As in every demo, I tried to chat with the Central Security Forces conscripts. The reactions are usually mixed. On Sunday, I felt they were very chatty whenever their officers were not around.
The conscripts were complaining they were mobilized out of their camps (Ahmad Shawqi’s Sector, Nasr City) into the downtown Cairo parliament street as early as 6am. One of them kept looking to the officers and was murmuring: “Kossom el-Zobbat! Kossom el-Zobbat!” (Fuck the officers! Fuck the officers!). They hated their jobs. They hated their superiors. They hated the fact that they were ordered to intimidate fellow citizens who are just as poor as them.
Still when the orders came to disperse the strikers, they did it. But I’m sure they did unwillingly, and because they still fear their officers’ reprisals. All signs say, however, this paramilitary force the regime uses cannot and will not stand against a 1977 scenario.
Down with Mubarak.
![[12-10-1985] Central Security Forces taking shelter while students hurled stones at them, during demonstrations outside Cairo University denouncing the United States and Israel [Photo by Reuters, Courtesy of the UK Socialist Worker Archive]](https://arabawy.org/wp-content/uploads//2008/07/50742825398_a76c6a1f39_k.jpg)