Egypt at the crossroads: hate, chaos and idealism (News Feature)

By Anne Beatrice Clasmann Feb 1, 2011, 14:07 GMT

Cairo - Emergency law has been in force in Egypt for 30 years - the exact length of time that President Hosny Mubarak has been in power.

But the kind of emergency that the capital Cairo was experiencing on Tuesday has never been seen before during the past three decades.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators stream on to the city centre's Tahrir Square to give voice to their hatred of Mubarak and his regime.

Supporters of the largest opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, arrive in small groups of 10 to 20. The atmosphere is electric. The square is soon full to bursting and the crowds spill into neighbouring streets.

Everyone here has a different idea of what a new, better Egypt would look like. The only thing that unites them is their desire to Mubarak fall.

What happens afterwards is a different question - but no one wants to go into that now.

'The regime must go, then an interim government can take its place,' says Inas Said, who works as a project manager at an IT company. 'I want to free my country of corruption.'

Standing next to her, propped up by a walking stick, is Ahmed Abdelhalin, a veteran of the 1973 war against Israel. He sports the long beard of a strict Muslim.

'Then we freed the Sinai Peninsula, now we're freeing ourselves from the rule of this unjust pharaoh,' he says.

Abdelhalin may be pious, but like most demonstrators who have come to take part in the 'march of a million' he doesn't belong to a political party.

'We don't have any proper political parties in this country anyway,' says Said.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to 'islamify' the country, is not officially a party - religious parties are banned in Egypt though it has been tolerated to some extent under Mubarak.

But the Brotherhood is at least as well organized as the Mubarak's National Democratic Party.

Eiman Suleiman is a member of the Brotherhood and in a hurry to get to the demonstration. The 25-year-old lawyer from Sharqiya province wants to play his role in history.

He wants, as he puts it 'to be there when Mubarak falls.' That's why he has been staying in Cairo for a week and why he didn't mind so much when police beat him with rubber truncheons on Wednesday.

'That doesn't matter. We're ready to die as martyrs anyway,' he shouts over Talaat Harb Square.

Suleiman is enjoying this moment of freedom. He likes it when three men who look like policemen look at him disapprovingly.

While the streets around Tahrir Square fill up with anti-Mubarak protesters, a smaller demonstration made up of his supporters is gathering nearby.

'Bloody sabotage,' snorts one of them. 'You can't change a whole government in one day. What are these people thinking?' says another.

Meanwhile the anti-regime protesters are trying to organize themselves.

As people arrive they are frisked for weapons by soldiers and volunteers from the demonstrations.

'We're staying on this square,' a young woman wearing a red headscarf calls as she pushes through the crowd. 'We won't try to march through the city because then Mubarak supporters could try and join in and create unrest. Then it would get dangerous.'

But she can't convince all the rest. Some of them say they want to march to some of the city's palaces.

At the centre of the square the camp of the most determined protesters is set up. Some sleep on newspapers, others are sunk deep in the Koran.

A group of women shouts, 'there are a million of us, where's the press?'

Are they afraid that extremist groups could exploit the opportunity to grab power for themselves? 'There are all kinds of groups here already,' says 33-year-old Rabeb Saleh, a computing graduate and mother of three. 'The risk is the price we pay. Every revolution has its price.'

Elsewhere in the city life is going on almost as normal. Near the stock exchange, which has been closed for several days, an eerie calm is in the air.

In one of the few cafes which remain open, well-dressed young men and women sit around all talking non-stop into their mobile phones.

Two streets further on street vendors are selling fruit and vegetables. Milk and yoghurt are scarce. When a young girl arrives bearing fresh bread, dozens of people fall on her.

It has become as hard to get hold of as petrol.

On the other side of the River Nile, in the well-off area of Zamalek, a group of young men is taking advantage of the absence of military and police - all occupied with the protests - to rob a clothes shop.

Three of them are standing on the top of a minibus, stuffing t- shirts and trousers, skirts and blouses into cheap suitcases that they have strapped to the top.

They don't feel a connection with the new era that is dawning in Egypt.

Finally the minibus is full and there's no more room in the suitcases. The men drive off to their less well-to-do neighbourhood.

They are happy to leave the demonstrations to the Muslim Brotherhood, the old lefties, the frustrated civil servants and the idealistic young of the middle classes.

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