Democracy Now!'s Sharif Abdel Kouddous Live from Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger

There really is an unbelievable feeling of community now, of people coming together. I’ve never seen Egypt this way. People are picking up trash in Tahrir Square. People are handing out food. People are helping each other. People are sleeping in the middle of Tahrir Square and setting up tents in the middle of the square. It is a scene that is very emotional. It’s something that no one thought could come together. It’s largely leaderless. I mean, no one—there’s no one organizing group. This is a popular uprising across all segments of society. Opposition groups have come now into the fold. They are—the Muslim Brotherhood is here, and other opposition groups. But people don’t want it coopted. And, you know, one of the things that I witnessed that was very moving was a lot of the Brotherhood started chanting, "Allah Akbar," and then—which means "God is great" in Arabic. And then the counter chant that was much louder, reverberating over them, was to "Muslim, Christian, we are all Egyptian." And that really symbolizes what’s happening here in Egypt today.

And, you know, Amy, I’ve seen some reports—I’ve had very little access to any kind of outside news. They really have shut down—the internet is completely shut down here. Cell phones do work now, and people are starting to be able to call each other. There is no texting; no SMS texting goes out. And they are very afraid of the internet, because Facebook was how they organized this uprising, to begin with. It was organized on Facebook. And there’s also mass SMS texting that is very common here in Egypt. And so, they’ve kept that shut down to try and cut off the communications from people. But people in Cairo do not care. They are going right now—I can see droves heading to Tahrir. And what’s significant, they go at the time of the curfew. They go when the curfew is there, and that’s when they start heading out.

And there’s been many reports of violence, of looting. And I just want to be very clear about this, that there was a significant amount of looting on Friday after the police completely disappeared from the scene. Certain places in Mohandessin in downtown Cairo were burned. Banks were burned. Some shops were looted. And, you know, there’s been reports of armed gangs coming around and robbing houses. Some of that did happen, yes, but what’s been amazing and what’s also kind of another phase of how this is Egypt coming together in this popular movement is that people have taken to the streets and formed these very efficient neighborhood watch committees. Where I live here in Zamalek, there’s groups of men, young and old, they stand, they form barricades. They are armed with metal pipes, some with bats. Some do have guns. And what they do is they check people coming in. They check their IDs. They’re very courteous. They allow people to go through if they believe you live in the neighborhood. They have really—they’re protecting their own. They’re protecting their homes. They are directing traffic. Well, the traffic cops are back in the streets of Cairo today, but before that, they were directing traffic. I’ve never seen Cairo traffic so smooth. One former diplomat I spoke with said, "It’s amazing. These 15-year-old kids are doing such a much better job than our traffic police."

via www.democracynow.org

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[Elephantzchild]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5GSfSRY2PQ

"we are here cleaning our country Egypt which is our property not anyone else's"