[Campaignforrealdemocracy] The Army and the Police are One

[Mark Barrett]

The Army and the Police are one
Posted on February 26, 2011 <http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=355> by
admin <http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?author=1>| 1
Comment<http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=355#comments>

The sad events of tonight will hopefully bury that relatively misguided
phrase الجيش و الشعب أيد واحدة, “the people and the army are one hand” and
reveal that the true nature of the situation in Egypt is better described as
الخيش و الشرطة أيد واحدة “the army and the police are one hand.” A group of
several hundred peaceful protestors, attempting to stay the night in Tahrir
square and in front of the People’s Assembly to protest continued military
rule and the persistence of the old regime’s illegitimate presence in
government, were violently attacked and driven away by Military Police, Army
officers and commandos wearing balaclavas and wielding sub-machine guns. One
protestor, taken inside of the People’s Assembly building by army officers
and beaten, was told bluntly “don’t fuck with the army.”

The victims of this assault were the committed remnants of an earlier
protest of thousands in front of the square, whose numbers were perhaps
artificially low since the army had kettled those already camped out and
prevented others from joining them. These would-be demonstrators were
quickly and unflinchingly attacked by military police and army soldiers
using nightsticks and cattle prods, beating and shocking them until they
were forced to scatter. Many people were abducted, including Shady al
Ghazali Harb and one ‘foreign’ journalist who was taken away early
(whereabouts currently unkown). Many more people were injured to varying
degrees, some quite seriously, including several people passing out from the
voltage of the stun batons; some of the injured required treatment at
hospital.

The putative excuse for this assault was that protestors were in violation
of curfew; aside from a curfew violation not justifying extreme physical
violence without warning, this is effectively the same curfew that was
flaunted without consequence throughout the entire initial sequence of this
revoultion. The army, since taking control over the executive, has been
increasingly strict (read: arbitrary, violent) in its enforcement of the
curfew, seemingly in order to prevent sit-ins and other nighttime
demonstrations. We saw no property damage or other violence during curfew
hours in previous weeks (except that perpetrated by government-hired thugs),
and so the presumption that this is “for our own protection” is a farce that
hardly warrants discussion. Collective punishment, an air of anxiety, and
the disruption of continued control and presence of key protest sites are
the only observable motives of this curfew.

The greater point, however, which comes as no surprise to most involved in
this revolution, is that the army is no friend of the people. This
institution is as much a part of the regime as any other, representing not
just the same entrenched military-political elite that have ruled Egypt for
60 years but also enormous and substantial business interests that benefit
from preferential treatment and systemic corruption. There has been little
doubt in anyone’s mind that the army’s preference would be to maintain most
of the country’s infrastructure (police and political) just as it was
before, while placating the people telling them that it was their ally and
guardian. And yet, and yet, we see the same violence directed at citizens
here that we have seen in the hands of police (and only a day after a police
officer shot a microbus driver during a verbal argument in the street). The
army has shown its bloody hand, and the only hope is that the news of this
will spread fast enough that people can realize their complicity and
duplicity before any more blood need be spilled.

This remains a regime and a system which has been trained and taught to
regard people as a threat to their continued privilege and prosperity, who
in the name of stability create chaos, pain and anxiety for anyone who would
seek to be present in public, to voice an opinion or seek after their
long-lost rights. Whatever expectations the Egyptian people may have had
from the army, and whatever the army may have done by way of protecting
civilians during the early weeks of protest (as they did somewhat, but not
enough) should be meaningless now. Now in the seat of power, they display
the same callous paternalism and heavy hand that the old figureheads of the
regime did, and whether this is their desire or this is simply the machine
controlling its operator, serious structural and institutional change is the
only possible acceptable outcome.

Out with the army, out with the police, out with the old regime. All one
hand, all working together to drive the Egyptian people into despair,
subjection and quiescence. We, however, have had a taste of the immediacy of
freedom and will neither be placated by the gifts of the state nor cowed by
its criminal, unacceptable violence
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=355
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