The best exit strategy

I came back to the square with a friend at around 10pm, and had some food with me (Nothing fancy, bread and cheese mainly and water). Things were calm, the police were stationed on both sides of the Mogama3 building and around the Egyptian Museum and entrances of downtown while the protesters held the main square. The numbers were definitely less than when I left, but they were still more than I expected and probably outnumbered the police in the area.

People were settled down, chatting reading the paper, eating and debating. I still couldn't figure what was the exit strategy now and there was no clear leader to what was happening, there were no community figures that were present earlier (although they were few during the day). Occasionally people would chant, until out of no where the chant "السعب يريد اسقاط النظام" (The people want to bring down the regime) sparked the crowd and more people started to join in the chant.

The crowd started to dwindle, and people asked for more volunteers to stand closer to the front lines in front of the police at ends of the mogama3 el-Tahrir building. We stood next to the Tahrir underground parking and things remained quite for a while. We were debating what to do, do we leave, what would be the next step.

That debat ended just past 1am. The police car sirens started to sound, and based on earlier events that meant that action was about to happen. It certainly did, tear gas was dropped at huge rates and firing was on all cylinders. The crowd ran towards the Egyptian Museum where more police were lined up battling with the amount of tear gas that was thrown. The police left a passage on the other end of the museum for people to use and we ended up with most of the protesters at Abdelumeneam Riyad square.

A few hundreds gathered there and the small crowd started to chant "السعب يريد اسقاط النظام" stopping traffic in the square. The police replied with more tear gas and rubber bullets and as we were approaching the overpass of 6th October bridge me and Mohamed called it a day. Others took off towards Ramsis square and tried their luck in gather there.

As we made our way back home I was claiming that what just happened was the best exit strategy for the day. We lost a battle but the war was still on and losses were still under control. I learned later of a few injuries amongst the protesters, including a friend who got a rubber bullet in the foot demanding a few stitches. Nonetheless I still believe this was one of the best things that happened on the day of protests. It was a learning experience for many, and the next effort people were more ready and seeing what to expect, although on the scale of what happened on the 28th, the protest of the 25th was more like a game.