Mass Martyrdom

"We give our blood and our soul for Islam", chanted young men at their barricades even while police unleashed a stream of bullets through the tear gas and the smoke enveloping the area from the fires that were consuming the area. An irresistible challenge; young men holding their arms on high, goading the snipers; come and get us, we're ready.

"They think they can make us leave, but look around you. We said we were willing to die, this is the proof. We aren't leaving. I have my kids in there, we are all ready to die for our freedom", said two young friends, as the death toll continued to mount. Little wonder, then, that children too are among the dead; their fragility offered up as sacrifices to martyrdom urged upon them by Brotherhood leaders.

You're placing yourself among the faithful; go forward and prove the extent of your faith. Don't hesitate, don't look back, don't think of the future. The future holds the reward of heroic martyrdom. From the heavens above you will look back down approvingly on others prepared to follow you. From above, you will be feted as you will be down among the living.

Others simply disgraced themselves, revealing the shallow depth of their dedication to the cause of Islamism prevailing over the weak-minded, the Islamic-illiterate, the secular-minded fodder for the military. "We couldn't breathe, there was gas everywhere. And then they opened fire. I lost my best friend in the chaos, but when I came back, his body was lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere", Waleed Fouad wailed.

As troop carriers and police in riot gear and armed bulldozers moved in, discharging a barrage of tear gas canisters on the makeshift shelters of the two major sit-in camps near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque and across town near Cairo University, the barricades of sandbags and paving stones were swiftly breached. Could it be otherwise?

How delusional can people permit themselves to become in their belief that faith would protect them against the realities of actual occurrences as opposed to dreamy hopes?

There were warnings aplenty well beforehand, when protesters were informed of the intention to clear them out of those two areas they had occupied for weeks. They were informed that a peaceful resolution to the impasse was hoped for, that they would be escorted safely away from the area, that it would be for the best to vacate the premises, that cooperation with authorities would gain both sides much, including opportunity to talk rather than violently react.

When the troop carriers and bulldozers came into the sit-in squares loudspeakers again warned people it would be to their advantage to leave. Brotherhood leaders scrambled onto stages to make themselves heard over the turmoil, urging the crowd to remain where they were, not to give up ground: "Don't leave; it's a trap to arrest you", they shouted, as women and children began to flee the site.

In response to sporadic gunfire, people attempt to get off of the bridge that is under fire.twitter

And, inevitably, the carnage began. A progression from tear gas to bullets. "We cannot go to the government hospitals, we don't trust them", said Hassan Ali, trying to get his brother to a field clinic in a different district for treatment, rather than taking him to a fully-equipped hospital outside Rabaa. "We are frightened they will just arrest or kill the patients."

This is the psychological trauma inspired by mistrust and rage with which the Muslim Brotherhood has infused its followers. How else than by pumping up the level of anger and blame, fear and misery might it be possible to mobilize mob action, confronting the country with the spectacle of opposition and faith-based determination to prevail?

One 56-year-old man, Assam Sayyid, had scrunched a note into his wallet reading "If I die today please pray over my body", discovered by a volunteer at Nuri Khatab mosque near Rabaa when his corpse was being searched for clues to his identity, to inform his family of his death.

With so much killing, people write their names and phone numbers on their arms so if they get killed, their family members can be notified.twitter

One note of ironic levity infused into the dreadful carnage: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan characterizing the crackdown "a serious blow to the hopes of a return to democracy", and Iran's warning that the violence "strengthens the possibility of civil war." Those rusty old pots calling the kettle tarnished beyond redemption.