Today is Tuesday, January 25, a national holiday in Egypt ("Police Day") and what some are calling the day of the "Egyptian Intifada". In Arabic, "intifada" literally means "rising up", and so today is a call for a day of action - of rising up against "torture, poverty, corruption, and unemployment." Everyone I talk to about it keeps saying "Rabinna Yostor" - basically, "God help us." Though, what exactly they mean by that differs depending on who's talking. I confess that I'm not overly optimistic about anything changing today: Egypt's military and riot police and security apparatus are too strong, and there's nothing surprising about where and when the demonstrations will take place (the only unknown is exactly how large they'll be - though I suspect not large at all). But I hope it will be at least one small step; one small crack in authoritarianism here; one little spark of hope for people who don't always have a lot.*** UPDATE
Egyptians should be proud today. They stood up and stood together, at least a lot more than most people (myself included) expected. People are calling these the most significant protests since the 1970s (the government has responded by blocking Twitter, cutting off cell phone coverage in the area of the protests, and keeping it all off of national TV). It's 10 pm now and there are still thousands of protesters downtown; it sounds like they're deciding whether to spend the night and continue the protest. We're all waiting to see.
One step forward....
Vive l'Egypte! Check out stories here:
http://www.kaldasianarts.com/blog/2011/01/25/egyptians-protest-the-regime-scenes-from-midan-tahrir-liberation-square-in-cairo-egypt/ (Liberation Square is downtown, not far from where I live)
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