonviolent way should be represented, because this is all Egypt. Even pro-Morsi."
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