Hundreds of Thousands

Into the Streets of Cairo

by C. L. Cook

Egyptians have answered the call and come out in their hundreds of thousands. Al Jazeera English (AJE) is showing live pictures from Cairo's Tahrir, or Liberation, Square where yesterday, despite the best efforts of the Mubarak regime to block popular communications, word of a so-called Million Egyptian March spread throughout the capital.

 

At this hour, (13:45 local time) myriad chants from blaring megaphones leading the crowds in various calls can be heard; banners are flying, and the end of president Hosni Mubarak seems certain.

 

Yesterday, the army was busy, carting in hundreds of concrete blocks in an attempt to build barriers ringing what is fast becoming the symbol of the rise of the populace against the near thirty years old Mubarak dictatorship in the city's central plaza. If their hope was to dissuade participation, or channel the great masses of people away from Tahrir, it has failed.

 

[UPDATE BELOW]

 

Though Al Jazeera's operations were shut down in past days, their journalist arrested, and cameras seized, the single fixed camera feed, from high atop a building adjacent to the square, reveals what AJE is claiming to be more than one million people in the square; and that number is easy to believe.

 

The choppy image making the spectacle seem a busy colony of ants, undulating staccato-like, the roar and hubbub faintly audible from the cloistered journalist's microphone.

 

They are now questioning the whereabouts of one presumed figurehead of this as yet leaderless movement, Mohamed Elbaredei who is reportedly not in Tahrir Square, but watching events from a nearby residence. AJE reports him advising the throng to "hold the square" rather than marching, as had been planned, against the Presidential Palace.

 

Outlawed opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, not heard from in the early days of this uprising, has now refused government overtures to parle, instead saying nothing short of a complete removal of Mubarak's NDP.

 

Meanwhile, AJE says the army reports arresting agents provocateur among the demonstrators, though how they could hope to stop this juggernaut is difficult to imagine.

 

It seems, even without the aid of social media, shut down almost completely by the regime in recent days, the whole of Egypt must hear the "Get out! Get out!" chants coming from Tahrir Square.

 

Mubarak broke his long silence moments ago, telling a national television audience he would not seek re-election in scheduled September elections, and would move to amend the constitution, providing presidential term limits. Vowing he would "Die on Egyptian soil," Hosni Mubarak stood defiant, some saying in denial, of the all too obvious sentiment of the vast majority of the population.

 

Mubarak cited his military service, saying he was proud of his service to the country, trusting history would be his judge. This is being taken as a thumb in the eye of the popular will, and is being interpreted as a challenge by Mubarak to the people in the streets, thronging in their hundreds of thousands in Cairo, and across the nation, to up their efforts or stand down. 

 

In his speech, Mubarak said he had "Exhausted his life in the service of his country," vowing to guarantee, in September, to ensure a "peaceful transfer of power."

 

Al Jazeera English (AJE) has more on the speech here, but Mubarak's intransigence seems like nothing less than a challenge to the people to either challenge the military, whose allegiances are being strained to the limit, and mount a violent storming of the presidential palace, or go home.