CAIRO - Demonstrating the individuality and singularity of Egyptians, two young couples on Sunday tied the knot in Al Tahrir Square, the epicentre of massive protests against President Hosni Mubarak, amid turmoil and on the day when the dead victims were commemorated by prayers held by Muslims and Christians. "Egyptians are different in everything even in protests," commented a foreigner in a message on the social networking website Twitter, which was used to congregate the protesters in the square. Ahmad Zaafan and his fiancée Oula Abdul Hamid, both camping in Tahrir Square ten days ago, held a wedding ceremony attended by more than 50,000 people, including families of the victims who fell in clashes with either pro-Mubarak supporters or with policemen. "We have taken the decision to be part of the revolution and it was very normal to stick to our stance by holding the historic wedding in the square," said Zaafan, the bridegroom, a pharmacology graduate. "Our wedding ceremony is simply a bid to bring in happiness to these great protesters." To Caryll Faraldi, a Briton living in Egypt, the wedding exemplifies "the singularity of Egyptians". After walking to work, seeing again the daily life on the downtown streets (within earshot of Tahrir Square) returning to normal, she commented: "The Egyptian people are uniquely vivacious". However, Nada Abdel Sallam, a banker who was very busy doing her job after an eight-day forced vacation, slammed the move by Ahmed to tie the knot in Al Tahrir Square as a kind of a “social exploitation of the protest”. "As some political figures are attempting to politically exploit the youth's protests, these two couples tried to exploit the protests socially," said Abdel Sallam. Distributing different kinds of juices marking the wedding ceremony, Ahmed Nashaat, a pharmacology student, said the couples and the protesters, who know a little about tomorrow, were behaving spontaneously. As the marriage registrar started to do his job, silence prevailed in the large square until some national hymns were chanted after all the surrounding protesters said ‘amen'. The wedding was at 2pm, a very unusual time for weddings in Egypt, but, with the curfew starting at 7pm, it had to take place earlier than normal. But the festive mood was hard to ignore: shrills filled the air, cars honked and jammed the street and celebrators flocked around the bride and groom. Thousands of demonstrators spent Sunday night under blankets and tarpaulins in Al Tahrir Square, which has resembled a tented camp over the past two weeks.
