Freedom is no longer a distant dream

On the 31st of January, President Mubarak announced his new cabinet of ministers. nbsp;It is almost entirely comprised of the old government and familiar despised NDP faces (National Democratic Party – the ruling party in Egypt, which just had almost all its headquarters burnt down). I call my friends and we are all splutter with outrage and echo one sentiment and that is that the President must go at any cost. He is subtly mocking us and making light of the demands of the revolution by essentially changing nothing. We all doubt highly that this will sway the protestors, who will not rest till the entire system is overthrown.
This nation has had enough. We have been ruled by the same man since 1981, and under the President’s rule we have endured nbsp;corrupt ministers and ministries, inflation, the almost complete destruction of the middle class , unemployment, poverty, police brutality — essentially all the worst that an authoritarian regime can mete out upon its people, nbsp;and it has taken its toll on the national psyche. As a poet friend of nbsp;mine likes to say: ”Repression gives birth to horrors,” nbsp;and we have lived with horrors for far too long.

Egypt has been seething for some time now, and letting out its rage in small spurts in the form of student—led protests. But the tipping point could be said to be nbsp;what occurred in Tunis. We were shown nbsp;that liberation from an aged tyrant was possible, that freedom was not some distant dream to be found by escaping abroad — as most of us have been longing to do — but in our own country. Freedom was no longer a fictional occurrence: it was real, it was tangible, it could be ours.
And so thousands of us have taken to the streets nbsp;from the 25th of January (the date was chosen because last year it was declared a public holiday dedicated to the Police force) to protest against this regime and compel it to leave.
The revolution started with tech savvy youth – students and young professionals who nbsp;utilized social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread word about the protests, discuss strategies, issue warnings, and rally people. This is why the government at first blocked both sites, which did not deter most who still managed to access the websites through proxies, and as each of these went down, through a special proxy created by one tweeter, Mohanad Ali, a computer programmer in Germany.
Eventually, the internet was cut off completely — an unprecedented occurrence anywhere in the world. Even repressive regimes like China have only gone so far as to block websites; it has never reached the extent of completely shutting off the internet, nbsp;and it was not restored for five days. nbsp;
Also for some time mobile phone services were cut off, and sms services are still down. This nbsp;induced panic amongst everyone, especially younger people who have stopped using landlines almost completely. For two whole days, I had no clue what had occurred to friends who had been to protests. I have never experienced fear quite like that – it was the double severance that was so terrifying nbsp;– both from the world at large and even your own community and group of friends. And the vast majority of my friends are students and nbsp;young professionals who were out protesting in Midan el Tahrir nbsp;(one of the main squares of nbsp;Downtown Cairo) and facing the merciless onslaught of the riot police who were cudgeling them with batons, shooting at them with rubber bullets and high pressure water cannons. (In one chilling scene, the protesters where kneeling down in prayer, and still the police were firing the water cannon at them.)
Tear gas canisters were also flung in the crowd nbsp;and it was discovered that these canisters were expired, and tear gas can actually kill nbsp;if used after the expiry date. nbsp;Whether this was deliberate or just lazy irresponsibility on the part of the police still remains to be seen. Apparently live ammunition and even buckshot was used – a friend of mine, Salem Asar, an English teacher, nbsp;had his thigh severely injured by buckshot – tiny little metal pellets usually used to hunt birds.

But ploys like that only show how desperate the government is to cling to power, and the Egyptian people have proven themselves to be extremely resilient and resourceful. nbsp;Last Saturday, the police withdrew completely from the streets, leaving them prey to thugs and looters who began burning down government buildings, nbsp;at one point attempting to steal antiquities from the Egyptian museum, nbsp;and going on to break into shops and houses, causing widespread panic nbsp;throughout the country. But soon young people organized themselves into neighborhood defense units and armed themselves with whatever was available to them in the form of canes, sticks, broom handles, kitchen knives, etc, nbsp;and managed to preserve their homes and properties until the army descended to the streets to aid them. However army presence still remains somewhat minimal and we are still largely dependent on these defense units to keep us safe.
It has been speculated by many that the withdrawal of the police was a calculated maneuver, nbsp;based on orders from the Ministry of the Interior, to compel Egypt to withdraw its demands, nbsp;but it has only motivated more people to protest. nbsp;On nbsp;the night of the 30th, thousands of protestors camped out in Tahrir Square, and by the 1st of February over two million protesters in Cairo alone, and three million all over Egypt, gathered to come out and demand Mubarak’s departure.

That night the president made a late television appearance nbsp;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, nbsp;as well nbsp;as how he will comply with much of the protestors’ demands, including amending the constitution. The speech caused a rift amongst protestors and Egyptians in general, who divided into two factions: those who felt that enough demands were fulfilled and called for stability, while the other nbsp;was completely dissatisfied nbsp;and called for Mubarak to step down and continued protesting.
On the 2nd of February, the internet was finally restored, but violence broke out when Pro—Mubarak protesters nbsp;started attacking the peaceful, unarmed protesters in Tahrir Square. They attacked them with sticks, threw stones and Molotov cocktails at them, and even brought in men riding horses and camels, and this violence continued for more than twelve hours without any governmental response. The President does not look like he will relent and step down, and neither will the protestors nbsp;and activists. nbsp;Some of the latter were even arrested in the aftermath of the chaos in Tahrir Square nbsp;— including prominent blogger Sandmonkey, who in a blog post published just before his arrest said:”This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t.” It remains to be seen, though, who really will be the victor.

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