The Egyptian Revolution 02 : On Streets, Sidewalks, and Gangs

On Friday the 28^th of January, at approximately 6pm, and with the complete failure of police and security forces to control and contain the protests all over Egypt, there was a complete and total withdrawal of all police forces all over the country, followed by assurances that the army is now taking over security. What happened in the hours between both was the first real assurance that the system is failing. Prisoners fled their prisons, guns were taken from police stations, and with the complete cut in phone services, Egyptians all over the country lived the most disturbing night in their modern history. As complaints on state TV came from residents being robbed, attacked, and killed all over the country, there was nothing to do but to defend yourself with whatever weapons you had. Men and teenagers filled their streets holding sticks, knives or whatever they had at home to defend their neighborhoods themselves. Doctors, engineers, students, businessmen, and many others suddenly dropped their professions and became temporary police officers. Barricades and checkpoints were made at entry points, groups with different tasks were formed, and danger signals were agreed upon as they all stayed up all night securing their families and homes.

In the modern individualized society Debord discusses the status of detachment of individual experiences through the ‘spectacle’ from the reality of life. As I took to the streets on Friday night, I suddenly realized that we had been living in our own individual cocoons for our whole lives without any sense of communal network of ties. I did not know any of my neighbors, I did not know any of their families, yet suddenly I had to defend them as if they were my own. I could not help but think how lucky I was to live in a densely populated neighborhood, and wonder how those living in the suburbs were dealing with their problems. Now, Jane Jacobs with all her writings about street security was all I could think about. Her call for a continuous supply of activities and eyes on the street as a major constituent for security and safety in a neighborhood was very relevant. Her call for reviving sidewalks for casual public contact at local level that creates public identity of people and a resource in time of personal or neighborhood need was a reality that I was living. The way we had planned and built our impersonal city streets had truly created anonymous people.

During the following nights, I had already become friends with some of my neighbors, with whom I had shared my security duty. With the feeling that calmness had returned to the streets, and the army had captured some of the criminals, we all started to be less uptight and more casual. Groups of neighbors started to use their time all night on the street in some type of activity. On the recreational side they were playing cards, watching movies via projectors, or even street football tournaments. While on the services side they were cleaning the streets or moving garbage that had piled up because of the halt in public services. The scene turned into an all-night festival. While days ago these people would only pass as familiar faces from the neighborhood, the revolution had truly changed something in our lives. It had revived our dead neighborhoods, our dull sidewalks and our segregated communities. Most importantly, it revived our local social life. We were no more individuals, we were no more anonymous, we were now united in a peaceful gang and our streets were our turf. Togetherness was not only in Tahrir square, it was in every city, in every neighborhood, and in every street. Even those in the suburbs, realized that they could not live as individuals anymore. And like the image of our regime, the image of our suburban extensions was broken by its own mistakes.