tough protestors

Driven out yesterday only to return, they were driven out this afternoon only to return and retake Tahrir. 3 dead today.

The big difference between now and February is that the Army can no longer position itself as the neutral Peoples’ Champion removing Mubarak to give its beloved people what they deserve. However much that claim may have strained credulity even in February, it was remotely plausible enough that a certain portion of the populace could go along with it with a straight face.

Now, the conflict between the protestors and the Army becomes increasingly direct and explicit, and any violence against the people will be ascribed to the Army no matter what other visible agents might seem to be responsible for it (see the early October street massacre in the Maspero district, which rivals the Battle of the Camel as the most shocking of many shocking events in Egypt in 2011).

In February it was already fairly obvious that the Army just let the thugs in to attack Tahrir, but complex rationalization about the Army’s intentions were still possible for many Egyptians at that time. The leeway for such rationalization has steadily evaporated, and so the Army may be approaching a dangerous moment where it has to choose between transfer of power and Tianannmen Lite. Or possibly not even so lite.