The army and the people
Issandr El Amrani | #jan25 Egypt Going around central Cairo today, it strikes me the deployment of the army is quite meager considering the circumstances. The crowds are very pro-army, I filmed an amazing moment when a charismatic one-star general addressed the public and spoke of the importance of maintaining public order. People kept shouting, are you with or against Mubarak? He answered that his mission is making sure the looting stops, and that the issue of who governs if the people's decision, not the army's, and that government should be civilian.
Of course there is mounting tension and uncertainty about where the army stands. There are so few tanks (maybe 20-30) and personnel around Midan Tahrir that I feel they could easily be overwhelmed.
A lot of reports of looting and attacks on civilians by mobs. The Carrefour supermarket in Maadi is burning and looters have been shot by the army. Tonight might be dangerous in areas.
Again, that being said, the vast, vast majority of protestors are peaceful people, mostly middle class, and they are showing great solidarity. People are still defending the Egyptian Museum. Volunteers are cleaning the streets and helping fireman. There is a great sense of civic duty out there, and great sadness at the looting and crime (which is being mostly blamed on police and baltaguia).
There is an unconfirmed rumor that police is expected back within the hour, and the curfew has been moved to 4pm. I will probably not have internet access after this.
P.S. Al Ahram's headline today was "Government dismissed" - I suppose they are still trying to salvage this. Personally I think if Mubarak does not go soon we will see much more violence.
P.P.S. Last night it appeared the Republican Guard had taken control of key buildings. It's now the regular army, according to several officers.
Reader Comments (15)
Hi Issandr,
good luck to you and the people of Egypt. (i am liveblogging things at MoA). I agree with the "meager" military deployment. Not enough to do something if the crowd keeps it up and stay determined.
Best to you
Bernhard
Egypt is one of the most influencial country around the word but he never have before this days a rol in the internacional media that normally lack information about human civil an social rigths in this contry. Now this "status quo" must change. Dissident and free speech rigths, social policy to the poor and figth against corruption for more and better democracy is the main issue for the people of Egypt.
I am very sad for the loss of lives, but at the same time I'm overjoyed for the Egyptian people, they are brave and strong and they deserve to have a democratically elected government, freedom from oppression! Stay strong, you are a light for many others. Today in Vancouver, Canada there is a protest for the people!
the German public TV cites "the arabist" as a major source for info on what's going on...
http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/linklisteaegypten100.html
big up!
With the police moving out of the urban areas it seems that a free for all has been created. Looting is reported from the upscale neighborhoods like Maadi and even from 6th Oct. If this is a strategy by the regime to come back in force arguing that the protest created such a chaos that re-establishing control needs a strong hand, than they play a dangerous game....
phone call from Cairo
- seems that people are getting organized in order to defend their homes/neighborhood
- apparently most of the police-force melted away. officers reporting plain clothed to service found offices deserted.
- meanwhile other security personel is said to grab weapons/ammunition, leave office after having destroyed evidence on their activities
- rumors about prisoners released from custody
I'll keep my fingers crossed for the people of Egypt....heck, for ANYBODY in Egypt right now that this will go down without much violence. Also, I don't know the one-star general who held that speach, but I LIKE the guy just for sticking to the goal of stopping the looting and for maintaining that the army shouldn't interfere with the people's choice of government (he might have been saying all that for practical purposes...sounded like the people around him might have turned into a mob otherwise, but still.... ^_^)
-There are no more police anywhere, and the few security officers I saw, seemed to have deserted and joined local watch groups.
-Looting seems to have slowed as people throughout Cairo have organized and there are bands of neighborhood watch everywhere
-The prison break is also what has made many scared
-And there is still fighting and gunfire at the interior ministry
Just read that Hosni Mubarak made the head of Egyptian Mukhabarat (gestapo) the first ever vice president. The news has been touted as land mark in western news channels since Mubarak never had a vice president and secondly US state department says that they have good relations with Gestapo chief. This guy has been in this position for last 20 years and has been responsible for kidnap, torture and deaths of hundreds of Egyptians and surprisingly US and the western media find nothing wrong about it...it is clear on which side US interests lies and which horse they are backing
Being a Pakistani and have seen 3 military dictatorships in the country shamelessly supported by the democracy promoting US government, I would advise you to be wary of military. They are the ones who gained the most during Mubaraks regime from US aid and it is in their interest that nothing really changes underneath.
Even day before yesterday they were in US, I heard on the news, discussing future aid even when the people were on the streets. I think it was FDR who warned of dangers of military industrial complex but in your case you have to be careful of your military complex.
Good luck.
Making Sense of Egypt: A View from Abroad
If anything can be said of what we see in Egypt these days, than, that it is stunning. Whatever is going to happen in the near future, the protests we witness are a landmark event. Something nobody would have predicted a week ago. Only the most daring pundits suggested the potential of a domino effect taking place throughout the region. Although the overall situation is apparently quite volatile a few words are in order.
As has been emphasized again and again, the protesters out in the streets are from all walks of life. However, seeing this as a twitter or facebook revolution might misconstrue the character of these protests. Certainly, it looks as if the demonstrations were launched by young liberal-minded upper middle class kids. They are at ease with the new means of communications and with their help staged a non-ideological protest calling for change. But they do not constitute a critical mass to put the regime under pressure save to topple it.
The numbers needed to impress those in power lie in the lower middle class and among the poor. Those people who face the daily hardship of living under a regime that has neither benefited them economically nor appears to be responsive to their grievances will make the difference. They haven’t much to lose.
Until now social unrest had been local, issue-specific and largely contained. Indeed, protest there have been but they were staged by professional groups and their demands aimed at easing the financial hardship they suffered from. No broader movement emerged. All of that has been primarily economic and not political.
The link between those abstracting from the manifold problems besetting the Egyptian society and concluding that the solution was not piecemeal reform but thoroughgoing political change, on the one hand, and the broad mass of the people on the other, often defiant of the government but unorganized and far too much preoccupied by making ends meet, had yet to me made. By all accounts, this appears to have happened now. But we need to be cautious.
The scenes of demonstrators overwhelming the police forces and the symbolic arson of the NDP HQ might be misleading cues. The extent of destruction and the severity of violence we witness are not necessarily an indication of the breadth and depth of the population’s commitment to something that will be nothing short of a revolution. If one thing is surprising it is the fact that the number of those taking action is (still) relatively small. Although rallies have taken place all over the country we are talking about tens of thousands of people – not hundreds of thousands – at least as far as is possible to grasp from the news coming in. Most of the demonstrators are angry young males, those who have scores to settle with a police they are used to fear and a party that stands for a political system they despise. Yet, the vast majority is sitting on the fence observing what is going to happen. Their hesitance is not surprising given their reluctance to join into an endeavor whose destiny is unknown.
Even though the regime is despised by many if not a clear majority the derision with which it was treated in the past helped to make sense of the ills the society was suffering from. While all blame could be shifted on Mubarak, life, for better or worse, went on. The anger against the regime could be vented in private and became sort of a code, a comforting expression of complicity in the face of shared grievances. More often than not the secretive nature of this did not leave any space for differentiation. By contrast, any open political expression that sought to capitalize on this public mood met with fierce repression by the regime. A political middle ground between the public mood and the establishment could not evolve and hence no space for compromise.
Now things have taken an unexpected turn. Numerous were the voices who argued that the present state of affairs was untenable. Some assumed that things might come to a head with the upcoming presidential elections where the attention would focus exclusively on the person of Mubarak and potential heirs. Now the political developments have sped up - and unexpectedly so.
The often rehearsed rejection of the status quo has suddenly translated into action. Since there are no political parties leading the demonstrations there is nobody to enter into talks in order to engage the government on a path of serious reform that would prompt a political transition away from authoritarianism. Meanwhile those on the street rally around the one common denominator: Mubarak has to leave.
As the radicalism of their private conversations materialized in the streets Egyptians are getting scared: The break down of social order creates a dangerous situation. The beauty of political empowerment is turning ugly as thugs seize the opportunity and take the streets.
The genie is out of the bottle. Without a space for compromise talk of reforms won’t help. If there is one thing that appears obvious than that Egypt is over the brink.
Felix;
well put. The dark abyss of chaos is one that regular people that work to feed a family or have some other form of responsibility, look into with serious concern. What will happen next? Who will feed my family if everything falls apart? Will my employer survive? Is he on the side of the establishment or on the side of the disaffected. Lots of questions, few answers. A country of this size falling into complete anarchy has not been seen since Rome fell. Would the army come in to stop the slide? Can the people (like those protecting the museums) be counted on to keep the criminals at bay? What a mess. I pray the extremists don't use this as a stepping stone to power.
I am from the Soviet Union and I'm married to an Egyptian in America. The rest of the family is in Cairo and Alexandria.
They are not scared. They are elated. They want to keep going. They are PROUD to be Egyptian now. I remember watching my own country's brutal dictatorship fall twenty years ago.
It's impossible not to feel for the Egyptians! I'm overcome with sadness when I'm in Egypt. I look at the faces of the protestors - they're so sweet. They're so tired. They just want to be left alone to take care of their families, to have a chance to work to better their lives.
I love them. I love them all. I know how they feel.
This revolution may make America and Israel uncomfortable and fearful. But, our security cannot come at the price of Egyptians' freedom and dignity.
Omar Suleiman, appointed by Mubarak as 1st vice-president in 30 years, "...was the C.I.A.’s point man in Egypt for renditions—the covert program in which the C.I.A. snatched terror suspects from around the world and returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances..."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/01/who-is-omar-suleiman.html
The new Prime Minister - One of Mubarak’s coterie
The newly appointed Prime Minister Mr. Shafiq is a senior politician and retired general was recently mentioned as another potential contender for Mubarak’s succession. He was said to be able to navigate the split within the party that appears to have emerged around the question of the future of Gamal Mubarak who is not from the ranks of the army.
According to a recent report by the WSJ: “The 69-year-old is a former Air Force commander, as President Mubarak was, and served under Mr. Mubarak's command. He comes from a relatively limited cadre of powerful retired generals serving in influential civilian roles. He is a trusted Mubarak-family confidant, according to Western and Egyptian officials.
He has also proved his managerial skills, dragging Egypt's commercial air sector into the 21st century. He spearheaded massive upgrades to Cairo International Airport and transformed the country's once-rickety national air carrier”.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704447604576007143222774156.html)
Don’t no if this of interest but I made a few calls and individual stories corroborate what has been said in the news.
Nozal e Gedida, a popular area close to the airport – abt 3000 men have gathered to form vigilante groups, no police / no army. a few burglars have been arrested by the people during the night
El Manial – pretty much the same story
Shoubra – no police / no army in the streets, shooting during the night. Shops looted.
In El Fayoum abt 100k south there is police and military in the streets.
Situation has been more dramatic in the upscale neighborhoods like Maadi…
During daytime some felt save to walk the streets in the centre but as night falls it feels dangerous. Shop owners, bawabs, residents – all are armed and ready to defend their homes.
Citizens step in to control traffic and I’ve been told that there is a huge amount of solidarity among the people – well, this is Egypt after all.
There seems to be some confusion in the German expat community concerning evacuation plans. However, they have a priority list. Some have already left, though. Nobody was harmed as far as I understood.