Take the Police off the Streets? Been there.
What’s it really like, not just to defund the police, but to actually take them off the streets? I know firsthand. I was in Cairo on January 25th, 2011, when the country was convulsed with mass protests and teetered on the brink of anarchy. Much of the protests were directed against police brutality, and centered around one particularly egregious case. “We are all Khaled Sa’eed” the banners proclaimed, referring to a young Alexandrian who was arrested in an Internet café and died in police custody, reportedly beaten to death.
In response to the protests, the police were withdrawn from the streets, and it was widely disseminated that the jails and prisons had been left with the doors wide open, potentially releasing all manner of criminals. So what happened next? Civilians took their security into their own hands. The residents of each house, each building, each street, each neighborhood, organized their own vigilance and self-protection.
At the time, I was staying in an apartment in a large building on an island in the middle of the Nile in Cairo. The residents took shifts standing guard in the lobby of the building along with the four doorkeepers. Some residents carried golf clubs as makeshift weapons; the doorkeepers had Nubian billy clubs. The odd duck rifle or hand pistol were rare. And that is the crucial difference with the United States. Egypt is not an armed society. Very few civilians have guns of any kind, let alone the automatic rifles and heavy firearms that are common in America. So the residents might not have been armed, but then again chances were that neither were the criminals.
Curfew was in force, usually from dusk to dawn. Zamalek, where I was staying, is an island, so once curfew was in effect, the several bridges were blocked by the residents, and volunteers manned these roadblocks. The river banks also needed to be patrolled: thugs occasionally tried to cross over in small boats, claiming to be fishermen.
Standing around with the neighbors in the lobby, I noted that the general ambiance was almost convivial, and people made acquaintance with neighbors they had never exchanged a word with. That is one thing revolutions and pandemics have in common: when you are confined or under curfew, your neighbors become your most accessible social circle.
But in spite of the spirit of bonhomie, the danger of thugs and looters was real and there were moments of tension. One night a scowling man in black leather rode by our building on a motorcycle, shouting: “See how you like it when there are no police.” It was assumed he was a disaffected policeman out of uniform. There were also moments of levity. One time, a long black car was stopped by our building’s neighborhood watch when it tried to pass the road block on our street after curfew. Then a delivery boy on a motorcycle came by and vouched for him. “Let him through, I know him, that’s the Chinese ambassador.” Delivery boys in Cairo go everywhere and know everyone.
During the few hours of the day when curfew was lifted, people went out for urgent business, but there were no policemen directing traffic, or any functioning traffic lights. Cairo traffic is chaotic at the best of times, and Egyptians are notorious for ignoring traffic regulations, so it is easy to imagine the nightmare entanglements and traffic jams that ensued. But again, people took matters in their own hands. A frustrated driver or just any passerby would stand at the juncture of a cross street and beckon cars forward from one direction and then the other.
Purse-snatchers on motorcycles or motor scooters wove between cars in stalled traffic, zipping up on sidewalks and snatching a purse off a woman’s arm when they saw an opportunity, then making an unimpeded getaway. Cairene women replaced their jewelry with cheap baubles and carried only small crossbody bags; they exchanged recipes for homemade pepper spray.
But at least in the city, there was no descent into complete lawlessness, widespread violence or out-of-control looting, although outside of Cairo the incidents were more common.
The stand-off between the police and the public lasted for months. Gradually, there was more police presence on the street.
Today, nearly ten years later, the power of the police is as ubiquitous and unquestioned as it ever was during the Mubarak years. Is there a lesson to be drawn from that period of the eclipse of the police? Egyptian society is divided, predictably, on whether or not the experiment should ever be repeated. As for history, it has not yet had the last word.
What’s it really like, not just to defund the police, but to actually take them off the streets? I know firsthand. I was in Cairo on January 25th, 2011, when the country was convulsed with mass protests and teetered on the brink of anarchy. Much of the protests were directed against police brutality, and centered around one particularly egregious case. “We are all Khaled Sa’eed” the banners proclaimed, referring to a young Alexandrian who was arrested in an Internet café and died in police custody, reportedly beaten to death.
In response to the protests, the police were withdrawn from the streets, and it was widely disseminated that the jails and prisons had been left with the doors wide open, potentially releasing all manner of criminals. So what happened next? Civilians took their security into their own hands. The residents of each house, each building, each street, each neighborhood, organized their own vigilance and self-protection.
At the time, I was staying in an apartment in a large building on an island in the middle of the Nile in Cairo. The residents took shifts standing guard in the lobby of the building along with the four doorkeepers. Some residents carried golf clubs as makeshift weapons; the doorkeepers had Nubian billy clubs. The odd duck rifle or hand pistol were rare. And that is the crucial difference with the United States. Egypt is not an armed society. Very few civilians have guns of any kind, let alone the automatic rifles and heavy firearms that are common in America. So the residents might not have been armed, but then again chances were that neither were the criminals.
Curfew was in force, usually from dusk to dawn. Zamalek, where I was staying, is an island, so once curfew was in effect, the several bridges were blocked by the residents, and volunteers manned these roadblocks. The river banks also needed to be patrolled: thugs occasionally tried to cross over in small boats, claiming to be fishermen.
Standing around with the neighbors in the lobby, I noted that the general ambiance was almost convivial, and people made acquaintance with neighbors they had never exchanged a word with. That is one thing revolutions and pandemics have in common: when you are confined or under curfew, your neighbors become your most accessible social circle.
But in spite of the spirit of bonhomie, the danger of thugs and looters was real and there were moments of tension. One night a scowling man in black leather rode by our building on a motorcycle, shouting: “See how you like it when there are no police.” It was assumed he was a disaffected policeman out of uniform. There were also moments of levity. One time, a long black car was stopped by our building’s neighborhood watch when it tried to pass the road block on our street after curfew. Then a delivery boy on a motorcycle came by and vouched for him. “Let him through, I know him, that’s the Chinese ambassador.” Delivery boys in Cairo go everywhere and know everyone.
During the few hours of the day when curfew was lifted, people went out for urgent business, but there were no policemen directing traffic, or any functioning traffic lights. Cairo traffic is chaotic at the best of times, and Egyptians are notorious for ignoring traffic regulations, so it is easy to imagine the nightmare entanglements and traffic jams that ensued. But again, people took matters in their own hands. A frustrated driver or just any passerby would stand at the juncture of a cross street and beckon cars forward from one direction and then the other.
Purse-snatchers on motorcycles or motor scooters wove between cars in stalled traffic, zipping up on sidewalks and snatching a purse off a woman’s arm when they saw an opportunity, then making an unimpeded getaway. Cairene women replaced their jewelry with cheap baubles and carried only small crossbody bags; they exchanged recipes for homemade pepper spray.
But at least in the city, there was no descent into complete lawlessness, widespread violence or out-of-control looting, although outside of Cairo the incidents were more common.
The stand-off between the police and the public lasted for months. Gradually, there was more police presence on the street.
Today, nearly ten years later, the power of the police is as ubiquitous and unquestioned as it ever was during the Mubarak years. Is there a lesson to be drawn from that period of the eclipse of the police? Egyptian society is divided, predictably, on whether or not the experiment should ever be repeated. As for history, it has not yet had the last word.
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