{"id":507,"date":"2011-07-29T22:25:11","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T22:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=507"},"modified":"2011-07-30T17:39:55","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T17:39:55","slug":"tahrir-square-snapshot-of-a-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=507","title":{"rendered":"Visions Collide in a Sweltering Tahrir Square"},"content":{"rendered":"

Signs of strains between secular and Islamist forces have been showing for months.\u00a0 But both sides were to be represented in Friday’s mass demonstration.\u00a0 Between 800,000 and a million people were expected.<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

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Friday prayer, Tahrir Square, July 29 2011. Photo by Sandy Tolan<\/p><\/div>\n

After midnight the Cairo heat finally broke.\u00a0 Mamdouh Hamza, Egyptian civil engineer, businessman and longtime government critic, was sitting in a plastic chair in an outdoor caf\u00e9 at Tahrir Square, puffing on a water pipe. \u00a0The white-haired Hamza was holding court with his cadre of young revolutionaries, to whom he’d become a kind of beneficent godfather.\u00a0 (My colleague Charlotte and I had met him an hour earlier, having interviewed him for a story on Egyptian agriculture and food issues we’re producing for U.S. public radio (Marketplace) and television.)\u00a0 Hamza \u2013 builder of big Egyptian development projects and nevertheless a longtime critic of the regime \u2013 had been trying to keep a dialogue going between the military council and his “kids.”\u00a0 But recently things had broken down, and that morning at 5, he said, something disturbing and perhaps unrelated happened:\u00a0 Someone called Hamza to say he’d been hired to kill him.\u00a0 But the would-be hit man had changed his mind \u2013 “I like you,” he told Hamza – and so he gave the blood money back. Or so the story went.\u00a0 Hamza seemed to think this was all a hoax, designed to rattle him, and he had no plans to heed the reluctant killer’s warning:\u00a0 that Hamza shouldn’t show up at the square the next day, lest he take a bullet.<\/p>\n

Now came Wael Ghonim, he of the social media revolution, with his own followers, to say hello to Hamza.\u00a0 He engaged the older man about finding common ground with the Islamists.\u00a0 Charlotte caught the moment on camera \u2013 a young man in a purple pinstripe shirt and designer wire-rim glasses, talking to the shaggy haired professor nearly old enough to be his grandfather \u2013 \u00a0but when Ghonim spotted Charlotte, he insisted she stop shooting.\u00a0 “If you use this,” he said, “I will sue you.”\u00a0 It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be seen speaking of reconciliation with the Islamists; rather, a friend reported, he said he didn’t want to be caught on camera being friendly with Hamza, a fellow secularist.\u00a0 “If you use this, I will sue you,” the Google MBA repeated to Charlotte, a smile frozen onto his face, before moving off with his entourage.<\/p>\n

Signs of strains between secular and Islamic forces have been showing for months.\u00a0 But both sides were expected to be represented in Friday’s mass demonstration.\u00a0 Hamza predicted between 800,000 and a million people would show up.<\/p>\n

At two in the morning we headed back downtown to catch a few hours sleep.\u00a0 As we climbed into the taxi, the bearded Salafis, bussed in from all over the nation, were pouring single file into the square: a stream of white robes and skullcaps, part of a planned show of force by Islamists.\u00a0 They would be spending the night in the square, ready with their banners and chants as the sun rose on Cairo three hours later.<\/p>\n

By 9 am we were moving down another human river: a crush of people squeezing through a pedestrian corridor near the Kentucky Fried Chicken.\u00a0 Finally the way opened up, spilling us onto a clearing on the square.\u00a0 Red and white, and black and white banners, and modified Egyptian flags all carried the scrawled message:\u00a0 There is one God but God.\u00a0 Other signs called for the implementation of Sharia law.<\/p>\n

“Obviously they are breaking some rules,” said our friend Magdy Kassem, a leftist who recalled the agreement by each member of the fragile revolutionary coalition not to bring potentially divisive rhetoric into Tahrir.\u00a0 “They had huge discussions during the revolution that such a slogan should not be raised at the square,” in order “to have a common denominator for all political powers.” Now, Magdy said, they had abandoned that promise.\u00a0 Indeed, Al Ahram Online<\/a> reported that a coalition of secular movements pulled out of the demonstrations today, citing the Islamists’ refusal to present a united front and to “avoid all controversial points.” \u00a0Clearly the “Day of Unity and Popular Will” was not to be.<\/p>\n

Volunteers were handing out red and black paper visors with inscriptions of the Muslim alliance.\u00a0 “This is the biggest show of force for the Muslim coalitions,” Magdy said.\u00a0 “It’s amazing.\u00a0 I’ve never seen them that big in the square.” \u00a0Here and there, posters of Bin Laden were raised.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, secular voices were heard in large numbers:\u00a0 Alongside the chants for an Islamic state came calls for democracy, freedom, social justice and accountability.\u00a0“Islameya, Islameya” rang out, but so did “Muslim-Christian unity,” and denunciations of Mubarak, U.S. aid, and the Israeli occupation. \u00a0Still, the clear force in the square was Islamic. \u00a0“They hijacked the square,” our friend Madiha Kassem, Magdy’s sister, told us. \u00a0To this sentiment, ChangeRegimes<\/a> tweeted: \u00a0“Not sure why they’re so surprised. \u00a0Cairo is hardly Paris.” \u00a0No, it’s not. But for many here, calling for the “cleansing of the square” is not very Egyptian, either. \u00a0And some people here would later say the Islamists’ force in Tahrir may have backfired, sending a chilling image that voters could choose to reject in the coming elections.<\/p>\n

We wanted to find Hamza and his entourage \u2013 they’d promised to connect us with protestors worried about putting enough food on their table –\u00a0 but no one was picking up their calls and visual sightings would be hopeless in this crush.\u00a0 (Later, very much alive and well, he would tell me he receives nearly 60 calls an hour \u2013 such is the state of a revolutionary leader \u2013 and as he didn’t recognize my number, he didn’t pick up.)<\/p>\n

Here and there, young men had shinnied up a poll, perching above the crowds.\u00a0 We wanted perspective too.\u00a0 In a building at the edge of the square, we rode an elevator to the 7th<\/sup> floor, and \u2013 thanks to Magdi’s graceful negotiations \u2013 emerged onto a balcony above the sun-soaked masses.<\/p>\n

By now it was time for Friday prayer.\u00a0 A sea of humanity stretched out below us:\u00a0 Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, folding in unison, then rising together, then folding forward again, placing foreheads to the earth.\u00a0\u00a0 It was powerful to watch; beautiful.<\/p>\n

“God is great,” came a surge of voices.<\/p>\n

They retreated like a wave, giving way to another chorus: “Change, freedom, social justice\u2026”<\/p>\n

“God is great,” came the new crashing wave.<\/p>\n

Change, freedom, social justice\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

God is great\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Change, freedom, social justice\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

God is great\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Change\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Signs of strains between secular and Islamist forces have been showing for months.\u00a0 But both sides were to be represented in Friday’s mass demonstration.\u00a0 Between 800,000 and a million people were expected. After midnight the Cairo heat finally broke.\u00a0 Mamdouh Hamza, Egyptian civil engineer, businessman and longtime government critic, was sitting in a plastic chair more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}