Community in Cairo

“It’s amazing. These 15-year-old kids are doing such a much better job than our traffic police.” — former diplomat in Cairo, Egypt.

Eric mentioned this weekend with regard to Egypt’s natal chart that the placement of Mercury and the Moon in mutual reception indicated that Egypt’s armed forces likely play “any role that is convenient at the moment.” At this particular moment, the popular movement is looking pretty strong against Mubarak’s government — and the people do not fear the military; this potentially gives the people a strong ally in the changes they are pushing for.

In fact, when the police were ordered to retreat Friday and the military sent in, protesters welcomed the soldiers — cheering and climbing atop the tanks to pray.

Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is in Cairo, grew up in Egypt and has traveled back many times since moving to the U.S. — but says the Egypt he returned to late last week was a changed country, never to be the same regardless of how things progress. With regard to the reception of the military by the people of Cairo, he remarked today that “what’s important to understand is that, you know, over the past decades, three decades, the state, the security forces and the police have been brutalizing, have been torturing the Egyptian people, have been wrongly imprisoning them, have been corrupt. But the army has not done this. The army has not had an interaction with the civilian population since the 1973 war with Israel. And so, people trust the army.”

Of course, the people are also perfectly aware of who has outfitted the Egyptian police and army. The tanks are either American-made or American-designed and built in Egypt by agreement. Kouddous describes protesters coming up to him with spent teargas canisters, pointing to the “Made in the U.S.A.” label. They are not protesting the U.S., but rather pointing out that they know how close the two governments are, and desire to choose for themselves what the new government will look like — regardless of how it does or does not fit the agenda of American politicians and companies.

But perhaps most encouraging is the description Kouddous gives of the overwhelming sense of community springing up among the protesters, who span classes, religions and ages:

There really is an unbelievable feeling of community now, of people coming together. I’ve never seen Egypt this way. People are picking up trash in Tahrir Square. People are handing out food. People are helping each other. People are sleeping in the middle of Tahrir Square and setting up tents in the middle of the square. It is a scene that is very emotional. It’s something that no one thought could come together. It’s largely leaderless. I mean, no one — there’s no one organizing group. This is a popular uprising across all segments of society. Opposition groups have come now into the fold. They are — the Muslim Brotherhood is here, and other opposition groups. But people don’t want it co-opted. And, you know, one of the things that I witnessed that was very moving was a lot of the Brotherhood started chanting, “Allah Akbar,” and then—which means “God is great” in Arabic. And then the counter chant that was much louder, reverberating over them, was to “Muslim, Christian, we are all Egyptian.” And that really symbolizes what’s happening here in Egypt today.

And, you know, Amy, I’ve seen some reports — I’ve had very little access to any kind of outside news. They really have shut down — the internet is completely shut down here. Cell phones do work now, and people are starting to be able to call each other. There is no texting; no SMS texting goes out. And they are very afraid of the internet, because Facebook was how they organized this uprising, to begin with. It was organized on Facebook. And there’s also mass SMS texting that is very common here in Egypt. And so, they’ve kept that shut down to try and cut off the communications from people. But people in Cairo do not care. They are going right now — I can see droves heading to Tahrir. And what’s significant, they go at the time of the curfew. They go when the curfew is there, and that’s when they start heading out.

And there’s been many reports of violence, of looting. And I just want to be very clear about this, that there was a significant amount of looting on Friday after the police completely disappeared from the scene. Certain places in Mohandessin in downtown Cairo were burned. Banks were burned. Some shops were looted. And, you know, there’s been reports of armed gangs coming around and robbing houses. Some of that did happen, yes, but what’s been amazing and what’s also kind of another phase of how this is Egypt coming together in this popular movement is that people have taken to the streets and formed these very efficient neighborhood watch committees. Where I live here in Zamalek, there’s groups of men, young and old, they stand, they form barricades. They are armed with metal pipes, some with bats. Some do have guns. And what they do is they check people coming in. They check their IDs. They’re very courteous. They allow people to go through if they believe you live in the neighborhood. They have really — they’re protecting their own. They’re protecting their homes. They are directing traffic. Well, the traffic cops are back in the streets of Cairo today, but before that, they were directing traffic. I’ve never seen Cairo traffic so smooth. One former diplomat I spoke with said, “It’s amazing. These 15-year-old kids are doing such a much better job than our traffic police.”

That’s the story of what’s happening here. And people are so fed up with Mubarak, it’s hard to describe. They curse him. They want him to step down. And they will not leave the streets of Cairo, the streets of Egypt, until he does.

Read the full report from Sharif Abdel Kouddous here.