Following the departure of Hosni Mubarak, the people look to the future with renewed hope, writes MICHAEL JANSEN
EGYPT RETURNED to work yesterday after 18 days of democracy protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and his appointed successor, vice-president Omar Suleiman.
While most Egyptians camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square heeded the call of the protest movement organisers to withdraw, a few resisted eviction.
They scuffled with military policemen in red berets and white spats until, finally, plastic sheeting shelters were pulled down.
The smartly turned-out military police also surrounded a crowd of several hundred demonstrators who were assembled around a Hyde Park-style speakers’ platform to air their grievances and call for salary increases.
Several hundred civil policemen in black uniforms and plain clothes then marched into the square to apologise to the Egyptian people for failing to join the “revolution” and express their support for democracy. One man on the sidelines said caustically: “They are much too late, but we’ll forgive them. They are Egyptians, they are our relatives.”
Youngsters with brooms were still trying to complete the clean- up of the square while a tow truck crew pulled burned-out pick-up trucks from the entrance and exit of the Sadat metro station, blocked during the protest to prevent infiltration by Mubarak loyalists.
Civil servants and petitioners flowed out of the metro and assembled outside the Mogamma, the vast Soviet-style administrative block dominating one side of the square. Lorries hauled rubbish piled near the handsome rose- coloured Egyptian museum where police had detained three dozen activists who said they would stay in Tahrir until all the movement’s demands were met. They were set to be freed in the evening.
Taxis and private cars returned to Tahrir with a vengeance, filling the city’s traffic hub with honking vehicles that pedestrians challenged at their peril.
At Talat Harb Square, a few hundred metres from Tahrir, Gropi’s famous tea shop – established in 1891 – reopened with a flourish, displaying glorious cakes and dainty savouries. Its windows and those of all the shops, fast-food joints and banks in Tahrir and nearby streets were still intact.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of Egyptians poured into Tahrir to continue celebrating Mubarak’s departure by clearing up the mess left by millions during more than two weeks of mass demonstrations.
They laid flowers on the plastic sheet memorial spread on the ground to honour the dead, and greeted each other for the freedom festival.
Although there had been no order to come and tidy up Tahrir, young men wearing surgical gloves and masks carted away broken paving stones, the munitions used to defend against attacks by pro-Mubarak supporters. Men and women armed with brooms swept rubbish into plastic dustpans and filled bag after bag for collection.
One upper-class woman in knee-high leather boots, an Egyptian flag wrapped around her shoulders, wielded a broom awkwardly – seemingly unused to such work.
Mahmoud (12), who wheeled a bin to collection points, called out: “Welcome to free Egypt!” Men put cobblestones into the roadbed next to the museum while others dismantled barricades and dragged away metal sheets, broken fencing and pieces of wood.
Teams scrubbed graffiti from the base of a war hero statue and tore posters from the walls of buildings. Parents lifted small children on to tanks for photographs as soldiers looked on, confused and bemused.
A cloud of dust rose over the square but thousands continued to come, undeterred.
Cheerful girls busily sweeping wore signs pinned to the backs of their jumpers saying: “Sorry for the inconvenience, we are building Egypt.”