Day Seven

The high drama of last Friday seems to have been replaced with a sort of continuing tension as the two sides in Egypt are eyeball to eyeball waiting for someone to blink. I think so far I'd read today as a day of mixed signals. The return of police to the streets seems to have been well handled: they deployed the traffic police, a whole different matter than the Central Security Forces. It provides a presence, but not a confrontational one. Meanwhile, the spread of the neighborhood committees may be the real revolutionary movement, since locals providing their own security are, in effect, creating government from below.

The new Cabinet isn't all that new, the major development there being the replacement of Interior Minister Habib al-Adly with Mahmoud Wagdi. Reports I've seen say he once headed the Prison Bureau, which doesn't make him sound very much of a reformer, but he's said to have had a falling-out with Adly, so the President may consider him a symbol of change, though I doubt the demonstrators will agree.

A commenter noted yesterday the potential importance of the decision by many Azhar faculty, key judges, and other prominent representatives of civil society to join the demonstrators in Tahrir, further broadening support for the protests. In fact, I gather many Egyptian celebrities — sports stars, TV personalities, etc. — are now showing up. Midan al-Tahrir is the place to be. That is a sign that many pillars of Egyptian society are now joining what they may see as the right side of history, or at least the one likely to win.

Meanwhile, the government crackdown on Al Jazeera led to the confiscation of their cameras and arrest of six journalists, though the six have now been released. Al Jazeera English for the past couple of days has been talking to their reporters without naming them, for safety reasons. Both their Arabic and English services are reporting thoroughly despite the difficulties. So, once again, the live-streaming Al Jazeera English coverage: