Tahrir Square Quotes & Sayings

Of course, women are capable of all sorts of major unpleasantness, and there are violent crimes by women, but the so-called war of the sexes is extraordinarily lopsided when it comes to actual violence. Unlike the last (male) head of the International Monetary Fund, the current (female) head is not going to assault an employee at a luxury hotel; top-ranking female officers in the US military, unlike their male counterparts, are not accused of any sexual assaults; and young female athletes, unlike those male football players in Steubenville, aren't likely to urinate on unconscious boys, let alone violate them and boast about it in YouTube videos and Twitter feeds. No female bus riders in India have ganged up to sexually assault a man so badly he dies of his injuries, nor are marauding packs of women terrorizing men in Cairo's Tahrir Square, and there's no maternal equivalent to the 11 percent of rapes that are by fathers or stepfathers. — Rebecca Solnit

The Arab Spring is over. The days of the protesters with laptops and BlackBerrys in Tahrir Square are long gone. — Richard Engel

I don't demonize the downside. As we've seen in Egypt and Tahrir square and other recent event, the adhesiveness through [technology] kinds of communication is extraordinary. Interesting times we live in. — Anne Waldman

I thought it was interesting to see that Israel did not play a role in this revolution. The man on Cairo's Tahrir Square doesn't want anything from me, but he does want something from his government. That's a good sign. — Tom Segev

The achievement of Tahrir Square wasn't just its grand political movement but the tiny personal battles fought and won against the frictions wearing down Egyptian society: between religions, classes, sexes, and generations. — Shereen El Feki

In Egypt, on the eve of Tahrir Square, there was a major poll which found that overwhelmingly - 80-90%, numbers like that - Egyptians regarded the main threats they face as the U.S. and Israel. They don't like Iran - Arabs generally don't like Iran - but they didn't consider it a threat. — Noam Chomsky

Muslims and Christians can work together to depose dictators and assert the power of the people. We've seen it happen on the Tahrir Square in Cairo during the 2011 revolution in Egypt, with devout Muslims and Coptic Christians protesting side by side. — Miroslav Volf

When students and liberals initially occupied Tahrir Square, it looked like it might be a passing thing. — Richard Engel

There's a long history in the Middle East of "bread intifadas," starting with 1977 in Egypt, when Anwar Sadat tried to lift bread subsidies. People rebelled and poured into Tahrir Square, shouting slogans against the government just like they did earlier this year. Sadat learned his lesson and kept bread subsidies in place, and so did a host of other Middle Eastern dictators - many of whom were propped up for years by the West, partly through subsidized American wheat. — Annia Ciezadlo

Both of these places, Cairo's downtown and Tahrir Square, are in the heart of downtown Cairo. They are places where young people gather to exchange political and cultural ideas. And so that's possibly a factor into why they went after these institutions, although there's been no public comment from the government on why these raids happened. — Leila Fadel

Let's remember that the revolution in Tahrir Square was not anti-American, it was not anti-Israeli, it was for democracy and freedom. That's a good thing. — Stephen Hadley

The protestors feel that the elections have been hijacked and the choices are between two corrupt parties - that when the power structure no longer represents the people, the vote is no longer a tool for change [Jehane Noujaim, "Tahrir Square, Cairo: Lost and Found in the Square"]. — Catie Marron