Tahrir Square Quotes

The achievement of Tahrir Square wasn’t just its grand political movement but the tiny personal battles fought and won against the frictions wearing down Egyptian society: between religions, classes, sexes, and generations.

I don't demonize the downside. As we've seen in Egypt and Tahrir square and other recent event, the adhesiveness through [technology] kinds of communication is extraordinary. Interesting times we live in.

There's a long history in the Middle East of "bread intifadas," starting with 1977 in Egypt, when Anwar Sadat tried to lift bread subsidies. People rebelled and poured into Tahrir Square, shouting slogans against the government just like they did earlier this year. Sadat learned his lesson and kept bread subsidies in place, and so did a host of other Middle Eastern dictators - many of whom were propped up for years by the West, partly through subsidized American wheat.

I thought it was interesting to see that Israel did not play a role in this revolution. The man on Cairo's Tahrir Square doesn't want anything from me, but he does want something from his government. That's a good sign.

Both of these places, Cairo's downtown and Tahrir Square, are in the heart of downtown Cairo. They are places where young people gather to exchange political and cultural ideas. And so that's possibly a factor into why they went after these institutions, although there's been no public comment from the government on why these raids happened.

I'm optimistic, though. Now, with the Arab Spring, I think that people in the region are beginning to overturn some of these clichés, and Western editors are starting to catch up. We're seeing some exceptions to the stereotypes, like Elizabeth Rubin's great piecein Newsweek, "The Feminists in the Middle of Tahrir Square." But an article like that shouldn't be the exception. It should be the rule.

Let's remember that the revolution in Tahrir Square was not anti-American, it was not anti-Israeli, it was for democracy and freedom. That's a good thing.

All the signs of incipient activism and uprising, from Tahrir square to Zuccotti Park to [the recent] shutdown of the Internet to protest web censorship. People are getting smart and getting connected.