One of the most fascinating things was seeing and hearing all the political conversations everywhere. Someone told me a few nights ago: "We used to just talk about soccer. Now we talk politics" and it's true. I stood on a corner with a few people I know and in the span of 45 minutes random people approached us and discussed: the reports of arrests and disappearances; whether beltagiya should be held responsible or whether they are just the product of oppression; whether change needs to come from the bottom or the top. At one point someone took issue with my foreign appearance and my notebook and asked the woman I was talking to what she was telling me and if she was Egyptian--this degenerated into mutual suspicion and an argument that was then mediated by other by-standers. Everyone in the square is a little paranoid about informers, agents provocateurs and the media's portrayal of events--but these struck me mostly as the to-be-expected jitters surrounding the opening of an entirely new, and very promising, national debate. Everyone can say anything they want, today, in Midan Tahrir and to a great extent across the country, and this is a huge, confusing adjustment. Someone told me an argument between pro- and anti-Mubarak people had broken out on the bus he'd ridden into town--he'd finally told the ones supporting the president: "Do you think we would have ever had this conversation two weeks ago?"
Someone else I interviewed today told me: "The entire Egyptian political elite owes an apology to the people"--for being incapable of imagining that they could do what they've done in the last two weeks (I would widen that observation to the world press and commentariat). That said, I have yet to meet anyone--among the activists, among the participants--who claims they saw this coming.