The July 8 protest in Tahrir Square, Cairo was packed full of people. An estimated 100,000 attended from nearly every one of Egypt’s 160+ new political parties. Before the 25 January Revolution, there was a handful of registered parties. But following Hosni Mubarak’s exit, Al-Ahzaab have multiplied rapidly.
I saw labour, environmental, fundamentalist, pro-Palestinian, secular, youth and veterans groups with tents and booths underneath the main tent in central Tahrir. They were all calling for a “purification” or Egypt’s leadership of every Mubarak-era influence and most called for the empowerment of civilian authority instead of the current ruling military regime. Denouncing the gas deal with Israel, and what is felt as undue and subversive American influence in the meta-sizing political field, the protesters called for a second revolution: 8 July might mark the beginning of the second popular movement to wrest control of the Nile River’s current Pharaoh from power.
