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Egyptians are coming to terms with the scale of change in their country following the dramatic protests in Cairo that unseated their president Akhem Hassan came so late to the revolution he thought he might have missed it, but on Saturday he discovered that it is far from over. For days, Hassan watched events unfold on television. Or rather, he fumed as the state broadcaster spewed forth a stream of lies about the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “They said the demonstrators were paid by foreigners and agents of Israel,” said the 41-year-old driving instructor. “They said they only went to Tahrir Square because there was free Kentucky [Fried Chicken]. But we Egyptians were afraid of the government since the day we were born and no one would go against it just for free Kentucky.” It took Hosni Mubarak’s television address, though, to get Hassan down to the square. Like many of his countrymen, he had been expecting the Egyptian president to quit on Thursday night. When he didn’t, it was too much. “I decided that for my sons’ future, I too must be brave,” he said. Hassan arrived in Tahrir Square on Friday morning as the growing crowd seethed with anger at what was widely regarded as the regime’s duplicity after the near euphoria of the day before at statements from the army and politicians that Mubarak was about to quit. Protest organisers were discussing how to ratchet up the pressure with civil disobedience and mass strikes while hundreds of thousands of people, like Hassan, poured in to the square. A few hours later, a spasm of disbelief and stunned silence gave way to a roar that swept Cairo and cities across Egypt as more than 30 years of Mubarak’s rule was ended in a terse 30-second statement. The army was now running the country. The revolution was won. Or perhaps it wasn’t. On Saturday morning Hassan was still in the square with many thousands of others, still not quite believing the emotional rollercoaster of the past 24 hours as he read a paper with a large picture of Mubarak on the front under a contemptuous headline. “I was going to go home now,” said Hassan. “But people here told me to stay. They’re telling everyone to stay. They said the revolution isn’t over yet.” The morning after Mubarak was forced out, Tahrir Square was busy with protesters clearing up the detritus of revolution – neatly piling the stones ripped from the ground to resist any attempt to force the demonstrators from the square and sweeping the road as if this was the first step to building a new Egypt. On the edge of the square, fathers lifted their children on to tanks and clicked away with their phone cameras. Young women in headscarves edged as close as modesty would allow them to the soldiers as their friends took pictures. Older women delivered cakes to the men in uniform. Their husbands hugged the soldiers and thanked them for saving the country. These revolutionaries – ordinary Egyptians, old and young, middle-class and poor, Islamists and secularists, who could never have imagined publicly criticising the government just a few weeks ago – marvelled at the enormity of what they had achieved. Egyptians have surprised themselves with the power and orderliness of their revolution. During 18 days of protest they endured police attacks with live rounds and rubber bullets, a camel charge by pro-Mubarak thugs, and times when it seemed as though their struggle might take months. But the violence that cost more than 300 people their lives all came from the state’s brutal but failed attempt to break the uprising. “The government tried to kill us but it only made us stronger,” said Khalid Mostafa, a worker at a butchery. “They didn’t think we would fight back when they sent the people to beat and shoot us. When they did that, we had the whole country with us and we knew they could not kill us all.” When some of the young men among the hundreds of thousands packed in to Tahrir Square grew belligerent at the army’s attempts to prevent the protest spilling beyond the barricades, others calmed them with pleas that non-violence was their most powerful weapon. Instead, deeply religious men and women in chadors laid themselves down in front of the tanks, their heads resting inside the tracks, to forestall any attempt by the military to move on the square. On Saturday Mostafa was among the clumps of people gathered around speakers as men – it always seemed to be men – took turns to offer their views on what should happen next. Here and there, the arguments turned heated. Some saw ridding the country of Mubarak’s rule as enough and declared the revolution won. The army is with the people, they declared. Others dwelled on the uncertainties of a takeover by the same military that kept Mubarak in power for 30 years. The crowds may have chanted “the army and people are one” as they sought to forestall any attempt to use force to break the protests, but for protesters such as Fawzi Abdul Aleem, a surgeon who left a state hospital in Alexandria to join the demonstrations early on and slept every night in the square, there is reason for concern. “We don’t know the military’s intention. Since the 1952 revolution we have been governed by the military,” he said. “We need a civilian government. We don’t want the military to rule us. They are strict, they are not democratic. It’s not good for us. We are staying here until we get guarantees for the future. We are waiting for the army to accept our demands.” Shortly after taking over, the military called for an end to the protests. It told the demonstrators in Tahrir Square that they had won and it was time to clear the barricades of burned-out cars, railings and metal sheeting and go home. “The army is a bit surprised that we haven’t left,” said Azza Khalil, another doctor at the open-air clinics scattered around the square. “The best thing about this revolution is we broke the fear of talking to our leaders. Now we hope the leaders will be afraid of the masses, the people. I think people realised how powerful they are. I hope the army realises that.” The protest organisers have laid out a series of demands to the army, key to which are the dissolution of the widely discredited parliament, the lifting of the 30-year-old state of emergency imposed after Anwar Sadat’s assassination which has been used to persecute the government’s opponents and suppress political activity, and the establishment of an interim administration to get the country to free elections. The military has agreed to meet some of those, but not all. The demonstrators are pressing for the creation of a five-person interim ruling council of four civilians – all of whom would be barred from running for president when elections are held, so they could not use their position for political advantage – and one military official. While some Egyptians are misty-eyed about the army, there is ample evidence that it has not been neutral during the crisis. It stood back while the regime’s thugs attacked demonstrators in Tahrir Square. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of opposition activists, or people merely carrying political literature, were detained and some severely tortured. Among those picked up was Kareem Amer, a renowned political activist and blogger, who had already served four years in prison. He was arrested on the edge of Tahrir Square on 7 February. Amer told a website, CyberDissidents.org, that he was held in a military prison in the desert in a crowded cell. “People were treated harshly and severely tortured on a daily basis. They were tortured in front of our eyes – water-boarded, beaten with sticks, and electrocuted,” he said. Amer was only released on Friday as Mubarak fell. “Thousands of prisoners were released, even those who had killed soldiers,” he said. Still, even amid the debate over what the military is really up to, there is a new confidence in the power of ordinary people to make a difference and a determination that, if the army doesn’t deliver, Egyptians will be back on the streets. “We are the example to the world,” said Abdel Massri, a 25 year-old IT specialist. “All over the Arab world they are celebrating our freedom. In America, in Israel, they say Egyptians are not ready for democracy, Arabs don’t know how to use democracy. But that is just their excuse for supporting Mubarak. He was good for them, not for us.” Mubarak may be gone, but people have not stopped talking about him. They debate how to get back the money they believe he has stolen. They disagree about whether he should be allowed to retire in peace in Egypt or be called to account for the many crimes people tick off. But they generally agree on one thing in Tahrir Square – that Mubarak colossally misjudged Egyptians. “Mubarak, this man is so stupid,” said Khalil with a laugh. “Everything he did managed to get more people on the streets. His speech made every single person hate him because they discovered he doesn’t love Egypt, he loves himself.” Egypt Hosni Mubarak Middle East Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk