The greater point, however, which comes as no surprise to most involved in this revolution, is that the army is no friend of the people. This institution is as much a part of the regime as any other, representing not just the same entrenched military-political elite that have ruled Egypt for 60 years, but also enormous and substantial business interests that benefit from preferential treatment and systemic corruption. There has been little doubt in anyone’s mind that the army’s preference would be to maintain most of the country’s infrastructure (police and political) just as it was before, while placating the people telling them that it was their ally and guardian. And yet, and yet, we see the same violence directed at citizens here that we have seen in the hands of police (and only a day after a police officer shot a microbus driver during a verbal argument in the street). The army has shown its bloody hand, and the only hope is that the news of this will spread fast enough that people can realize their complicity and duplicity before any more blood need be spilled.
This remains a regime and a system which has been trained and taught to regard people as a threat to their continued privilege and prosperity, who in the name of stability create chaos, pain and anxiety for anyone who would seek to be present in public, to voice an opinion or seek after their long-lost rights. Whatever expectations the Egyptian people may have had from the army, and whatever the army may have done by way of protecting civilians during the early weeks of protest (as they did somewhat, but not enough) should be meaningless now. Now in the seat of power, they display the same callous paternalism and heavy hand that the old figureheads of the regime did, and whether this is their desire or this is simply the machine controlling its operator, serious structural and institutional change is the only possible acceptable outcome.