BY PAUL SCHEMM
CAIRO — On March 28, for the second consecutive Friday, thousands of Egyptians gathered at the al Azhar mosque to voice their opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq. But it was immediately apparent that the demonstration would be very different from the dramatic protests of the previous week.
Riot police lined the streets leading to the 1000-year-old mosque, but only a token force was deployed around the building itself, in contrast to the massive presence on March 21. Instead of police commanders, there were members of the Muslim Brotherhood wearing badges issued by the "order committee".
Following noon prayers, a very orderly crowd of 10,000 marched out of the mosque and away from downtown Cairo. It dispersed peacefully within an hour. Three effigies with Halloween masks for heads bore the requisite Israeli, British and US flags, but the protest's leaders refrained from shouting slogans against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.
The Muslim Brotherhood, officially outlawed, is widely regarded as the strongest organised opposition to the nominally secular Egyptian government. "Whenever the government is threatened by the street, it goes to the Brotherhood", commented veteran activist Muhammad Waked.
The previous weekend, Cairo had witnessed two days of protests like nothing seen since the 1970s, complete with a day-long occupation of the central Tahrir Square on March 20 and running battles between riot police and demonstrators trying to reach the square again on March 21.
The regime cracked down. Although the security forces were overwhelmed at times, they reacted savagely, beating protesters with their batons. By nightfall, Tahrir Square was like an armed camp. According to human rights groups, 800-1500 people were arrested — including two members of parliament. Though some detainees have now been released, Human Rights Watch verified that several were severely beaten while in custody, many suffering broken bones.
However, Mubarak's regime is responding to anti-war sentiment in Egypt with more than repression. As the March 28 demonstration showed, the regime recognises the need to provide a state-sanctioned outlet for the growing rage at the US-led assault upon Iraq.
Mubarak himself has gone out of his way in recent speeches to affirm that Egypt is not aiding George Bush's "coalition of the willing" in its war effort — something that crowds in the region, especially Syria, do not believe.
'Out of the cage'
The regime's twin strategies of repression and cooption aim to reduce the likelihood of a repeat of the March 20-21 popular demonstrations. For about 12 hours on March 21, protesters wandered almost bemused across the Tahrir Square's suddenly car-less expanse. "This is the first time we've made it out of the cage", said one jubilant activist.
Riot police were present in vast numbers, but only on the edges of the square. They had surrendered the centre, which was filled with some 3000 people listening to speeches and chanting slogans.
The protest had originally been scheduled for 1pm on "the day after America begins bombing", according to the email and text messages that circulated in advance. Events began early when a few hundred students from the American University in Cairo (AUC) made their way to the Omar Makram mosque on the far edge of the square, about as close to the US embassy as anyone was allowed to go that day. The students were soon joined by a small contingent of Muslim Brothers who conducted a symbolic prayer overseen by their supreme guide Mamoun al Hodeibi. Security forces closely hemmed in what looked set to become the usual symbolic demonstration.
But the crowd managed to burst through the cordon toward the main square, where they met other groups of left-wing and Nasserist (nationalist) activists. The result was a surprisingly ecumenical demonstration that featured the stylish AUC students, hardened left activists, Islamists and passersby.
Aside from a few scuffles on the edges, the protest remained peaceful, as anti-government slogans filled the air. "Mubarak! Leave! Leave!", chanted protesters, "Alaa [Mubarak's son], tell your dad that millions hate him!". Other chants accused the Egyptian government of failing to take the long-term implications of the war in Iraq seriously: "Mubarak, wake up! Tomorrow the bombing will be in Bab al Luq [a nearby neighbourhood]".
Several times throughout the day, hundreds of demonstrators broke from the main group and marched toward the US embassy. When they encountered the cordon of riot police, they began tearing up pieces of pavement and throwing them, chanting: "Close down the embassy, take down the flag!"
In the small side streets about a block from the embassy, the march was met by more riot police and a water cannon. Eventually, the marchers were dispersed and allowed to rejoin the main demonstration, which continued to occupy the square until midnight.
Running battles
These confrontations were harbingers of the next day's events, when security forces locked down Tahrir Square with massive numbers of troops. Roving groups of demonstrators ran through downtown Cairo, periodically clashing with police. The demonstration on March 21 began at the al Azhar mosque. Following a quick sermon by the state's leading cleric, Muhammad al Sayyid Tantawi, in which he spoke vaguely about solidarity with the Iraqi people, the chants and slogans began immediately.
Riot police immediately blocked the main doors and refused to allow worshippers to leave. Worshippers responded by breaking up furniture to trade blows with the batons of police, all the while chanting: "With our blood and soul, we will sacrifice ourselves for Islam."
While the melee at the mosque doors continued, bystanders gathered in the streets. Soon up to three distinct crowds waving banners and loudly denouncing the US invasion of Iraq — as well as the Egyptian regime — confronted police. The small groups were ruthlessly broken up with attack dogs and water cannons, sending demonstrators fleeing into the narrow alleys of the nearby market.
Eventually, one large group of several thousand protesters headed downtown, approximately an hour away at a normal walking pace. All the while, groups of police clashed with the marchers and herded them toward the wide European-style boulevards and squares which lead to Tahrir Square, close to the Nile River.
The way to the square, however, was blocked and soon masses of angry youth were surging through downtown, crashing into one wall of riot troops after another. Several different groups converged from different directions, and some 10,000 protesters spilled into the area just north of Tahrir Square, between the Ramses Hilton and the Egyptian Museum. There the demonstrators overwhelmed units of riot police and set fire to a water truck busy reloading one of the water cannons.
Marching along the Corniche, they stopped to torch the poster of Mubarak outside the ruling party's headquarters and burned all the foreign flags outside the Nile Hilton. They even attempted to march on to the US embassy before being scattered by a massed phalanx of riot police.
Surveying the smoldering remnants of the water truck and the squads of police rounding up the remaining demonstrators, one activist observed: "Security was definitely not in control of the situation, because people were not willing to give up."
Critical period lost?
Though the Egyptian regime is wary of all types of organised protest, it will intervene most forcibly to channel popular anger over the Iraq war away from the government. Mubarak's statement at the outbreak of the war on March 19 focused on Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's role in bringing Washington's wrath down upon his country. His statement provoked a response almost as rare as rioting in the capital, when 26 intellectuals signed a counter-statement in the Nasserist weekly al Arabi, blaming the war on US "colonialist aggression".
Most of the signatories are sufficiently prominent that they won't come to harm, but nonetheless it was an unusual step for Egyptian intellectuals to directly contradict Mubarak in a major publication. Intellectuals, however, are not the ones to lead street demonstrations and already, a week after March 20-21, there was a sense that momentum was being lost.
The authorities moved quickly to neutralise the formation of any core organisation that could maintain the militant protest movement, first by surrounding the Lawyers' Syndicate on March 21 and arresting activists inside, and then by going after well-known activists in their homes over the next few days.
According to those involved in the protests, the opportunity to build on the spontaneous explosions of anger may have been squandered. Whether helped along by state security intimidation, internal disarray or both, the critical period has passed, some believe.
Still, the takeover of Tahrir Square and even the government-approved demonstration on March 28 are an expansion of the space for Egyptian street politics — which has been moribund for most of the Mubarak era. However, since the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, demonstrations (though often small and encircled by a large security presence) have become an almost weekly feature of Egyptian life.
The state appears determined to stop the spread of nascent anti-government dissent in its tracks, as shown by the campaign of arrests and the decision to coopt the protests by bringing in the Muslim Brotherhood.
For now, anti-war demonstrations are back within the relatively safe confines of university campuses or are carefully orchestrated with the government's blessing. But as the war in Iraq drags on — exactly what the Egyptian regime feared would happen — and anger grows at images of Iraqi casualties, street politics may again take over Cairo.
[Paul Schemm is editor of the Cairo Times. Abridged from a Middle East Research and Information Project article. Visit the MERIP web site at <http://www.merip.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, April 16, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.