Despite the horrible images on TV this weekend, I saw something very different. While the trailer of an obscure and hastily produced clip, “The Innocence of Islam,” was the ostensible target of protest in Tahrir Square early Friday afternoon, Egyptian demonstrators simply wanted to express their opinions. They wanted to be heard.
“I completely reject the attack on the Benghazi consulate,” were the first words to come out of Ahmed Hussein’s mouth. “If you’re expressing rage and frustration, do it in a peaceful way,” he said standing at ground zero of Egypt’s 2011 uprising.
The protest in Cairo’s city center was relatively quiet, even as contained clashes escalated in the neighborhood north of the U.S. embassy. Dust blew into my eyes rather than tear gas.
The usual vendors were on the periphery selling flags, macaroni, and Muslim Brotherhood baseball caps. Police and military patrols were absent, and had they been there they would have been bored. A couple of thousand of demonstrators outside the U.S. embassy makes news, but the same cohort in Tahrir Square is standard fare.
The arteries leading into the square began to fill with protesters, a diverse parade of soccer hooligans, young professionals, and bearded Salafis. The protesters were angry. But not in the way that the amateur film at the center of this debacle depicts angry Muslims, donning swords and screaming obscenities. Those in Tahrir were personally offended by the YouTube video and wanted to convey a message of peace. “Islam is a religion of tolerance,” was the most common refrain repeated by a dozen activists and passersby.
"This is a country that loves the other," said Khairat Hijab, a tailor, wearing a neon green hat with an Egyptian flag. He had a surgical mask around his neck, anticipating tear gas, and he smiled profusely.
“Burning and killing is not Egyptian behavior,” said Hassan Ahmed, a communications engineer. “Our revolution was peaceful and will continue to be peaceful.” He disavowed outbreak at the Cairo embassy and called the violence an attempt “to damage the picture” of Muslims and the Muslim Brotherhood.
To each individual present the protest was about something slightly different. For Amr, a 28-year old soccer fan, it didn’t just pertain to the film emerging from America—it was about the imperative of respecting religion. “People here should be in the square as Muslims and Christians, without fighting. The only thing there’s benefit in is standing together,” he stated, wearing a red Ahly Club jersey. “This demonstration should be far from the U.S. embassy.”
“Jews have a place in Egypt, and Christians have a place in Egypt. So long as they respect each other all religions and nationalities are welcome,” said another activist. “All religions have a place.” Four young men standing beside him nodded in approval.
“Those who don’t know about the Prophet should try to learn about him,” interjected a man with trim beard wearing a plaid shirt as a taxi zoomed passed us. Another pedestrian interrupted to scream, “Islam is tolerant. We respect everyone regardless, but they don’t respect us,” and then he walked away.
“The US has set fire to itself,” explained Nasr Abdulhadi of the Arabic Language Council, who joined the peaceful protest. “We need an official apology [from Obama],” and the film itself needs to be “executed,” he continued.
When Mohamed Morsi won the presidency in June, Obama pledged to cooperate with him, “on the basis of mutual respect, to advance the many shared interests between Egypt and the United States.” Nevertheless, a genuinely democratic Egypt will advance policies that reflect public attitudes and—not surprisingly—might run counter to Washington’s geostrategic aspirations.
Although Hosni Mubarak could have placed blame squarely on the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi finds himself in a very tenuous position, in part because of his affiliation with the Brotherhood. Morsi neither has a full grasp on the state’s coercive apparatus nor the various Islamists movements condemning the film. But he’s an easy target for the Western press, who would rather see him suffer than ask why he took a full day to issue a formal response to the embassy protest.
There is no Twitter hashtag, or defining trope, to capture all of the events occurring simultaneously. Was the film a trigger for the protests or just an excuse? Was the anger aimed at the police or toward Coptic Christians, who are frequently discriminated against? Outside the U.S. embassy was a separate battle, one where anti-American sentiment led to rock throwing. Security forces threw rocks back at the mob.
It only takes two ruffians to start a riot, and that’s exactly how violence has so quickly unfolded in various forms across the Arab and Muslim world. But in Cairo’s most symbolic of spaces, I observed an opportunity for dialogue.
