Day 4 of Protests (cont): The best possible outcomes...

7:00pm

Still no word from Mubarak. We’re all awaiting his speech. 

It was just this past Monday, four days ago, when I remarked to Lenah that the day Mubarak goes will be the happiest day in Egypt’s recent history. People will dance in the streets. Perhaps we will see that day sooner than I thought. In sha’Allah. We are all praying that these demonstrations will end in Mubarak’s removal. At this point, the protesters won’t stop until he’s gone. God forbid he should try to hand power to his son. The city would literally be in flames.

Lenah remarks that no one anticipated that the demonstrations would reach this point. This is the biggest event in Egypt in 33 years.

Amu Ayman says that this is only the third time for the army to enter the streets in 60 years. It happened in ’77 with the Bread Riots, and it happened in ’86 when the government tried to make obligatory military service 5 years instead of 3 and the young men of the country took to the streets in protest.

If Mubarak doesn’t show his ugly wax face soon, it will be worse than if he had made no promise of a speech at all. Selfish coward. The man has horns.

I am shocked to hear that there are still police in the street shooting people. They have truly lost their minds. They’ve turned into rabid animals. I wonder if the army will have to call them off or even remove the police themselves.

Half a million protesters reported in Alexandria. Several police stations have been set on fire in Cairo.

At this point, here is the most ideal possible outcome I can hope for: Mubarak steps down; Everyone cheers and cries and dances in the streets; The world celebrates and supports and congratulates the Egyptians; The military peacefully takes over and appoints a reasonable figurehead; My friends return safely from Dahab on Sunday; We all remain in Egypt and continue the rest of the program as planned; Change begins in Egypt, slowly but surely; Egyptians rapidly mature and realize their ambitions; Lenah gets a visa to study at the Oriental Institute at University of Chicago; Conditions become safe for me to claim dual citizenship…