More than 50 killed in Cairo massacre

You will have read by now that a massacre has taken place in Cairo. Hopefully you will have read this and experienced what is proper to experience when you see videos like the one above: horror. If your first reaction to these reports (and video) is: “Well, the other side uses violence too, you know,” then you left your moral compass at home before the coup.

Here’s another video, allegedly, of the army shooting towards protestors this morning:

Now is not the time for “I told you so.” But given that one of the principal justifications liberal “revolutionaries” – including the Tamarod movement – gave in enticing SCAF back to power was that Egypt, and the military had “learned from mistakes the last time” in reference to SCAF’s last stab at holding “temporary” power during which hundreds of protesters were killed and thousands of civilians imprisoned in military jails. We can put that weird, skewed logic to bed today, I feel.

To borrow a phrase from Sherief Gaber, in power right now we have a force that has only two settings: Commit a massacre or watch a massacre.

There’s always two sides to every story, and since anyone who dares suggest that this was an attack by the military on protesters is accused of taking one, I’m gonna run with it. There are two narratives to this latest atrocity; the protesters’ (and journalists’ who were there) and the military’s. The army says it has video evidence of protesters attacking the Republican Guards HQ minutes before security forces unloaded on them.

I’m yet to see any. That said, what happened last night and the competing narratives that have sprung up around it do have some precedent. Calling for a return of military autocracy necessitates either denial or memory loss, but try and come back to October 2011, outside state television headquarters in Cairo. There, 28 protesters were killed when the military attacked them, in some cases running over unarmed demonstrators with their APCs. You may even recall that SCAF back then denied the use of live ammunition or any intention to run over protesters. And that turned out, (guess what?) to be a total, outright lie.

Simply put, SCAF has earned zero benefit of the narrative doubt on massacres it perpetrates. So while it might be that running with the protesters’ version of events of last night is taking sides, I know which side I’m gonna take.

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood carry an injured supporter of ousted Egyptian President Morsi during clashes with Republican guards forces in Cairo, on July 8, 2013. (MOHAMMED SABER / EPA)

Now, predictably, we are seeing those liberal “revolutionaries” – the ones who loved democracy so much they called for a military junta to sieze power – suggesting that the Brotherhood (supporters of whom were killed last night) are somehow to blame, or enjoying, or – get this – feeling victimised because of the massacre. This after “Egypt’s John Stewart” tweeted two days ago to his 1m+ followers that the Brotherhood were using the deaths of its protesters at the hands of the military as a publicity stunt.

There’s just so much hatred in their hearts. I know people will tell you the situation in Egypt is “complicated”, but this one’s quite simple. This is how SCAF does things. Forget the Brotherhood, forget Tamarod, forget all the other players here; SCAF was invoked to protect citizens. That’s its one damn job. So I’m going to go ahead and say that, no, it hasn’t learned from its past mistakes.