This article reflects upon the monopoly and repertoires of violence in the city of Cairo perpetrated in counter-revolutionary moments by the successive military and Islamist regimes, which lack alternative visions and imaginaries. It counters the myth that the Egyptian revolution was non-violent. It also reflects upon some of the debates about the Arab revolutions, the question of militarization, and the return of ‘order’ with the re-emergence of the army in public life. It also reflects upon the multiplication of segregating walls, (...) first as buffer zones to isolate protesters, then as the walls of the gated communities and compounds of the rich, examining the extent to which the supposed revitalization of downtown Cairo actually represents the flight of wealth and capital to isolated areas far from the city center. (shrink)