CAIRO - The tens of thousands of demonstrators who have gathered on Al Tahrir Square in central Cairo to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and a package of political, economic and constitutional reforms have a strong feeling that they are making history. These people, however, are already part of history, by virtue of the square they chose as the focal point for their anger. Al Tahrir Square is to Cairo what the Champs Elysées is to Paris or Times Square to New York. It is the geographical embodiment of the Egyptian metropolis' spirit, and since January 25 it has become the fountain of change for Egypt's people and politics. The area on which the square sits has been historically significant for Cairo since the 13th century. However, it did not get its current shape until the late 19th century. Presently at the centre of anti-Mubarak protests, the square owes its design to another Mubarak, Ali Pasha Mubarak. He was Egypt's public works minister in the 1860s and 1870s when Egypt's ruler Ismail Pasha asked him to model Cairo after Paris. This was when the square was born. The new city was fashioned as a nexus of squares, with roads branching off at right angles, and Al Tahrir was the eye of this nexus. Originally called Midan Ismailia, it was renamed Midan Tahrir, or Liberation Square, after the Egyptian revolution in 1952, which ended the monarchy in this country. Cairo's first bridge across the Nile leads to the square. The area is also home to the Egyptian Museum, the headquarters of Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party, the Mogamma (where government paperwork like passports and drivers' licences is taken care of), the premises of the Arab League, and the original downtown campus of the American University in Cairo. The latest revolt against the regime has left all these landmarks intact, except for the premises of Mubarak's party, which have turned into a charred structure full of ashes. In this building Egypt was ruled and all party meetings were held. Seen from the top of 6th October Bridge, the premises of the party tell of times that have already gone. Behind and in front of the Egyptian Museum lays the new Egypt: the tens of thousands of revolutionaries who have made Egypt a different place. The 45,000 square metre square where the revolutionaries are deployed has been the traditional site for numerous major protests and demonstrations over the years, including the 1977 bread riots the biggest unrest in Egypt's history before the January 25 demonstrations. It was also where people gathered in March 2003 to protest against the war in Iraq. Al Tahrir Square, the site of nearly two weeks of anti-regime protests, has been host to several public demonstrations since it was built in the 19th century. The square was also the site of demonstrations in 1881 against the ruling Khedive Tawfiq, and in 1919 against the British occupation. At the centre of Al Tahrir Square is a large and busy traffic circle. On the north-eastern side is a plaza with a statue of Omar Makram of the Egyptian Ottoman era, and beyond is the Omar Makram Mosque. The square is the northern end of the historic Qasr el-Ayni Street, the western end of Talaat Harb Street, and near Qasr el-Nil Bridge. The Cairo Metro serves Al Tahrir Square with the Sadat Station, the main downtown junction of the system's two lines, linking Giza, Maadi, Helwan and other districts and suburbs of Greater Cairo. Its underground passages provide the safest alternatives for pedestrians who want to get across the wide streets of the heavily trafficked square.
