Despite rampant
chatter of protests scheduled for Saturday, the two major thoroughfares
of downtown Cairo - Tahrir Square and Talaat Harb Square - were flowing
normally and without any visibly heightened security presence. During
previous episodes of anticipated anti-regime activity, riot police
surrounded these areas preemptively and, in some cases, effectively
closed them to traffic. But for the vast majority of Cairenes the day
after the Jasmine Revolution felt like any other day - normal, except
for the rain. And this sense of normalcy is precisely what the regime
hopes to project moving forward, since normal days do not produce
popular uprisings.
"The regime already has an unstable situation
due to the Alexandria incidents," says Global Voices contributor Mohamed
ElGohary, referring to the demonstrations that erupted earlier this
month following a deadly terrorist attack on a Coptic church in
Alexandria. "So they don't want to do anything stupid to increase what's
already going on."
To bolster this sense of normalcy, the Mubarak
regime is working to paint a picture of stability in Egypt and unrest
in Tunisia. During a Friday night debate on the state-run el-Mehwar
channel, a ruling party economist highlighted Tunisia's higher
unemployment rate and equated Egyptian and European capitalism, as if to
say that conditions in Egypt don't warrant a revolution. Throughout
Saturday, Egyptian stations emphasized chaos in Tunisia, showing images
of theft, police brutality, and sabotage. The message was clear:
revolutions can get messy, so don't bother.
Meanwhile, the
regime has worked to keep its vocal liberal opponents cornered -
sometimes literally. On Saturday afternoon, a handful of April 6th Youth
and Kefaya activists returned to the Tunisian Embassy, hoping to build
momentum from the previous evening's demonstration. Immediately,
security forces crowded them into a small plot of pavement across the
street, with battalions of riot police standing shoulder to shoulder and
surrounding them. These riot police were soon joined by additional rows
of riot police, with still extra battalions of riot police stationed
next to the Tunisian Embassy in a devastating show of potential force.
The demonstration was thus made invisible to the passing cars, and it
quickly thinned to roughly twenty people.
"Those people who have
the courage to cross the police barriers to come here are few," said
radio announcer Saif al-Ghadban, who is affiliated with Mohamed
ElBaradei's Association for Change.
Yet in talking to Egyptians
throughout the day, fear of police retribution for protesting the regime
rarely came up. Instead, Egyptians remarked that while they admired the
Tunisian revolution, an anti-authoritarian uprising in a foreign land
wouldn't be enough to inspire action here. If a revolution comes, they
said, it will be sparked by something sudden, unpredictable, and
uniquely Egyptian.