Headgear of the Egyptian Pro-Democracy Demonstrators at Tahrir Square

(Mohammed Abed, AFP/Getty Images / February 3, 2011)

The demonstrators for democracy at Tahrir Square, as you no doubt know, have been the targets of heavy violence at the hands of government thugs, the baltagiya, violence that was launched on Tuesday February 1st. They've been the targets of rocks, concrete blocks, molotov cocktails...some of them thrown from the tops of buildings that the government-sponsored hooligans (and security forces in civilian clothes) had occupied. To protect themselves, they have erected barriers, thrown stones back at their attackers, and, we learn from The Guardian, improvised a variety of headgear to protect their heads. (100's have been injured by the flying debris.) Today The Guardian featured a photo gallery of their ingenious forms of head protection. I of course particularly liked this one, featuring a kufiya, which helps hold in place what appears to be the bottom of an oil drum, re-jigerred as a kind of wok. Robin, who suggested this, saw one used by a Bedouin woman in Sinai who was cooking fish by the side of the road.

Long live the ingenuity of the Egyptian people!