JOIN USThe death of 74 people at a football match in Port Said lays bare Egypt’s extreme vulnerability to provocation and violence.
Violence broke out when fans of the home side, al-Masry, invaded the pitch after winning the match against Egypt’s most successful club, Al-Ahly. But was this just another instance of football hooliganism? Or was it the outcome of a conspiracy? While a stampede led to many deaths, some of the victims were stabbed, pointing to the engineering of violence. Mobs armed with knives and clubs descended on Al-Ahly fans.
Many are blaming the bloodletting at Port Said on Egypt’s military, arguing that it is triggering violence to keep Egyptians divided and at each other’s throats. The police have been blamed too for failing to respond quickly. It is possible that the al-Ahly club fans, who are part of a well-organised network of football fans called the Ultras, were deliberately targeted by Mubarak supporters, the military and the police, as they participated in large numbers in the 2011 demonstrations that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
The post-Mubarak scenario in Egypt is bleak. Power remains with the military. The government has failed to make Egyptians secure. While it has disbanded the much-reviled State Security Investigations Agency, it has ignored the tricky task of police reform. Police remain incapable of calibrating their response to various law and order situations. The Ultras have a long history of confrontation with the police and it does seem that the stampede at Port Said provided cops with an opportunity to come down heavily on them.
Political faultlines have deepened in post-Mubarak Egypt. Violent clashes between secular activists and the Muslim Brotherhood, which won recent elections, at Tahrir Square and outside the Egyptian parliament last week are worrying.
The warnings the Brotherhood issued were striking in their similarity to those of the military, pointing to a meeting of minds, perhaps even an alliance between the military and the Islamists. Some believe that the Brotherhood’s increased articulation of intolerant rhetoric in recent weeks is just the public manifestation of its long-standing authoritarian thinking. This has prompted fears that Egypt’s democracy is doomed to be stillborn. A year after Mubarak’s exit, the country is at war with itself.