if you would like to speak about us, you must speak about us from our position, from our view. i just wanted to add something to what you just said right now about understanding the arab mentality. i think that, you know, our revolution, i don t like the term arab spring because it s not a season. it s our demands. it s our rights. and i think that a lesson that we can all learn is that the obama administration had the wrong idea about i think they were fooled by the mubarak regime into thinking that egyptians are want mubarak and, you know, if mubarak leaves, then it s going to be the muslim brotherhood. that was the choice that mubarak was leaving obama. here in egypt we separate between the american government and the american foreign policy that we re speaking of now and the american people. and i think that you have probably witnessed that out on the streets. if you say that you re american, you re going to be welcomed and
consensus. you try to ensure that there is a majority rule but also a clear protection of the minority rules. as you know, we have quite a lot of violence between christians and muslim which some say should not happen, but it s the result of many factors of 60 years of repression and total chaos. people now, after the revolution, think revolution means curse. right now socially we are disintegrating. economically we are not in the best shape. and politically, it s like a black hole. we do not know where we are heading. are you hopeful still that egypt s revolution will be successful and that it will be a model for the arab world? well, philosophically, if you look to other revolutions, there is always bumps in the road. i believe and i would like to believe that we will go in the right direction, but we ll have
what you think of us? sarah, what did you think of president obama s speech? the u.s. foreign policy, i believe, is completely inconsistent when it comes to the region. also, they decided very last minute to support the people of egypt during our revolution. you know, hillary clinton would say one thing, and president obama would say another thing every day. they would not decide on what they want to do. do you think the general feeling that the united states in general was too late in supporting the egyptian revolution? yes, especially had, you know, we get hit with tear gas, and then we pick it up after the tear gas is completely taken over our bodies, and we see the mark made in the usa. so that did not really send the message that i think president obama is always talking about, about american values. i thought president obama was trying to do was to present the broad picture and say, look. in general, we support all these
and these are these protesters and these revolutionaries are the ones responsible for if you don t have dinner on the table, it s probably the protesters in tahrir. now, the military is playing a very smart game. i mean, if you spoke to me two weeks ago, i would have said, i love the military, and i would have been very happy with our revolution, you know, very hopeful. but what happened in the past few days is that i realized that the army and the police deliberately ignore hospitals, so ers, they close. thugs attack hospitals. they ignore police stations that are being burned every other day. they start arresting them. they leave the thugs that attack these protesters, but they concentrate on dispersing and cracking down on peaceful protests. waleed, your movement, the april 6th movement, was invited in by the military to talk to
ironic story about egypt s plummeting economy. and finally, the two top presidential candidates in egypt, two former office mates now rivals. let me first give you some of my own thoughts, having spent some time in cairo and actually listened to president obama s speech from here in tahrir square. the president s speech was remarkably comprehensive. it described the events that we now call the arab spring, explain their causes and consequences. he placed the united states squarely behind the democratic wave everywhere. though he didn t specifically mention one country. saudi arabia. the place where america s interests and values most obviously clash. i don t blame him. street protests in saudi arabia might warm our hearts, but they could easily lead to $250 a barrel oil and a global recession. that s a tough one. obama outlined specific policies to help the arab revolutions get consolidated. all good stuff. and he also talked about the need for a resolution of the israeli