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Sunday was back-to-work day in Cairo. The banks opened, the tanks pulled back from the Corniche, and traffic returned to its usual gridlock. Meanwhile, several parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, met with Vice-President Omar Suleiman, and Suleiman then issued an extraordinary statement expressing “consensus” and effectively acceding to most of the protesters’ demands: a road map to free and fair elections, lifting of the state of emergency which has been in place since 1981 (depending on “the security situation”), freedom of the press, release of political prisoners, the prosecution of corrupt officials, and Constitutional reform. Who would have believed such political capitulation, or desperation, by the authorities was possible twelve days ago? (Mubarak remained in place, however.) Later on, I bumped into Mohammed Beltegi, a Muslim Brotherhood official who I have seen most days on Tahrir Square. He had a big grin on his face. “Egypt today is a different Egypt,” he said. “The Egyptian people are truly getting their rights.’
In the afternoon, the atmosphere in Tahrir Square was jubilant. It was Sunday and a Day of the Copts had been declared and a mass celebrated, underscoring the efforts by the protesters to show a united Egypt, with Muslims and Christians together. The crowds are huge. Vendors had set up stalls selling hot tea and sandwiches. I saw one man selling toilets and another showerheads and hoses. The few tents in the central grassy park area have swelled to a city of makeshift shelters made out of concrete reinforcing rod posts and stretched tarpaulin. If anything, numbers over the past couple of days, since the army has stepped up security and the pro-Mubarak mobs are gone, are increasing. The mood is defiant. “It’s some kind of courage, some kind of momentum,” said Am Mustafa, a university lecturer who had made it down to Cairo from Alexandria. He was dismissive of the ongoing dialogue. “People are not going to be fooled anymore, they don’t trust this regime.” Alongside the Egyptian Museum, a line of tanks has been stopped by protesters. Yesterday, they were sitting in front of them to prevent them from moving forward; today, they had taken up residence with blankets and tents, leaning in between the tank wheels and treads and eating tubs of koshari, a great Egyptian staple of rice and lentils and macaroni all mixed together. It was a nice image for the broad spectrum of people in the crowds—dancing, preaching, chanting—all around.
But even as the protesters seem to feel that the end can’t be far off, tension remains. In the early evening, several volleys of gunfire went up near the frontline barricade that was the scene of the most serious fighting between the protesters and the pro-Mubarak groups until a couple of days ago—why was unclear. The crowds screamed at first in alarm and then returned to their cheering chant, “Leave! Leave!” They are sure of themselves now; they are not going anywhere.
Read more from our coverage of the protests in Egypt and beyond.
Photograph: Joseph Hill, via Flickr.
