For three months, the Lipscomb junior lived within walking distance of Tahrir Square, the massive traffic center of Cairo, Egypt, that served as staging ground for the revolution that is currently changing the shape of the Middle East.
It was quiet when she lived there, but change was in the wind.
The mostly peaceful revolt that ended in the resignation of President Mubarak after three decades in power “was kind of in-waiting,” said Kimery Cockrell, a social work major who lived in Cairo during the fall semester of 2010.
The Memphis native lived just five minutes away from Tahrir Square during the semester she studied abroad in Egypt.
Blue eyes shimmering, she reminisces on what Egypt was like when she was there and ponders what direction the country is taking now.
“It was understood that people didn’t vote,” Cockrell said. “It was understood that there weren’t a lot of rights, and the main opposition party was the Muslim Brotherhood. They were arrested on a daily basis for any kind of protest.”
Back home safely, she watched as the 18 days of protests and occasional violence played out on the television screens, culminating when President Mubarak resigned and fled Cairo.
The success of that revolution has sparked similar, less-successful and more bloody uprisings in Yemen, Lybia, Jordan, Iran and Bahrain.
“It is great Egypt finally stood up and stood for freedom,” Cockrell said. “It is so different from their way of thinking. They think [Americans] have too many freedoms.”
There is worry in Egypt and among Cockrell and her friends about what happens next, now that the military is in control, albeit supposedly only until the autumn.
Cockrell said the U.S. should let the Egyptians handle the change, only getting involved if asked for help.
“Egypt is 50 years behind us. Expecting them to be like us in unrealistic,” Cockrell said. “Egypt has its own culture and way of doing things.”