More than just a battleground: Cairo’s urban space during the 2011 protests created by Lorenzo Trombetta

This is a short urban recounting of the implicit dialogue developing between two opposing forces in Cairo during the popular protests between the end of January and the beginning of February 2011 that forced Muhammad Hosni Mubarak to leave the presidency after three decades of undisputed power. The first mass demonstration which threw the traditional system of repression into crisis took place on 25 January. During the night between 2 and 3 February, the army sided definitively with the protesters, ready to protect them from the armed loyalist gangs and plain-clothed security forces, who had replaced the regular uniformed police withdrawn from the streets from 29 January. Based on audio-visual documentation obtained by following the activists’ leaders and the police across different urban locations throughout the first 10 days of the Egyptian revolution, this reconstruction highlights the constantly adapting attitudes of both actors to each other.