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Egypt's morning after As tents and barricades are taken down in Tahrir Square, triumphant protesters await to be comforted by a fourth military communiqué
A clear blue morning sky greeted residents of the democracy ghetto that had pitched itself up in the square which now truly earns its name -- Tahrir. While a jubilation-induced hangover seemed to waft over the dozens of tents this morning, by 10am the square was operating in two simultaneous modes: calm celebration and frantic cleaning. A clean-up crew of volunteers, some of them the mothers of those hard-core revolutionaries who'd been stationed there, descended on the square ready with sweepers and plastic bags. By noon half the tents had gone and the volunteers had begun to move onto Talaat Harb, hunting for messy remnants of the last 18 days of revolutionary strife. Alongside them the military dismantled the metal barricades that had surrounded the square. Tahrir is beginning to look like it is intended to: a massive road junction. But is everyone ready to leave? “I am personally staying until I hear a comforting communiqué from the military,” says Khaled Abdallah, a 29 year old who has camped the last nine days in the square. Abdallah's sentiment resonates with many of the other triumphant protesters there. Beneath the air of joyous victory is a worry: can we really trust the military? For Fady Mohamed, another transient resident of the square, “We have no choice but to give them the benefit of the doubt.” Mohamed says the military has promised on more than one occasion to remove emergency laws and has pledged to fulfill the people's demands. “We have to give them a chance.” Other protesters, even more at ease with idea of a military-run transition period, have other concerns. Wael Said, who returned to the square this morning with hundreds of others, is back to celebrate, but also to call for the prosecution of the former president and, as he put it, “his dogs.” Chanting crowds last night and this morning continued to bellow: “The people demand the prosecution of the [mass] killer.” Nevertheless, most protesters suspect that, pending a positive fourth communiqué from the military, the square will have been completely evacuated by tomorrow. In the meantime, Cairo streets continue to blare with the sounds of cars beeping; some for traffic reasons, others celebratory. A sense that normality may be just around the corner looms.
