and the Arab world, because it was the moment when people around the region realised they too stood a chance of winning. Tiny Tunisia was one thing, but if it could be done in enormous Egypt it could be done anywhere. By now the government had switched the Internet off and largely disabled the mobile phone network, but it was too late. The demonstrations had taken on a life of their own, because for the first time it was not just young activists. Despite the police opening fire with live ammunition, a swathe of Egyptian society joined in the revolt.
More than 200 people were killed during the uprisings in Cairo, many of them during the ‘Day of Rage’ protests. 20 The demonstrators around the city couldn’t communicate with one another, but they all knew where they wanted to be, Tahrir Square. Everything else just happened. The only element of organisation I saw that day was an old man sitting on a street just off the Nile with a bag of onions, which he was breaking into pieces to give to those of us retching from the effects of tear gas. The vapour released by raw onions counteracts the effects of the gas, but by nightfall even that wasn’t needed. After a series of running battles the people owned the streets, their tormentors were on the run, and I was being jostled and pushed by streams of young men running in and out of the symbol of the ruling National Democratic Party, its enormous headquarters, which sat on the banks of the Nile a few hundred metres from Tahrir Square. By day it was a towering reminder of the power of the party. By that night it was a towering inferno symbolising its end. As its upper levels were being gutted by fire, its lower levels were being looted. The men pushed through the open gates, their arms filled with tables, cabinets and obscure bits of office equipment, in fact anything they could grab before the flames got to it first.
The uniformed police had melted into the night, but most of them hadn’t just given up on their own. They were sent home by the government. I was told this by a Western diplomat in Cairo. ‘We know that’s what happened,’ he said. The NDP hoped that their absence would provoke chaos on the streets and within forty-eight hours the population would be begging them to come back and restore order. Egyptian society thrives on rumours, so it went straight into a frenzy at reports of criminal gangs preying on the middle-class suburbs. But instead of terrifying Cairo’s society it unified opposition to President Mubarak. Everyone suddenly felt vulnerable, and so everyone got together and began to organise with neighbours they’d often barely troubled to acknowledge. Suddenly people who had never had a conversation with each other before were swapping telephone numbers, and rotas were created to allow people to go to Tahrir Square to protest while others guarded their homes.
As I walked back to my bed each night I had to stroll through a parade of vigilante checkpoints. I’d be stopped by nice polite middle-class people, who would then ask for my ID, smile, and let me through. Fifty paces later I’d do it again. A community spirit that had always been missing from this dirty sprawling city had been born. This went on night after night. On one chilly evening I saw that a checkpoint of decent law-abiding citizens had chopped up and were burning their local police post to keep warm. One of my Egyptian friends, Angy, who was spending her nights in the street outside her home armed with her best kitchen knife, told me: ‘Someone who if you see in the street you wouldn’t know, now you are trusting him to secure your family while you are protesting. This is amazing.’
Sending away the police rebounded spectacularly on the Mubarak regime, but its longer-term effects on society were profound and went on to undermine the process of creating a new democratic state. The police left work that night and they didn’t come back. ‘On January 28 my brother went home and
More than 200 people were killed during the uprisings in Cairo, many of them during the ‘Day of Rage’ protests. 20 The demonstrators around the city couldn’t communicate with one another, but they all knew where they wanted to be, Tahrir Square. Everything else just happened. The only element of organisation I saw that day was an old man sitting on a street just off the Nile with a bag of onions, which he was breaking into pieces to give to those of us retching from the effects of tear gas. The vapour released by raw onions counteracts the effects of the gas, but by nightfall even that wasn’t needed. After a series of running battles the people owned the streets, their tormentors were on the run, and I was being jostled and pushed by streams of young men running in and out of the symbol of the ruling National Democratic Party, its enormous headquarters, which sat on the banks of the Nile a few hundred metres from Tahrir Square. By day it was a towering reminder of the power of the party. By that night it was a towering inferno symbolising its end. As its upper levels were being gutted by fire, its lower levels were being looted. The men pushed through the open gates, their arms filled with tables, cabinets and obscure bits of office equipment, in fact anything they could grab before the flames got to it first.
The uniformed police had melted into the night, but most of them hadn’t just given up on their own. They were sent home by the government. I was told this by a Western diplomat in Cairo. ‘We know that’s what happened,’ he said. The NDP hoped that their absence would provoke chaos on the streets and within forty-eight hours the population would be begging them to come back and restore order. Egyptian society thrives on rumours, so it went straight into a frenzy at reports of criminal gangs preying on the middle-class suburbs. But instead of terrifying Cairo’s society it unified opposition to President Mubarak. Everyone suddenly felt vulnerable, and so everyone got together and began to organise with neighbours they’d often barely troubled to acknowledge. Suddenly people who had never had a conversation with each other before were swapping telephone numbers, and rotas were created to allow people to go to Tahrir Square to protest while others guarded their homes.
As I walked back to my bed each night I had to stroll through a parade of vigilante checkpoints. I’d be stopped by nice polite middle-class people, who would then ask for my ID, smile, and let me through. Fifty paces later I’d do it again. A community spirit that had always been missing from this dirty sprawling city had been born. This went on night after night. On one chilly evening I saw that a checkpoint of decent law-abiding citizens had chopped up and were burning their local police post to keep warm. One of my Egyptian friends, Angy, who was spending her nights in the street outside her home armed with her best kitchen knife, told me: ‘Someone who if you see in the street you wouldn’t know, now you are trusting him to secure your family while you are protesting. This is amazing.’
Sending away the police rebounded spectacularly on the Mubarak regime, but its longer-term effects on society were profound and went on to undermine the process of creating a new democratic state. The police left work that night and they didn’t come back. ‘On January 28 my brother went home and
Similar Books
