been suppressed and oppressed and now they are looking forward to freedom and democracy. so for the time being, they are very proud of their accomplishments. what has been the reaction to you personally over the last several days, has it changed to positive from more negative over the last four or five days? reporter: well, i mean, i ve only been in the square now for a couple of days and yesterday it was they were angry. but they were angry at the president. they were angry at the president. but they were very peaceful and today, they ve changed, they are so happy to have accomplished their goal and they re very excited this evening. do they know what the two fingers mean when they go like this with the two fingers, do they know it stands for victory? everybody is saying it in arabic. reporter: this is peace,
to have a process similar to south africa of truth and reconciliation. and to pursue a course of, you know, that might involve trials, that kind of thing. let s recall egypt has not known any kind of democracy since the coup of 1952, that s 60 years ago. everything is going to have to be built from the ground up, political parties, free and fair elections. it s all work that lies ahead. so there are going to be and all this in a country with 30% illiteracy and huge amounts of poverty. so this is a joyous moment, i don t think we should think about the problems tonight. but there will be issues going forward. as i say with every country that gets its independence, i wish them a franklin roosevelt if they can find one, something who can give them relief, create
be rebuilt, that they will channel this energy and take ownership of the country. [ inaudible ] they re saying egypt will be built with democracy and liberty and their struggles. as you can see people standing on that tank. tanks that were people were afraid of when they first rolled into cairo. when the police pulled back after clashes here, and these tanks took position, people thought maybe they were going to fire on the people and the tanks never did. now they are standing on the tanks. people here are cheering the army saying hand in hand the people and the army are together. he s saying 80 million people
you know, i m a little jubilant right now. a lot of the people in this country think the united states is muslim, which he is not, he s christian. they think he s foreign born, b which he s not. he s american born. but they have this attitude, the people on the right a lot of them. and here he comes in in this jub lent situation in egypt and we get to see them in a positive democratic setting, not terrorists, not people fighting israel, whatever. not mouthing epithets against the west, but people like us. right, celebrating. and in a way, it took obama to have this happen. it s just so serendipitous. his critics will probably say yeah, we knew this was coming. i think the speech he gave this afternoon, the remarks, were right on point. he celebrated but he also set a standard. he says nothingless than genuine democracy. and he praised the military for the restraint it has shown and
something in the long-term and deal with the vasts s aspiratio of the people. roger, thank you very much for joining us from cairo. up next, what s next with our relationship with egypt. president obama promises to be a friend and partner, but what will the egyptians want for us and what will democracy in egypt look like? this is hardball only on msnbc.