(3) In Case You Missed The Last Post

This page contains the previous post before  the most recent update of Act 2.

Life as the Struggler

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Sufyan el Amr was one of three prominent drug dealers in Moqattam. He was not in the Columbian or Mexican sense of the word a drug lord; in fact he had no regular paid thugs or enforcers and lived only in a small house just on the opposite side of the hill. What made Sufyan el Amr powerful and especially dangerous was his background. He was a retired State Security agent with wide connections inside Egypt’s police apparatus and its ‘Deep State’.

It came as little surprise then, that he would help his old friends in the police by testifying against the fiery and outspoken Sheikh Jibril Suleiman at his trial in 1988. It also wasn’t a surprise to many that a few weeks later a force of State Security agents raided the home of his main rival in the Moqattam drug trade. Subsequently, he was sentenced to thirty years in prison and Sufyan became the defacto ruler of Moqattam, with nearly every nearby police officer and precinct on his payroll. It was rumored State Security had received healthy compensation for taking down his main rival. A violent man who knew when to use force, Sufyan cut a deal with the area’s other drug dealer, Suhayl Ismail, dividing up the turf where they would sell their methamphetamines and heroine. Suhayl took the eastern part of the mountain while Sufyan controlled the west. Their sons, who acted as their dealers and enforcers, kept an eye on business.

While petty crime in Egypt has always tended to be low, our country is sadly a major destination for drugs, which many people use to escape their despair at the world they live in.

For two years Suhayl and Sufyan’s arrangement was undisturbed. Their families profited from the drug trade even as the government began to try and clamp down on the growing rumblings of conservative sheikhs, angry at their country’s alignment with America in the brewing crisis in Iraq and Kuwait. The news of Gama Islamiyya’s declaration of war against the government, though, had little impact on Suhayl’s business, apart from causing a temporary spike in demand.

Then one night, in the summer of 1990, Suhayl got a piece of disturbing news from one of his sons. He had been making a deal in a back corner alley when a man in a black jacket with a red and black kefeyah and a black mask appeared out of the darkness. He had beaten him almost unconscious, broken both his legs and his wrists and had taken the five kilos worth of heroine he’d had on him at the time. Rather than taking the drugs and reselling them, the man had dumped them into a can of petrol and lit them on fire. He had then walked off without a word.

One of Sufyan’s other sons, who wanted to remain anonymous, would tell me years later how much the incident rattled his father’s calm.

“It wasn’t just that Mohsen had been hurt or that some of our money was lost, though of course beating a man’s son in the open like that is a serious offence. It was the entire nature of the attack; it was so different, so inhuman. Nothing was stolen and no reason was given.”

Sufyan held a conference with Suhayl. There were no accusations or finger pointing on the part of Sufyan. He found it impossible to believe his fellow dealer would break their agreement in such a blatant and foolish display. His assertions were proven right when Suhayl revealed that a few of his own dealers had been attacked in a similar manner a week earlier. They had been four and had all been beaten senseless by a man wearing a black mask under a red and black kefeyah. Their drugs and money were taken and burned. He had chosen to keep it quiet lest other rivals take notice and interpret it as a sign that his business was weak.

Believing they were under attack by another gang or possibly some self-declared moral policeman, the two elders of their families agreed to cooperate to track down their shadowy new stalker. They bought new weapons, hired thugs to tag along with their dealers and sons, and informed their well-connected friends in government about their strange new predicament.

Despite their efforts, the shadowy figure vanished for almost two months and business went back to usual. Moqattam residents continued to buy drugs in droves, fueling a upsurge in profits. By September they were swamped with money and began gallivanting across Haram Street in brand new sports cars. They were a well-known terror to club and café owners. The mention of their names could spark the same kind of fear among club owners as the police.

“They could do just about anything to anyone they wanted,” recounted Azem Somr, owner of the Ramses Dance Club. “We couldn’t throw the filth out or else their father could put us all in prison. You had to put up with them just like the men in black with their bribes.”

One night, after cavorting with unidentified young women at the Ramses, three of Sufyan’s five sons including Mohsen, Akbar, and Adham, walked down the street towards their cars. They soon came screaming back to the club.

“They came straight up to me and asked what had happened to their cars,” reported Azem Somr. “I swear to God, I told them I had no idea what they were talking about. I followed them out of the club to the street and down a few meters to where they had parked. It was a strange thing that I saw. Each of the gentlemen owned a car. Adham’s, the blue one, was at the back of their convoy. Someone had smashed the windows, broken the headlights and scorched the insides. The second car, Akbar’s, was a red Lamborghini. It was covered in blood, what kind I don’t know. I suppose it was some sort of animal. The last car, Mohsen’s was the worst damaged. The glass was broken, the tires slashed and every part of the surface had been beaten in with some sort of blunt object. A message had been carved in the hood of the car.”

The exact words have unfortunately been lost, but according to Sufyan’s son it was addressed to Sufyan, his family and his business associates and essentially covered … points.

“First, he wanted us to know he knew our business and what we stood for. Second, he said he was a single man determined to get rid of corruption in society. It was funny, though, because he then said he would give us all a chance to leave the drug business and abandon Moqattam. His logic was that the authorities had created the environment and conditions for our corruption and had encouraged our business as a way to make money for themselves and suppress the righteous. It was the authorities he wanted to hurt most; the drug dealers seemed like a first step for him. He said if we didn’t stop dealing drugs, within a week he was going to destroy our homes and make sure we could never harm anyone ever again.

“That was the spirit of his message. To my knowledge no one saw who wrecked my brothers’ cars, or no one ever came forward about it anyway. We had a reputation for mischief. It didn’t make us popular.”

The ‘mischief’ of the Sufyan family would abruptly explode. The next morning police raided several houses in Moqattam. Abu Bakr, by then a university graduate trying to find funds for a new recycling plant recalls that time.

“We thought at first they were looking for Islamists or terrorists. They had swept through the area a few times before but not as much as other places in Cairo or Upper Egypt. Then we noticed they were also taking some Copts away. That tipped us off; we knew they were looking for the man in the black mask.”

Rumors about the new vigilante had been blowing through the Moqattam area as well.

“People began to hear from their neighbors about what had happened to Mohsen, Sufyan and Suhayl’s dealers. After the cars of Sufyan’s sons were vandalized and the police searched us, people only started to feel more sympathy for the man. I think that’s why everyone was so uncooperative with the authorities.”

The search was, according to Abu Bakr and local residents, largely a random sweep that targeted men who were suspected of having disliked Sufyan in the past. Hussein Baky was one of those taken.

“I had discouraged local kids from taking his drugs,” he said from the doorway of his small home, only a stone’s throw from where his deaf daughter had been assaulted. “I was having tea in my home when they came for me. I thought Suhayl had taken his revenge when his son attacked my daughter, but I guess it wasn’t so.”

Baky, along with eight others, was taken from Moqattam to the Saif el Adel police station near the City of the Dead. The station was abandoned soon after and no longer stands, buried beneath the expanding shanties and graveside homes of nearby residents.

At the time, the station was the headquarters of both the regular police and State Security for Moqattam. Baky recalls when he and the others were first brought in for questioning.

“The ride to the station was like passing through hellfire. We were on our knees in the back of the truck and the officers were standing over us. They would chat and smoke for a while and then for no reason at all just start hitting one of us. Then they would stop and go back to talking about their wives and families. It was like they had to be cruel to us every so often; like it was required for their job.

“When the truck finally stopped, they took us out into an open compound where they parked their cars. They took us inside a three story building, past an iron gate with the eagle on it. There was a man there just inside the gate with about a dozen chains slung over his shoulder. He clamped them on us and then they took us down a hall to a large room. They took all our belongings and then left us in the room alone. We couldn’t speak; if we tried to, an officer at the door would hear us and give us a few hits with his club.”

Everyone in Egypt knows exactly what kind of treatment to expect when they enter a police station in this country. It’s another world behind those walls; the lights are all bright and white. It’s like you have eyes constantly beating down on you. Soon, you can’t remember anything on the outside −not your family, not your home, not your street or your meal; every thought or memory you ever had outside that small tiled room disappears. All you can think about is the steel rubbing against your wrists and ankles, the ringing in your ears after the sergeant claps your face from both sides, the sweat dripping from your nose onto the floor as you wait for your turn in line. It’s not just about breaking your spirit; it’s about wiping your memory, making you forget that you were anything other than an interrogation subject.

One by one, the men from Moqattam were dragged out and taken to another room for interrogation.

“They dragged another one out as soon as they pulled one back in,” Mr. Baky said. “They would pass each other just in front of the door. Maybe it was a way to warn those who were about to go in. When it was finally my turn to go, I looked at the face of the man returning and saw a burn mark on his left brow. He was a young man, quite young. I don’t even think he was out of secondary school. He stared back at me and I could see a tear rolling down the left side of his face. It’s a disgusting thing to see a young man cry; it’s even more disgusting when you know he has every reason to.

“I was taken from the hall to the second floor where there was a smaller waiting room. Two men were sitting behind a desk while the commander of the station, Shafiq Mahmud, was standing behind them in his white uniform, stars and badges, everything. Before they sat me down I noticed another man in a suit standing off in a corner just across from the desk. He had very flashy clothes and his undershirt was unbuttoned. I didn’t think he was a policeman.

“The men at the table told me they were from State Security and that they had proof I was supporting the masked ‘terrorist’ who had been attacking local residents. When I told them the truth, that I knew nothing, that’s when it started. They stood me up and started walking around me, smacking me with electrical wires…”

At that point Mr. Baky refused to continue his descriptions of the torture or the course of his interrogation. He would only recount a discussion that took place between the man in the suit and police commander Mahmud at the end of the session.

“I was on my back,” he remembered with glassy eyes, “looking up at the ceiling, when I heard the man in the corner walk behind me.”

“‘This isn’t working,’ he complained to the commander. ‘None of these men know anything.’

“The commander shuffled over from behind the desk. I could see him smiling widely, lowering his head like an apologetic waiter.

“‘Ustase, Akbar,’ he said. ‘We have information from good sources that these men know the identity of the terrorist.’

“‘Your sources are wrong and this is a waste of time!’ the man in the flashy suit said. ‘If you can’t produce results, then my father and I will find another way to stop this kafr. I expect you to produce something if you and your men want to stay on his good side.’

“The commander’s smile soon faded. He looked at him sternly.

“‘Your father and I were brothers at the police academy. You’d do well to remember which one of us wears the stars and which one of us really stands tallest in this room. We will track this man in black down and we will make sure he never challenges us again. Tell your father we will do our jobs even if none of these jackasses turn up useful information.’

“What he meant was, ‘I could throw you and your whole family in prison with a phone call or a wave of my hand.’ I couldn’t see Akbar’s reaction, but I think he remembered his place because he stepped over me and left the room without a word.

As soon as he was gone, the commander slammed his hand on the table. He ordered a pair of officers at the door to take me back to the room. I was so thirsty I started swallowing the blood in my mouth without even really thinking about what I was doing. It tasted so hot; hot and bitter.”

Mr. Baky and the others were kept in the station for another day without food or drink before being released. They had to get back home themselves.

“Moqattam was so beautiful to us. A garbage dump looks beautiful compared to a dungeon; sunlight is beautiful no matter where it shines.”

The men reached their homes in Garbage City about an hour later and were greeted by a mob of relatives and neighbors. Yet for the next week hardly anyone spoke about the injustice the men had suffered. No one publicized the event to the Egyptian media, all controlled by the state, or protested against their treatment. Men like Hussein Baky went limping back to their lives, whispering their pain only within the confines of their homes. Despite their bitterness and pain, none dared to confront their aggressors.

Then on September 15^th, a local newspaper, Al Shabiha, published a letter that had been sent to their offices two days earlier. The words below are the exact ones which appeared in the letter that day in 1990.

To the citizens of the Moqattam area, from your brother the vigilante some refer to as ‘the man in the black mask’.

Last week, nine of your men were taken to a nearby police station. The authorities were, as I’m sure you realize, trying to capture me following the actions I took against members of the Sufyan and Suhayl clans. I have it on good authority that these men were systematically tortured by officers after they were arrested without charge.

This should come as no surprise to you. Torture, degradation, abuse, extortion and all the evils of men have become so common we no longer see the horror in them; we have forgotten what it meant to be true men, for true men no longer rule over us. We have forgotten our own power, the strength of the Egyptian people, by tolerating the unrighteous and the corrupt.

By striking Sufyan and Suhayl I have attempted to fight against the corruption of powerful men and undercut the wealth of the corrupt men above them.

When the leaders of our land act out of injustice and stray from the path we, as believers, have the obligation to overthrow them and bring the center back together. Unity, through the struggle. This struggle I have undertaken is one which we all have to undertake. I know many of you are not ready; you are still either scared or, more likely, apathetic, believing your lives are completely out of your hands. You may say ‘Life is Life,’ but I say differently. This life we live is not the life handed to us but the life we have allowed to be handed to us.

I shall not force you to join me, but know that should you suffer on my behalf, as some of you have already done, I shall avenge your injustices with the help of our God and the teachings of his glorious messenger, may peace be upon him.

I am not a Muslim Brother or a militant. I am merely a man, a man with few prospects in this world whose only recourse is to destroy those who shut the doors around him. Come to the top of the Moqattam Mountain six days from now in the morning at the dawn prayer and see some of your oppressors receive their just punishment. We shall be vindicated by our own hands and make the world safe for us and our children once more.

In Your Name and No Others,
The Struggler

The reaction of men and women in Moqattam to the letter was not uniform, according to Abu Bakr.

“I think a lot of people were confused by it, more than anything else. He didn’t speak from an Islamist standpoint, not exactly, but he wasn’t a socialist either. I think people weren’t sure who this ‘Struggler’ really was. That’s probably what started all the new rumors and conspiracy theories; that sense of uncertainty. People started calling him an agent for the Iranians, or a government assassin meant to start some sort of uprising so the authorities would have an excuse to clamp down. People also suggested he was an Israeli or Saudi sent to undermine Egypt’s stability so that one or both of the countries could benefit.”

Regardless of what people thought of the nature of the Struggler, there was no doubt his pledge to hold the authorities −along with Suhayl and Sufyan− accountable caused stir, even outside of Garbage City itself. However, media attention was scant due to intense government pressure on the media not to publicize the story. The managing editor of Al Shabiha, who had authorized the publishing of the letter, was fined and briefly interrogated by local officers the day after the issue went to print.

“We didn’t talk about this even among ourselves,” Sufyan’s son would say later. “But we were very scared of what might happen to us. That’s why we went into hiding, after the Struggler gave his promise. That’s why Commander Mahmud started putting uniformed officers all around the mountain to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.”

September 21^st soon arrived. Almost a third of the area’s police officers were deployed on the small dusty hillsides overlooking Cairo. Despite the gossip and talk generated by the article, only a few dozen people appeared at the hill before the dawn prayer to see if the Struggler would keep his word. Among them were Abu Bakr, his father and mother, Hussein Baky and his daughter Fatimah, and the eight other men who had been detained and captured by the police.

The crowd made its way up around the hillside, passing by the Monastery of St Simon and the dozens of officers who vigilantly watched for the masked man to appear. The crowd headed for the summit and waited. They looked out over their homes and garbage strewn streets.

“I had never seen our Garbage City from that high up,” Abu Bakr told me. “It was so strange to see all our brick homes just standing there like children’s blocks among all the garbage. Then you could look off into the rest of Cairo, with its highways and the great old fortress of Salahudin with its Turkish mosques and rocket shaped minarets. I felt like I was looking at all of Egypt. All of it.”

The crowd waited for almost an hour. A small group of officers, according to Hussein Baky, came over and asked for cigarettes.

“I couldn’t give them willingly,” he recounted. “So my daughter handed the officers a pair of sticks from my pack. It was strange because I felt bad for not giving them willingly. I’m honestly not sure why.”

Not long after, the quiet of early morning was broken by the dawn prayer coming from one of the many mosques in Moqattam.

“I think there was a new muezzin at each of the mosques that day as the call was more beautiful than usual,” said Abu Bakr. “It seemed to go perfectly with the soft light.”

That softness vanished with a flash and a rumble. From the nearby City of the Dead, a flame slit the air just in front of the horizon, while a bellow like a lion’s roar momentarily drowned out the last ‘Allahu Akbars’.

Via Hussein Baky: “We didn’t really know what we had seen until the radios of the policemen nearby started going crazy. There were voices shouting on almost every frequency, screams and calls for support! In a few minutes the officers on the mountains were rushing for their trucks and lorries; they drove off heading towards the City of the Dead. Soon we were the only people left on the mountain. We figured out pretty quickly that the police station had been attacked.”

Via Abu Bakr:

“We watched the police vehicles until they disappeared from our vision. A few people started to leave, as it seemed like the Struggler had already made his point. I wasn’t totally convinced. The letter had made it sound as if he would deliver justice on that hill, so I told the others to wait a little while longer. Some decided to leave anyway, but many chose to stay with me. We waited perhaps another forty minutes before somebody spotted a single police van speeding towards the hill. It was the smaller kind of lorry they use for carrying prisoners and riot police. It drove up from the base of the mountain before parking at an open area on the Western side of the hill, the side that faces away from the city of Cairo.”

A voice blared out over the van’s bullhorn, calling on the people who had gathered to come down.

Via Omar Anwar:

“We did as we were ordered and approached the vehicle. As we got closer, we saw that the fan was covered in small dents and burn marks, along with a few bullet holes. One of the tires had popped and the old van was sagging. Then, as a couple of young men approached, the driver’s door opened up.”

A man in black pants, a black shirt and a red and black kefeyiah over a black mask stepped out and faced the small crowd.

“He was a lot shorter than I imagined him to be,” Hussein Baky reflected years later. “The Struggler, I mean. He was strong though; his body filled out the black outfit he wore perfectly. He stared at us for a while as we looked back at him. I think he was searching for plainclothes officers in the crowd, or maybe he was just studying us, trying to evaluate if we were worthy of his attention, of this act of justice he wanted to convey. We must have been, because he crossed his arms and said, ‘You will tell everyone what you see. You will testify.’ Then he went to the back of the truck and opened the doors to the coach of the lorry.”

Bloodied and shabby looking, nine men chained together in a line by ankle shackles were dragged out of the back. At the front was the pudgy mustachioed form of Sufyan el Amr, followed by his sons Mohsen, Akbar and Adham. Next was police commander Shafiq Mahmud, his white dress uniform stained with patches of blood dripping down from his mouth. He was followed by the lanky Suhayl Ismail, who was then followed by the two state security agents who had carried out the interrogations of the men from Moqattam. An elderly man in a galibiya appeared last at the end of the chain. Hussein Baky recognized him as Gamal Lahabi, a repairman and electrician who had performed maintenance before at the police station.

The nine men were forced to their knees by the Struggler. Many were shaking uncontrollably.

“I looked at Sufyan El Amr’s eyes,” recounted Baky. “I had only seen pictures of him in newspapers before. I thought we looked very similar actually. You could tell he was scared out of his mind. Not one of them talked as the Struggler paced back and forth behind them.”

Eventually the man who had kept his promise stopped in the center of the line. He folded his arms and then he addressed the crowd.

“He said it was our duty to judge these men,” Abu Bakr recounted. “They had failed us and therefore we had to judge them. I can’t really tell you why we were so quiet at first. I think it had to do with his eyes; they were just so wide and bright and they just contrasted so much with his dark clothes. I don’t think I ever saw him blink as he looked at us. I almost thought he could see everything, even our thoughts. You couldn’t have escaped from him even if you’d wanted to. He knew what he had to do, and you couldn’t help but admire him for that.”

The crowd was silent as the Struggler unrolled a piece of paper from his pocket. He read off a short list of charges; cruelty, brutality, thievery, oppression of innocent believers, assaulting women, corrupting the minds of Egyptians, and failing in their duties to protect them. When he was done, he asked the crowd if they believed each of the men was guilty.

Via Omar Anwar:

“He started with Gamal Lahabi, standing behind him with his hand raised up. He said, ‘Do you find this man, Gamal Lahabi, guilty?’ We weren’t sure what exactly to do, so he asked again, saying that we should raise our hands if we thought he was guilty. One by one, we each raised our hands. We all knew the nine men he had brought, most of them anyway. We knew the crimes they had committed; we knew they were all guilty. So, as he went down the line asking us to decide the fate of those men, we all raised our hands high. Or most of us.”

The council, the crowd of fifty or so people, found each of the men guilty. A few of the accused, especially Mohsen Sufyan, tried to cry out several times. Each time they were kicked into silence by the Struggler. It was, according to those present, the same kind of defense they had allowed their victims.

With the judgment reached, the men −some of whom were now weeping− were pulled to their feet and led by the Struggler to the van. He ordered them inside and they obeyed without hesitating, even though he didn’t appear to have a firearm or a weapon of any kind.

When all the men had disappeared inside he shut the door to the lorry and returned to the driver’s cabin.

Abu Bakr described what happened next:

“He pulled out two large gas canisters and started covering the entire vehicle with fuel. He was moving quickly, as about fifteen minutes had passed since his arrival and we could hear sirens approaching. He then lit the car on fire with a lighter and walked back to us. He folded his arms and stood watching at the front of the crowd as the vehicle burned and the men inside started screaming for their lives.

“One of them, I don’t know who, kept saying, ‘In the name of God, save us; I swear to God we don’t deserve this!’ No one saved them; no one cried out or turned away, not even Fatimah and the other women. We were utterly drawn to those flames and we did nothing to put them out. We were like children watching water go down a drain. We were so fascinated by what we saw that we were unwilling to stop the water from disappearing, unable to stop the flames from burning until they dimmed and the screams of those men went quiet. Only as the fire died out did we realize the Struggler had disappeared and we followed soon after, missing the police by about ten minutes.

“From that point on I would always refer to the man I had met that day as the Struggler. I knew it was my cousin Anwar. I suspected as soon as I heard the first stories. It was confirmed the moment he spoke to us. Not everyone recognized his voice, I think, but I did. It was the voice I heard him speak with when he discovered Mohsen’s identity and the verdict against Sheikh Jibril.

“But you know, despite all of this, the man I saw with those wide eyes was not my cousin; he wasn’t Anwar my uncle’s son from Upper Egypt; he wasn’t just another shebab struggling to make ends meet; he really was the Struggler, and I was never prouder to find him at home that day looking more content and satisfied than he ever had before. He was smiling, and I understood and smiled back. In our whole lives, it was the first taste of justice we had ever had.”