Revolution 'mubarak' in Egypt

The extraordinary protests against the Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt have no political leaders steering it, nor is it subject to the control of the leading dissident groups within or outside Egypt. All available evidence indicates that it has been a spontaneous people’s movement. Despite the communication blackout imposed by the Mubarak regime, voices from the revolutionary road have escaped, via the internet, to the world outside, some pleading for help in the face of brutal repression, others seeking political support, and many just stunned to be part of history in the making. As the Egyptian revolution enters its 13th day today, DNA presents a cross-section of voices on what’s going on in Tahrir Square.

From ‘slacktivist’ to activist
I didn’t participate on the first day of the revolution. I was a bit scared, and not convinced that it will change anything, and besides, I prefer to follow such events on Twitter and Facebook instead of participating in them.

The truth is that the information blackout made me — as well as thousands of other people — more eager to go out into the streets and participate in the “Friday of Anger”.

Every visit you pay to Tahrir Square makes you believe that Mubarak should now be packing his stuff to leave the presidential palace. Then you glance at national TV and it makes you believe he is getting himself ready for thirty more years inside the palace...
I’m still confused. I really can’t tell if the revolutionaries have achieved at least a significant part of their demands. I still remember that poor lady I met in Tahrir who summed up everything in a few simple words. She told me, “A couple of days ago I was so scared of every single cop and soldier, and today I am here protesting against the head of the state”.
—Tarek Amr, Global Voices, a community of blogs

A night with the secret police
We had been detained by Egyptian authorities, handed over to the country’s dreaded Mukhabarat, the secret police, and interrogated. They left us all night in a cold room, on plastic stools, under fluorescent lights.

But our discomfort paled in comparison to the dull whacks and the screams of pain by Egyptian people that broke the stillness of the night. In one instance, between the cries of suffering, an officer said in Arabic, “You are talking to journalists? You are talking badly about your country?”

A voice, also in Arabic, answered: “You are committing a sin. You are committing a sin.”

In the morning, we could hear the strained voice of a man with a French accent calling out in English: “Where am I? What is happening to me? Answer me. Answer me.”

We saw a journalist with his head bandaged and others brought in with jackets thrown over their heads as they were led by armed men.

A plainclothes officer who said his name was Marwan gestured to us. “Come to the door,” he said, “and look out.”

We saw more than 20 people, Westerners and Egyptians, blindfolded and handcuffed. The room had been empty when we arrived the evening before.

“We could be treating you a lot worse,” he said in a flat tone.
—Souad Mekhennet and Nicholas Kulish, writing in The New York Times

‘This protest is not one made by the Muslim Brotherhood’
I don’t know how to start writing this. I have been battling fatigue for not sleeping properly for the past 10 days, moving from one’s friend house to another friend’s house, almost never spending a night in my home, facing a very well funded and well organized ruthless regime that views me as nothing but an annoying bug that its time to squash will come. The situation here is bleak to say the least…

That night, he showed up on TV, and gave a very emotional speech about how he intends to step down at the end of his term and how he wants to die in Egypt, the country he loved and served. To me, and to everyone else at the protests this wasn’t nearly enough, for we wanted him gone now. Others started asking that we give him a chance, and that change takes time and other such poppycock. Hell, some people and family members cried when they saw his speech. People felt sorry for him for failing to be our dictator for the rest of his life and bequeathing us to his son. It was an amalgam of Stockholm syndrome coupled with slave mentality in a malevolent combination that we never saw before. And the Regime capitalized on it today…

This protest is not one made or sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood, it’s one that had people from all social classes and religious background in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood only showed up on Tuesday, and even then they were not the majority of people there by a long shot. We tolerated them there since we won’t say no to fellow Egyptians who wanted to stand with us, but neither the Muslims Brotherhood nor any of the Opposition leaders have the ability to turn out one tenth of the numbers of protesters that were in Tahrir on Tuesday. This is a revolution without leaders. Three Million individuals choosing hope instead of fear and braving death on an hourly basis to keep their dream of freedom alive. Imagine that.

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with. And 8 months from now they will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can’t allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn’t over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak’s gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be
Heroes.
—posted on February 3 by Sandmonkey, one of Egypt’s prominent bloggers, who was arrested by the Mubarak regime and later released

‘My mother did not sleep all night’
A haunting phone call from a female 33-year-old protester was troubling and encouraging. She said she has only known one president all of her life. She read about democracy and saw it in other countries and read about it, but never experienced it.

A friend has a cousin in Tahrir Square. She is in her early forties with 2 children. She says that Mubarak has gone mad after these actions. She saw at least one dead protester and countless injured.

My mother did not sleep all night, and called me at 6:30 local time. So far, she has been holding up against the propaganda, thanks to independent satellite TV stations.

The internet is back, and opinion among Egyptians who have been offline for a long time while all this has been unfolding, is divided. Some of them are fed up with the closed banks, with the disruption in work and school, and want this over soon. They are for negotiation. Others (are) defending the president for his “achievements”, such as the fabled “stability” that he has provided, or managing to keep us out of wars for 30 years. Some feel sorry for him and want to see him go “in dignity”. Many still want him to go and support his downfall.

A battle of opinions is raging on Facebook, State TV, and satellite TVs owned by businessmen close to the regime.

—from a blog by Khalid, on www.baheyeldin.com, posted on Feb 3, 2011, the day protestors began to face attacks by pro-Mubarak groups

A Plea for help
Hazel,
We have a short time on the net. Therefore, I am writing to you to pass our pleas to international organisations, specially Journalists Without Borders and Doctors Without Borders, because our youth are currently under fire in the streets by the government’s gangs and the peaceful protests have suddenly turned into a war where young people are being killed, shot in the head with live ammunition under the eyes of army officers.

Egyptians are in bad need of political and medical support, and media coverage. Free people should also appeal to the Americans to exercise some pressure on president Obama who has been doing nothing.
—Anonymous letter to Hazel Feigenblatt of the Global Integrity Commons, a news blog

‘Ordinary people upended US’s best laid plans’
Before we enter the phase of intense politicking to determine the post-Mubarak order, the deals being made to contain the public’s unequivocal demand to choose their leaders, I want to express my love for and awe of all those people who said enough is enough.

Enough repression. Enough thievery. Enough rotten ideas about the apathy and inaction of the people. I have no doubt that the grim realities of elite politics will soon overtake events, as they always do. But I’ll never forget how ordinary citizens completely upended the best laid plans of the rulers in Cairo, Washington, and Tel Aviv. They forced Hosni Mubarak to ditch his dynastic project, posthaste, and to openly express his hatred of the Egyptian people. They forced the Americans to yet again confront the folly of building alliances with loathed dictators. And they reminded Israelis that Arabs want to rule themselves, whether Israel likes it or not. No amount of muddled theories or elite compromises will ever mask the extraordinary clarity of what happened in Egypt this winter. I’m happy to be alive to see it.

—from a post dated February 4 on the blog, Baheyya
 
Google head is protestors’ ‘spokesman’
“A government that is scared of #Facebook and #Twitter should govern a city in Farmville but not a country like #Egypt #Jan25”
This update on Twitter made by Wael Ghonim, Google’s head of marketing (Middle-East and Africa) expressed the anger Egyptians felt after the government shut down the internet in the country.
On January 27, Ghonim’s Twitter feed went silent. There is widespread speculation that Ghonim is being held by the Mubarak regime, though the government hasn’t confirmed it.

In a bid to free Ghonim, a leader of the 6th of April opposition group told a CBS reporter that the protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square had elected Ghonim as the group’s spokesman, and that if the government leaders want to talk to the group, they need to talk to Ghonim.
 
It’s my family in Tahrir Square
Despite the ruins, and the massive injuries, I had a very soothing sense that I was in heaven… for the first time in my life the sight of blood did not turn my stomach.

I was among ANGELS, not human beings… I was surrounded by people with a spirit higher than the sky, THANKING ME, ME!
One of them asked me and my friend as his face beamed with a smile “why did you come?”… my friend said “because this is our country…”, I looked him in the eye and resisted hugging him as I answered “because YOU are my country”…

One of the women around me kept shouting at the top of her lungs at the soldiers in their tanks, “TRAITORS, BASTARDS, DIRT BAGS!” I felt like joining her, I felt like spitting on them.

If it weren’t for my two sons, I would have stayed there and never left until either Mubarak left or until I had died there. They are MY PEOPLE, MY FAMILY, MY BROTHERS AND UNCLES AND THOUSAND DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF MY FATHER!
    —Merry, in her blog, My Oblivia