Nicholas Kristof

February 6, 2011

INSIDE Tahrir Square, I met a carpenter named Mahmood whose left arm was in a sling, whose leg was in a cast and whose head was being bandaged in a small field hospital set up by the democracy movement. This was the seventh time in 24 hours that he had needed medical treatment for injuries suffered at the hands of government-backed mobs. But as soon as Mahmood was bandaged, he tottered off again to the front lines.

‘I’ll fight as long as I can,” he told me. I was awestruck. That seemed to be an example of determination that could never be surpassed, but as I snapped Mahmood’s picture I backed into Amr’s wheelchair. It turned out that Amr had lost his legs many years ago in a train accident, but he rolled his wheelchair into Tahrir Square to show support for democracy, hurling rocks back at the mobs that President Hosni Mubarak apparently sent to besiege the square.

Amr (I’m not using some last names to reduce the risks to people I quote) was being treated for a wound from a flying rock. I asked him as politely as I could what a double-amputee in a wheelchair was doing in a pitched battle involving Molotov cocktails, clubs and machetes, bricks and straight razors.

”I still have my hands,” he said firmly. ”God willing, I will keep fighting.”

That was Tahrir Square: pure determination, astounding grit and, at times, heartbreaking suffering.

Mubarak has disgraced the twilight of his presidency. His government on Thursday appeared to have unleashed a brutal crackdown – hunting down human rights activists, journalists and, of course, demonstrators themselves, all while trying to block citizens from Tahrir Square. As I arrived near the square, I encountered a line of Mubarak’s goons carrying wooden clubs with nails embedded in them. That did not seem an opportune place to step out of a taxi, so I found a back way in.

At Tahrir Square’s field hospital (a mosque in normal times), 150 doctors have volunteered their services, despite the risk. Maged, a 64-year-old doctor who walks with a cane, told me he hadn’t been previously involved in the protests, but when he heard about the government’s assault on peaceful pro-democracy protesters, something snapped. So he prepared a will then drove 200 kilometres to Tahrir Square to treat the injured. ”I don’t care if I don’t go back,” he told me. ”I had to be part of this.”

Mubarak may claim he’s unhappy about the violence in Cairo, but he caused it – and the only way to restore order in Egypt and revive the economy is for him to step down immediately.

Countless Egyptians here tell me that they are willing to sacrifice their lives for democracy. But I’ve heard similar talk in many other countries in the throes of democracy movements.

Unfortunately, usually what determines the fate of such movements is not the courage of the democracy activists but the willingness of the government to massacre its citizens. In that case, the survivors usually retreat in sullen silence and the movement is finished for a time.

The lion-hearted Egyptians I met on Tahrir Square deserve our strongest support and, frankly, they should inspire us. A quick lesson in colloquial Egyptian Arabic: ”Innaharda, ehna kullina Misryeen! Today, we are all Egyptians!”

NEW YORK TIMES

February 6 2011