Cairo attack shows fear of change if Mubarak goes

A cavalry charge in downtown Cairo, when men wielding whips and iron bars burst into Tahrir Square on camels and horseback to lash out at unarmed demonstrators, shocked millions watching on live television around the world.

For many Egyptians, though, it was only another chilling reminder of an ugly brutality they have faced for 30 years under President Hosni Mubarak, whenever ordinary folk have tried to speak up for themselves against the interests of the powerful.

The violence, which led to 10 deaths and over 1,000 wounded since Wednesday, seems intended by the elite to cow dissenters -- few believe the government's denials of involvement. But it may backfire if it reverses a tide of sympathy for Mubarak following his announcement he will step down in September.

It seems also to have galvanized international opinion, as a chorus of world leaders has condemned the bloodshed.

"This regime doesn't represent the Egyptian people. The Egyptian people are civilized. This regime is from a barbaric era," said novelist Alaa al-Aswany, whose bestseller "The Yacoubian Building" portrayed the slow suffocation of Egyptian society over the past three decades to a global readership.

"This massacre shows that everything the president promised isn't worth the paper it is written on," he told Reuters.

"People will not forgive those who organized this massacre."

For Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist and opposition figure, it was a "stupid, desperate move" on the part of Mubarak loyalists. Notably, too, it failed to disperse the crowd, a telling shift in a country where violence has usually succeeded.

"This will not put an end to the protests," he said. "This is not Tahrir Square revolution. It is a general uprising."

Loyalists

Egyptians have grown used to violence, to tales of torture, rape and death in police custody, and to overt intimidation at election time. These fill the files of human rights groups.

Yet some Egyptians have prospered. And the rage of those who feel under threat if the old order disappears has been evident on the faces of those flailing at unarmed demonstrators, beating them and pelting them with rocks and petrol bombs.

Dozens of them were grabbed by protesters who said they found them carrying identity documents from the police and the ruling party. The army, hesitant to take sides, looked on.

Overnight, as scenes worthy of a mediaeval skirmish gave way to the crackle of automatic gunfire, many analysts believed the establishment had lost the battle for support.

"What happened has cast a very negative shadow on the Mubarak government," said Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid, a political scientist. "It tarnishes his image abroad."

Hesham Kassem, a leading human rights activist said: "Mubarak is a thug and a criminal ... He has no problem burning Egypt in order to stay in power. This man ought to face trial. These mobs were sent by the ruling party and his cronies."

Before Wednesday's crackdown some Egyptians, including some who had joined demonstrations calling for Mubarak to go, had seemed to be softening towards an 82-year-old leader whom they saw as humiliated once he said he would step down in September.

But the violence may have brought his departure closer, drawing wider support for the demand that he quit immediately.

"Their attacks have provoked the whole country," said Kassem. "People cannot believe how low they have gone."

On top of simmering resentment at police brutality over many years, Egyptians have also been angered by the way the security forces abandoned the streets last week, making way -- many believe deliberately -- for a wave of looting and vandalism.

"The root problem with both corruption and lawlessness is police brutality," said Gerges Ayoub, a 29-year-old taxi driver.

"We have put up with our poverty. We have put up with our rotten life. But we could no longer take the police brutality and abuse. They stop us for a simple reason, insult us, slap us, abuse us. We couldn't any longer tolerate their aggression.

"People exploded. People cannot take it any more -- low wages and high prices and the government doesn't give a damn."

What happened has cast a very negative shadow on the Mubarak government

Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid