TJP

Cairo - “We agree with you but these battery bombs are terrorism,” says one protestor to another.

“But they are shooting our eyes out, brother,” the other protestor retorts passionately as he carries his bag of a several home-made explosives consisting of battery packs and fireworks that he intends to use against the police whom he encountered brutal violence from just hours earlier.

“He is just so angry,” his friend told me when I asked him about the “bombs” in his comrade’s possession. “It’s because they tried to kill him and he has seen them kill others like cockroaches.”

There is anger in Tahrir. Protestors for the past four days have confronted images of the police dragging nonviolent young men and women by the hair and beating them mercilessly. They saw children as young as 10 knocked out by tear gas and watched as old men and women struggled to stay conscious in the midst of chemicals. They witnessed police forces shooting in a systematic manner at the eyes and heads of demonstrators.

Headlines on major newspapers report protestors using Molotov cocktails in their confrontations with the police making some activists cringe at the thought that these portrayals of protestors can be used by the ruling military council to justify further crackdowns and discredit the popular movement for human rights that thousands of Egyptians have braved for.

Nevertheless, there are two realities in Tahrir Square. For many the Tahrir is a place of spirit and peace. There is a strong sense of peoplehood and kinship here among those who instinctively share their meager supply of food, blankets, and medicine with one another. Using whatever skills they have, people of all walks of life came together in an amazing show of strength to mutually support one another.

Yet, at the same time an underlying anger against the tyrannical violence of an interim transitional military council that has proven it is willing to kill and torture Egyptians to maintain an unjust system remains a binding tie for the protestors as much as the desire to see a change for greater freedoms.

Tactically, protestors and activists have debated the use of weapons.  Some argue that in the midst of violence from a much more powerful state that holds a monopoly on legal violence that fighting back is their legitimate right to self-defense.  However, many believe that methods of physical confrontation are counter-productive to the image of the revolution, though they understand what drives the motives those who use “weapons.” 

Interviews with young Egyptian men signaled an accelerated sense of purpose. Their daily struggle to survive in a corrupt and suppressive Egypt found a physical form in the battles for Tahrir.  They had no intention of backing down or foregoing an opportunity to strike back.

News and television announcements of individual resignations does not appear to settle or even phase those who have endured the ugly daily effects of corruption, violence, injustice in the last nine months under SCAF.  Long after the raging fires on Mohammed Mahmoud Street are put out, and the physical battles have ended the anger of many in Egypt will continue to burn until they are able to live out the justice they seek.

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