Back to the square
Cairo, December 2, 2011

I am back in Cairo and walk across the Nile into Tahrir square. Someone put a bandage on the eyes of the huge iron lions guarding the bridge and on the eyes of all the statues in the city: a grim reference to the “eye sniper”, the policeman who allegedly aimed rubber bullets at protesters’ heads during last week’s clashes. The lieutenant, Mahmud al-Shinnawi, turned himself in yesterday and will be questioned by state prosecutors.

The mood is sober in the square. It’s Friday and the people gather for the prayer as usual. There are crying fathers and mourning mothers carrying the pictures of their lost children: 42 were killed in the riots which forced the government to resign. There are flags and banners and tea stalls by the tents. The thieves from the suburbs came to scrape a living among the crowd of bystanders, party activists, journalists, preachers, students, bloggers, vendors, unemployed and plain clothes policemen waiting for the results of the polls.

In the first round (Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Assiut) of the first free elections in Egypt’s history, the Muslim Brotherhood new Freedom and Justice Party is set to win about 40 per cent of the seats in the Lower House, while the ultra-conservative Salafist groups are expected to pick up 20 per cent. The Arab spring is now an Islamic spring. In Egypt as it is in Morocco, Tunisia and possibly in Lybia.

A young teacher tells me she voted for the Brotherhood. “I am not religious” she says “but I have two kids and I am fed up with all this. We need peace, we need stability, we want to have back our lives. This square is now rotten, without a purpose. The Brothers, at least, are well organized: they know what they want”.

They want to oust the military junta, and they demand jobs, democracy and social justice. Who wouldn’t? For now, as the sun sets over the minarets and the housing blocks, more people flock to the square. The turnout at the polls was 62 per cent, “the highest since the time of the pharaohs” boasts the official on the tv screen. And at 8 p.m. he starts reading the names of the elected.