Popcorn and Teargas: Last Chance Friday in Tahrir Square
Tahrir Square on November_22 - By Lilian Wagdy, via Wikimedia Commons
Fireworks light up the smiling faces of people buying popcorn. Groups of friends smile and sing as they mingle in the slowly revolving crowd. Children have their faces painted and salesmen roam selling trinkets and flags. You could be given to believe that this is a carnival but next to the food stalls there is a man selling gas masks. This is not a fair; this is Tahrir Square around midnight on ‘Last Chance Friday’.
Some people are carrying flags but others are carrying injuries. The conversation I was having with one demonstrator was interrupted when a young man with an arm in a sling collapsed in front of us. He had just come off an intravenous drip – he still had a cannula visible on his hand – and he was obviously very weak and dehydrated. A small crowd quickly gathered and someone was dispatched to get a doctor from the First Aid station.
Flags abound in Tahrir Square - Simon Ash
The hospital in the square adds to the feeling that Tahrir is a city within a city. There are teams clearing up litter as well as those chanting slogans, and as the crowds have grown to numbers rivalling the earlier uprising, facilities have sprung up to serve the tens of thousands of people who occupy or visit the area. Tahrir even has it’s own border checks where people are questioned, identification is checked and bodies are searched for concealed weapons.
But despite these checks the atmosphere does not feel threatening. I was received with smiles and friendly greetings and I felt safer than I would have done wandering through parts of London at that time of night. When I finally exited the enclosure of Tahrir I felt a surprising emotion; I was sad to go.
The silhouette of the Egyptian Museum looming at the edge of Tahrir was a reminder of the long and proud heritage of the country. Now just a few metres from some of the most famous artefacts in the world you cannot escape the sense that history is being made in Cairo once again.
It is unclear whether things in the square will escalate over the weekend but the general feeling in Cairo is that the elections will go ahead on Monday. Beyond the chants of Tahrir there are vans with loud hailers pumping out electoral slogans and large banners swathe the buildings and line streets.
People may disagree on exactly how development is to be made but the overwhelming sentiment in Cairo is that people want to progress. Hopefully this positive mind-set will bring a result that everyone can agree was worth fighting for, and not that this was a last chance that has come and gone.
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