CAIRO: Bitterly divided Egyptians prayed in public and children played as they celebrated the Eid Al-Fitr holiday on Thursday.
But the barbed wire and armored vehicles in the streets of downtown Cairo and the barricades around the Muslim Brotherhood protest camps attested to the dangerous political edge to the festivities.
Rival supporters of ousted Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi and the new army-installed government converged on separate sites in the capital of the Arab world’s most populous nation against the background of crisis.
Families flocked to dawn prayers at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya mosque, focal point of opposition to the government, then strolled and picnicked around the area.
“This is the best Eid of my life,” said Ali Mohamed, 40, a farmer from a village near the Nile Valley town of Minya, south of the capital. “It’s victory or death now. We had five elections and that traitor Sisi has reversed all that.”
He was referring to army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who led the overthrow of Mursi on July 3 after huge demonstrations against his rule.
Eid offered a measure of relief.
Thousands packed into the Rabaa camp, spilling onto a street where security forces shot dead more than 80 Mursi supporters in clashes on July 27.
Boys lit firecrackers and worshippers handed out sweets and offered greetings to each other, an Eid tradition. Street stalls sold tea, snacks and plastic toys.
Others hawked posters of Mursi and green headbands with the Islamic inscription “No God but God.” One table sold tear gas masks and swimming goggles.
Groups chanted “Interior ministry thugs! “Egypt, our country,” and beat drums.
“We want to live as free Muslims,” said a 45-year-old English teacher, who gave her name only as Emmy. She wore a full face veil and gloves, a style favored by the Salafis.
“We don’t want to be insulted in police stations. We don’t want to be harassed for wearing these veils or for growing beards.”
She said she wanted to work as an interpreter but companies would not hire her because of her dress.
Supporters of the government began gathering in Tahrir Square.
Some leftist and youth groups called for public prayers in the square to support what they regard as the second revolution — the overthrow of Mursi with mass public demonstrations.
Soldiers lounged atop armored personnel carriers in the streets off the square, including outside the Egyptian Museum, home to a trove of antiquities for the age of the pharaohs.
Awad Abdel Gawad, a 60-year-old woodworker, said: “I am here to say happy Eid to the people of the revolution, of Tahrir Square. I want the revolution’s demands met and the country to flourish. Every revolution has troubles at the start but God will help us.”
Mursi supporters at the Rabaa and Nahda protest camps should avoid violence and give up peacefully, he said. “The Rabaa people think Mursi’s coming back but he isn’t. He is gone,” Abdel Gawad said.
“I want to tell those in Rabaa ‘we are all Egyptians, all Muslims, and what harms you harms us, and we want a president who fixes the country and we are all with him.”
Reem Adel, 17, a student at the University of Commerce, said she was at Tahrir to celebrate Eid prayers and commemorate the people she said had died under Mursi’s rule. She gave a cautious endorsement to Egypt’s new military strongman.
“Sisi has been good so far though we are worried about the future. We want Rabaa and Nahda dispersed but with the least loss of life because we are afraid violence would be used against us too later,” she said.
On a stage in the center of the sprawling Tahrir Square, a singer sang anti-Brotherhood rap and nationalist songs. Hundreds of mostly young people came early to the square, which was expected to fill up later in the day.
Portraits of Sisi hung from trees and lamp-posts, and some banners denounced US President Barack Obama and US Ambassador Anne Patterson — perceived by government supporters as favoring the ousted government.
Flag vendors sold banners saying: “Egypt is guarded by the army. The Egyptian people delegate the Egyptian army to fight terrorism.”
Egypt politics to the fore as rival factions mark Eid
