Egypt: unbelievably ecstatic and overjoyed

2011-02-11

It's really amazing that the dictator, the tyrant has gone! And it's true that the people themselves in their hundreds of thousands have done it -- have defeated him! -- and having finally lost their fear, done it by nothing more than their courageous and benign bravery and peaceful and non-violent witness in the public squares all across Cairo and other cities and towns throughout the country.

The revolution seemed to begin with the refusal of the young students to be intimidated by the terrifying police attacks -- which brought out the angry middle classes and older groups who had for a long time suppressed their hatred of Mubarak but now were not going to take it anymore -- and finally the workers organizing strikes -- and the die was cast! And then the doctors at the hospitals joined in to strike, and other professionals struck -- and then the journalists, even the official government paper editors who in their latest headlines called for dissolving the "corrupt and illegal congress" (!) and demanded holding new elections -- all truly amazing developments in the making of an astonishingly peaceful revolution.

The joy of these people is palpable -- (so is mine).