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It was only when we protesters risked being shot that revolution in Egypt truly took hold I am from a generation that has known no Egyptian leader beside the ousted president, Hosni Mubarak . When Anwar Sadat was killed, I was seven. I do not remember much about him other than he had a habit of screaming during speeches that lasted for hours. I also remember the regular periodic detention of both my mother and father for undisclosed reasons. Mubarak began his rule by releasing all Sadat’s political prisoners, and replacing them with his own. He assured the public that he would not stay in office for more than two terms, and then stayed for over 30 years because, he said, only he could ensure “the safeguard of security and stability”. This translated into permanent governance through emergency laws renewed every two years. Usually, just before the laws came up for renewal, a terrorist bombing would occur – by pure chance! – which would “compel” the People’s Assembly to vote for renewal of the laws. For the sake of this security and stability, systematic torture became widespread. Some of the methods used were devised by the police, others were imported from the United States. Every citizen ought to carry the responsibility for security and stability along with the leader, as the country is going through “a critical stage”; “a bottleneck”; “a difficult period”. “Egypt is under threat”; “it is in imminent danger”; “compliance is necessary” and “fear is the route to safety”. Every individual should be aware of the dangers of democracy. Democracy is a foreign plan to undermine the foundations of Egypt. Democracy is the key to occupation, “can you not see what happened to Iraq”… Because Egypt has a large population, the residential areas were divided into quarters to make controlling people easier. A large group were created, who were so crushed by poverty that they came to think of election season – parliamentary, local and presidential – as a celebration when everyone gets a blanket, a meal and perhaps a woollen jacket, all in return for a simple task: to enter the electoral tent and put a mark in the green circle for “yes”. As for the middle classes, they had to work day and night to make counterfeit gains that in reality belong to the bank. Egypt has received large amounts of US aid – given in return for Egypt’s neutralisation as a player in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and conditional on following World Bank “good policies”. These include privatisation, whereby the Egyptian regime undertakes to dismantle factories, public-sector enterprises and infrastructure, and sell them at the lowest possible prices to “investors” who in turn lay off workers, cut wages or sell on to foreign investors. The president and his retinue received a cut of every sale. The Tunisian revolution has had a great impact. Egyptians and Tunisians have a long history of feuds over football matches; a fact the tyrants exploited to exert control. The surprise was that these rival groups of football fans were one of the key elements in both the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. The call to demonstrate on 25 January was not the first. Other calls to protest against price hikes, torture, emergency law, Mubarak, and to demand a minimum wage, were issued daily on Facebook. I took up the 25 January call just as I took up every previous one, convinced that the demonstration would be attended by 500 people at best. That day’s demonstration did indeed begin with about 500 people; but then it was joined by crowds of passersby until the numbers in Tahrir Square reached 50,000. The masses had broken through the fear barrier; by the following day, their numbers had doubled. They began to plan how to outmanoeuvre the security forces; experiences of football crowds which have long faced off against the security forces were helpful here. Then people began to fear that the matter would end at this point and their unprecedented achievement would be aborted and so on the third day, their numbers doubled again. Then the regime chose to use the full extent of its repressive force to end the situation once and for all. However, The masses that confronted security forces were not the Facebook youth and neither were they the internet activists. Rather, they were segments of Egyptian society whose anger had been ignited by seeing the dead bodies, and so suddenly and unexpectedly they decided that they would risk being shot. Repressive forces want to kill hundreds in order to terrorise the millions, and the only way to foil such a plan is for millions to make the collective decision that they do not fear death. This was the key to both the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions. Why did the people not fear death? No one knows. It was not only religion, because some of those who died were not believers. It was not only poverty, because many of those who faced death were from the comfortable classes. It was not only despair, as the millions who came out onto the streets were full of hope for change. Perhaps the answer is human dignity. No force, no matter how tyrannous, is able to deprive human beings of this. People broke through the fear barrier, and Christians discovered that the Muslim’s are not terrorists while Muslim’s discovered that Christians are not agents of the occupation. The poor discovered that they have rights and the middle classes discovered that freedom from counterfeit gains releases the soul. And discovered that they do not need either a leader or commander. Indeed, they don’t even need security forces to maintain “security and stability”. This revolution is a people’s revolution. Whoever claims leadership of it is a liar and whoever claims to be its instigator is a vagabond. Leadership was and remains the property of the masses. The Egyptian revolution is not yet over. The people have toppled the head of the regime and still they strive to cleanse the pockets of corruption. Let the dictatorships, international forces and beneficiaries clamour. No one can exert control over the will of nations once they have flared up. Egypt Middle East Arab and Middle East protests Hosni Mubarak Tunisia Nawara Najem guardian.co.uk