A climate of fear that kept Egyptians compliant during the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak is creeping back into daily life, less than three years after the revolt that toppled him.
Ordinary people like Mohamed, who runs a tiny Cairo shop selling mobile phone accessories, now lower their voices if they oppose the army’s overthrow last month of their first freely-elected president, Mohamed Mursi.
“It is about the principle that we stood in line and voted freely for the first time and this happens,” whispered Mohamed, who declined to give his second name. “People who speak about justice now do not dare to say it out loud, in case people accuse them of being terrorists.”
While activists critical of the army-backed government are obvious targets for intimidation, now ordinary Egyptians also avoid the noisy, boisterous discussion of politics that was common between the fall of Mubarak and that of his Islamist successor on July 3.
From mass arrests of Muslim Brotherhood leaders to the re-appearance of plain clothes enforcers on the streets of Cairo, a chill wind is blowing down the Nile.
Many Egyptians lambasted Mursi’s Brotherhood for economic incompetence and trying to grab excessive power during his year in power. But now the language is much more serious: the government accuses the Brotherhood of “terrorism” as it tries to crush the movement by rounding up hundreds of leading members.
At least 900 people have been killed since security forces broke up two pro-Mursi camps on Aug. 14. Allies of the Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest and best-organised Islamist organisation, put the toll at 1,400.
A muted public response to Wednesday’s court ruling that Mubarak should be released from jail has added to a sense that the authoritarian order is making a comeback, threatening the freedoms that were the main dividend of the uprising that began on Jan. 25, 2011.
Media are now dominated by those backing the army’s line that it removed Mursi in response to popular protests demanding his departure that began on June 30.
“I can sense, smell and very much tell that these are old Mubarak people coming to take their revenge on the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Khaled Dawoud, a liberal who backed Mursi’s overthrow but has since criticised the spread of violence.
“It is so obvious with the pro-Mubarak people who are filling the TV right now. They don’t even want to consider Jan. 25 a revolution. They say June 30 is the only revolution.”
The Brotherhood, which kept large protest camps going for six weeks in Cairo to demand Mursi’s reinstatement, is now struggling to get people out. There have been no major protests for days. The marches have fizzled out since Sunday when rumours spread that government snipers were posted on rooftops.
The authorities have tightened their grip with dawn-to-dusk curfews. The emergency rule that lasted throughout the Mubarak era is back, at least for a month. Police who melted away in the face of public anger in 2011 appear invigorated by the new political climate, paraded as heroes on state television.
WIDENING THE NET
As the authorities widen their net to include regional and lower-ranking Brotherhood members, other Islamist parties worry that their own members will be hauled in.
Younes Makhyoun, leader of the Nour Party which follows the puritanical Salafi approach to Islam, voiced concerned that the political security apparatus that once hunted religious groups and government critics will make a comeback.
Islamist movements, like any that tried to offer a serious alternative to Mubarak’s military-backed party, were outlawed for decades. Like the Brotherhood, they were among the biggest beneficiaries of the 2011 uprising that allowed them to set up political parties and campaign openly for the first time.
Now, their members face citizen’s arrests at the makeshift checkpoints that have sprung up around Egypt, manned by pro-government vigilantes. Some Egyptians recognise these as the pro-Mubarak “baltagiya”, or thugs, who clashed with protesters during the 18-day revolt that ousted the former leader.
“Thugs have attacked them in the street, then handed them over to the police stations, then accusations have been fabricated against them – that they had weapons or were taking part in acts of sabotage,” Makhyoun told Reuters.
“We need guarantees from the authorities to the Egyptian people: that the gains of the Jan. 25 revolution cannot be violated, especially in the field of freedoms, human rights, and freedom of expression.”
The crackdown on the Islamists has divided liberals in much the same way that it has polarised Egypt. Loath to endure Islamist rulers, elected or not, some liberals who joined the 2011 protests now side wholeheartedly with the army.
Egyptian state television has resumed its role as the mouthpiece of those in power. Channels emblazoned with banners reading “Egypt fighting terrorism” flicker on screens in Cairo’s street cafes, in bakeries and in barber shops.
A recent poll by the Arab American Institute suggested a huge majority of Egyptians had confidence in the military.
It is far from uncommon to hear Egyptians, whose economy was brought close to bankruptcy by persistent instability, hark back to Mubarak’s era as a time when they at least earned a living.
“The Brotherhood were a problem for this country. God has taken revenge on them,” said Haj Abdelfattah, 71, smoking his waterpipe as he sat on a plastic chair and sold overripe fruit by the road. “They acted for themselves, not Egypt.”-Reuters
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