Tahrir Square was a cathedral of light, but Mohamed Mahmoud Street remained dark and had every sign of being the front line of a danger zone. Stones and broken glass crunched underfoot, and the protesters milling in the dark were all men. When I got close I could see their faces, which looked dangerously indecisive, as if ready to be talked into doing anything at any moment, if only two or three people around them would make up their minds first. Occasionally, I’d see dozens of them run at a time — never more than about 50 yards, and then they’d return to their positions. Several people walked around with clubs made of street-signs. Now and then someone dropped his with a clatter, but always another person picked it up.
At Mansour Street, police had formed a line, and around midnight they stood about 20 feet from this indecisive mob, their riot shields ready. The active side was the protesters’: now and then someone yelled, or lit a fire on the road (a prelude to a fire-bomb strike), or threw a stone. But nothing ever happened. Some protesters — as well as residents of the neighborhood, who wanted more than anything to keep their apartments from getting burnt down — yelled at the rest and urged them to return to Tahrir. The protesters stayed put, milling and milling, half afraid of their potential and half thrilled by it.
When I left around 1:30 a.m., the line still held. And when I passed through Tahrir, the atmosphere of peeved solidarity remained, and the crowd looked very far from being ready to throw bombs or rocks with the intent to maim rather than menace. These were the two autonomous sets of protesters: one dark, violent, and uncertain; the other light, peaceful, and committed.
Contributing editor Graeme Wood is on the ground in Cairo. Read more at The Atlantic
