Friday in Cairo: The "Day of Rage"

by Christian Vachon

Gordon Reynolds — the pseudonym of a teacher in Cairo, dictated this over the phone to a friend not in Egypt. (For real-time dispatches on today’s demonstrations, follow him here.)

“Mister, Are you going to the protests tomorrow?” a student asked me on Thursday.

“No,” I said.

“It’s going to be worse than Thursday. Everything begins after Friday prayers, around twelve-thirty.”

“If I were going,” I said, “What part of town would I go to?”

“If you were going,” he said with a grin, “Then you should go to the mosque in Khan el-Khalili on Al-Azhar Street.”

***

The next morning at 11:45 a.m., I was in the back of a taxi, heading to the mosque on Al-Azhar for Friday prayers.

Standing on the side of the highway, facing the oncoming traffic was a policeman. Suddenly, our car accelerated, speeding towards him. The officer jumped to the road’s shoulder as my driver veered our speeding car at him. The driver looked up at me in the rearview mirror and smiled and laughed.

On #jan25, it was tweeted that Coptic Christians would attend Friday prayers to help protect Muslims, but as I stood in the back of the mosque, I saw no sign of them. In his sermon, the Imam spoke of how Mohammed came to bring light into the world, and through Islam, draw all men together into this light. He said that as Egypt goes through this time of trial, what is required most is patience — that change comes through restraint, not violence.

At 12:30 p.m., the mosque emptied into the narrow streets of Khan el-Khalili. On the way out I began talking to a store owner in his sixties. He invited me into his antique shop for tea.

“I don’t think there will be violence,” he said, as we sat outside his store. “What is accomplished if I break a policeman’s face? That man has a family. We are all the same people. In Islam we say, ‘To take a life is to take every life. To save a life is to save every life.’”

Then, a plump older gentleman wearing glasses and a sweater ran over to us. “The fighting has begun,” he said.

* * *

There were hundreds of young men and teenagers gathered on Al-Azhar Street when I arrived. They carried rocks in their hands. On the north end were Egyptian police in riot gear. The first set of roughly thirty officers were in position approximately one hundred yards on the north end of Al-Azhar Street. Two hundred yards behind them was a second line of police in position to keep the first from being surrounded from behind.

The objective of the protestors was to march down Al-Azhar Street to Tahrir Square where groups had amassed from other locations throughout Cairo.

The protestors chanted, “Bo-ttle, Bo-ttle, Bo-ttle.” With each syllable, they banged their rocks on the metal railing that separated the street from the sidewalk. As they chanted, the front protestors stared down at the line of officers linking riot shields and walked towards them.

Outnumbered, the police held their positions.

The first cannon-shot of tear gas sent the crowd running back. Then came the second and the third. The crowd retreated as police chased them up Al-Azhar Street. I was too close to the charging authorities to run back, so I turned into a side street. I had not gained more than a few feet before a teenager grabbed my shoulder and said, “No, they’ll follow you there, come.”

He jerked me into the entrance of a building where six of his friends had gathered. Other Egyptians tried to force their way inside, but the teenager reached up, pulled down an aluminum gate, and secured it with a padlock. Then he turned to me and extended his hand.

“I’m Nasr,” he said, “It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

We walked up eight flights of stairs and onto the roof where there was a group of six men — most in their early twenties, and six teenage boys and a small child, all looking over the edge down onto the street below.

* * *

There were three streets involved in Friday’s fight for Al-Azhar. At the ground level was Al-Azhar itself — the majority of the conflict between police and protestors took place here. Above this street was the first elevated highway, roughly four stories from ground level. Above this was a second elevated highway, roughly eight stories above ground level and nearly parallel to our position on the roof.

For the next six hours, protestors and authorities battled each other in effort to take advantage of the higher ground and gain control. When police charged forward on Al-Azhar Street, protestors ran up the first elevated highway and pelted them with rocks and bricks. In response, police units and tanks would charge the second elevated highway, firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowd until protestors retreated.

Trapped inside the building as the fighting endured without pause, I watched this back and forth battle for position and passage continue until after nightfall.

There have been rumors that this uprising is the work of the Muslim Brotherhood, but the majority of protestors I watched battling all day were teenagers — some of them just barely so. Some wore flip flops. Others charged at police barefoot. There were adults among them, but as the afternoon hours passed and I watched them continually get tear-gassed only to return with defiance, it seemed to me that I was watching enraged kids with nothing to lose.

* * *

On the roof, Nasr introduced me to Ahmed, a man in his forties who appeared to be in charge of things. “You’ll be safe with me,” he said when we shook hands. As he spoke all I could hear was the continued ring of tear gas cannons down below. Protestors had thrown some of the spewing gas canisters up on the second elevated highway across from us. The wind carried the gas towards the roof of our building.

My eyes watered as the fog blew over us. My throat burned. Ahmed led me to a faucet. We splashed water on our faces as we struggled to breath.

“I am so sorry that this happened to you in my country,” he said to me.

When the cloud had dissipated, one of the teenagers in the group decided to avenge our gassing. He picked up a brick and threw it down at the police below. Spotting this, an officer on the second level of the highway fired a canister of tear gas at us. It flew past my head and landed on the back corner of the roof.

We ran down the stairwell for cover.

Sitting on the concrete steps, with tissues over our mouths and noses, our eyes tearing as the continuous pop of gas cannons echoed on Al-Azhar, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned.

“Your email address?” the teenager who threw the rock then asked. “For Facebook. We can be friends on Facebook.”

The rest of the group nodded. They too wanted to be my friends on Facebook.

* * *

By late afternoon, some of the rocks were now being aimed at us. Frustrated that onlookers were not joining them, some protestors targeted the spectators watching from the rooftops. We were forced to take refuge in the office of a men’s clothing manufacturer on the fourth floor of the building. Inside Ahmed turned the television to Al-Jazeera. They were broadcasting video of the fighting outside our office window.

At roughly 6 p.m., I looked down and saw that two trucks filled with back-up reserve officers had arrived. An additional one hundred reinforcements exited and formed two lines. For the next three minutes a rapid succession of cannon blasts rang from outside. In formation, the replenished officers pushed forward. Unable to see or breath, protestors abandoned their pursuit and authorities regained control of Al-Azhar.

The streets clear of fighting, I said goodbye to my friends and thanked them for keeping me safe. I took a white rag, tied it around my face, and walked into the smoky night. The air was still hazy with gas, forming halos in the streetlights. Chunks of concrete littered the pavement. There was a team of three officers standing at the intersection. They reached for their batons when they saw me approach. I lowered the mask and threw my hands up. They dropped their arms. “Taxi?” I yelled.

“Straight ahead,” they replied, and pointed me down Al-Azhar.

I started down the street and headed towards the highway. The roads were flooded with Egyptian families, traveling in packs, all trying to get home. I passed half a dozen burning tires. They sent black clouds of smoke into the purple sky. Then, reaching the highway, I stopped, stared at the oncoming cars, waved my arm, and waited.