Daniella Peled

Revolution is back on the streets of Cairo. Veterans of the last uprising (which unseated Hosni Mubarak) say that the police brutality is more intense than ever before, but the protestors are determined not to back down. ‘It’s like January but on crack,’ says Mohamed El Dahshan, an economist and blogger who spends his days in Tahrir Square. ‘The police are shooting rubber bullets directly in people’s faces. Many, many people have lost an eye, because aiming at the eyes is now deliberate police policy,’ he says. Some activists say that the police have also taken to shooting canisters of tear gas directly into the crowds.

It’s strange how quickly a revolution becomes ordinary. For decades, Egypt was the quintessential Middle East police state, but now the sight of freshly sprayed ‘Fuck you Mubarak’ graffiti seems normal. Cairo’s famous traffic gridlock is long gone; the shops are shuttered. Amid the protestors in Tahrir Square, dozens of young and middle-aged men are picking up rubbish and piling it into the scorched carcass of a police truck. ‘Why are we cleaning the streets?’ says one old man. ‘Because this is our city now.’ Cairo It’s strange how quickly a revolution becomes ordinary.