Mark LeVine: Twenty-Eight Hours in Tahrir
[Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).]
I arrived at Tahrir a little later than normal yesterday, at around 4. I had spent the day trying to manoeuvre around Cairo by foot and taxi to visit various human rights organisations, to assess the situation they have faced and get their views on the role of human rights - the term in English or Arabic, has hardly been seen in the square - in the protests.
It was very tense when I arrived. Scuffles were breaking out at the security cordon as overwhelmed civil security people tried to maintain security amidst worries that, in the wake of Omar Suleiman's threats to use violence to restore order, provocateurs might try to slip in.
But once inside the tension gave way to an incredible feeling of exhilaration. It felt like Woodstock, or at least what I imagined Woodstock would have felt like. And we were all waiting for Jimi Hendrix to hit the stage, only in this case it was Hosni Mubarak saying ma'a salama.
As the hours passed the crowds swelled, incredibly, to even larger than they were two days before on Tuesday. As more people came the chants and drumming grew louder, the mood more festive, as everyone waited for what we thought was the inevitable moment when Mubarak would come on television and resign. "He's already in Germany," at least half a dozen people mused.
The bayan al-awwal or first communiqué of the armed forces high command only heightened the sense of expectation, and in the apartment where I was hanging out not far from the square, people were glued to Al Jazeera Arabic, taking pictures, hugging each other, calling family and friends. The mood moved beyond Woodstock to what a Beatles reunion would have felt like if all four members were still alive....
Read entire article at Al Jazeera
I arrived at Tahrir a little later than normal yesterday, at around 4. I had spent the day trying to manoeuvre around Cairo by foot and taxi to visit various human rights organisations, to assess the situation they have faced and get their views on the role of human rights - the term in English or Arabic, has hardly been seen in the square - in the protests.
It was very tense when I arrived. Scuffles were breaking out at the security cordon as overwhelmed civil security people tried to maintain security amidst worries that, in the wake of Omar Suleiman's threats to use violence to restore order, provocateurs might try to slip in.
But once inside the tension gave way to an incredible feeling of exhilaration. It felt like Woodstock, or at least what I imagined Woodstock would have felt like. And we were all waiting for Jimi Hendrix to hit the stage, only in this case it was Hosni Mubarak saying ma'a salama.
As the hours passed the crowds swelled, incredibly, to even larger than they were two days before on Tuesday. As more people came the chants and drumming grew louder, the mood more festive, as everyone waited for what we thought was the inevitable moment when Mubarak would come on television and resign. "He's already in Germany," at least half a dozen people mused.
The bayan al-awwal or first communiqué of the armed forces high command only heightened the sense of expectation, and in the apartment where I was hanging out not far from the square, people were glued to Al Jazeera Arabic, taking pictures, hugging each other, calling family and friends. The mood moved beyond Woodstock to what a Beatles reunion would have felt like if all four members were still alive....