Egypt: the unfinished revolution
A few hours after Hosni Mubarak the Vice President appeared on state television to announce leader of Egypt 30 years was to resign, I took a walk in the banks of the Nile. In this mild night in February, a wild part of the liberation broke out on Tahrir Square in Cairo. The scenes along the way were breathtaking. They belonged to an Arab world that I had never known. Dragging their kids out of bed, Egyptian families swarmed the streets, from the Kasr al-Nil bridge to the building of state television, in the congratulatory kiss, the removal of children on the tanks of the Army and posing for pictures with the soldiers. The army officers, who had placed the future of Egypt above their loyalty for Mubarak, were giddy with the hero status bestowed on them and the chants of “the army and the people in one hand”.
Down in Tahrir Square, where young Egyptians had camped out for nearly three weeks, new banners were already drafted to mark Mubarak’s departure, some held by old men who stood still amid the moving crowds. The voice of Umm Kalthum, the Arab world’s most famous singer, rang out, “ ana al shaab, ana al shaab Seized by a swell of patriotism and a longing for dignity, a population dismissed for decades as too hopeless and subdued to change its destiny was shocked by its own sudden empowerment. Tunisians had brought down their own dictator a few weeks before, sparking the Arab spring winds that blew through Cairo. But in Tahrir Square the real Arab revolution had triumphed. Egypt is not just another Arab country: it is the heart of the Arab world, its biggest nation, with more than 80m people. It determined whether Arab armies fought wars or made peace, and it gave the region its most illustrious leaders and most celebrated artists and authors. On the morning after, on February 12, the celebrations were still ongoing in Tahrir but they had taken on another startling face. As young people discovered Egypt was theirs, rather than Mubarak’s, they carried their brooms and descended on the square to pick up the rubbish and scrub the nearby monuments on the bridge.
Patriotic Scrub Jacket - News
As young people discovered Egypt was theirs, rather than Mubarak's, they carried their brooms and descended on the square to pick up the rubbish and scrub the nearby monuments on the bridge. These images were still fresh in my mind when I returned to
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