OnIslam.net

CAIRO- As demonstrations continue in Tahrir square for the ninth day, government efforts have gained momentum to gather supporters for what they call “stability.”

A mobile phone message started to be received earlier on Wednesday, February 2nd by network subscribers of the otherwise inactive service from an anonymous sender labeled “EgyptLovers” stating in Arabic that “An all-gathering demonstration is starting at noon today in Mostafa Mahmoud square in Mohandeseen [district] to support president Mubarak.”

Mobile phone operators Vodafone, Estesalat, and Mobinil had cut the short message service (SMS) last Friday at the orders of the government to prevent protestors from communicating with one another.

Mostafa Mahmoud square was one of the major starting points of last week’s demonstrations after Friday prayers asking Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak to step down.

Those protestors were attacked by riot police throughout Friday, January 28^th and were only called off after a long standoff that resulted in the deaths of tens of demonstrators. As riot police withdrew to its camps all police presence in the country followed, leaving Egyptians to wonder why traffic police also disappeared as well as any police force that could guard police stations and other public facilities that got burnt.

A Tensing Situation

With all police forces out of sight and reports of prisoners breaking out of prisons spreading, Egyptians started taking matters into their own hands to protect their property. For six days now residents have been guarding small segments of their streets and neighborhoods in 24 hour shifts.

While the mood at first seemed interestingly novel if worrying to many as neighbors and relatives spent the night out together with their newfound sense of control over the security of their family and property, by the sixth day on Wednesday they had started to wear themselves out and were looking forward to getting back to a sense of normalcy.

Searching for an outlet to vent their frustration, the mobile phone message finally seemed to have given them a way to express themselves in as public a manner as they have witnessed people in Tahrir square. Their frustration for not having received their salaries at the end of the January, standing in bread and fuel lines to get their needs, and the sound of gunfire throughout the night has finally found an outlet.

Now, the Egyptian state television is zooming in its cameras at Mostafa Mahmoud square and at different protests on the streets to show the increasing number of people present there, pitching those as supporters of Mubarak rather than people trying to get a hold of their lives again.

“I have never demonstrated in my life before, but I am here to support stability” screamed one protestor in Mostafa Mahmoud square to Al-Arabeya news channel, Al-Jazeera’s competitor in the region and the survivor of the Egyptian government’s crackdown on Arabic-language broadcasters in recent days which left Al-Jazeera disconnected and Al-Arabeyah with a much softer tone than the one it used during the first days of the demonstrations.

Speculation has been spreading that the people being drawn to Mostafa Mahmoud will be used by government organizers to march towards Tahrir square to force the demonstrators there out and to end their movement. People in Tahrir square, on the other hand, have started to report the infiltration of armed pro-Mobarak supports carrying knives in larger numbers, something they had been successful in preventing throughout the past week.

Psychological Warfare

While banners being raised in Tahrir square during the past week have called for the president’s departure from office, those used in Mostafa Mahmoud square are using sentiment to turn the tide against them.

“My father Mubarak, my mother Suzanne, the Egyptian People are now repentant,” one banner in Mostafa Mahmoud expressed. Another said, “How can anyone whom God has chosen be removed by [treacherous] agents?”

Such emotional calls pitching the Mubarak family in a loving, patriarchal fashion is common among National Democratic Party supporters throughout the years who have been instilling the inevitability of Mubarak’s rule in Egyptians’ minds.

Similarly, the spokesman of the Egyptian army, who has been communicating the army’s stance on the situation throughout the past days, has started to change his tone. While during previous days he insisted upon the rights of Egyptians to express their views, and that their demands are legitimate, he has now started to call for the return of order and to allow the system to return to normalcy.

Internet services also started to return as Mostafa Mahmoud square gets filled. With a pro-Mubarak sentiment now publicly being expressed and the Tahrir square demonstrators now being publicly opposed, the Mubarak regime might now feel secure that social networking groups such as facebook and other venues will have voices that will opposed those who are calling for his resignation and is no longer dominated by his tech-savvy opponents.

While Egyptians have been mostly apolitical throughout the past decades due to the strong crackdown on opposition by the Mubarak regime, today all Egyptians seem to be expressing one political view or another even when they are not sure who exactly is to blame for the chaos and insecurity they were forced to experience during the past nine days.