For a people who have been sleeping for three decades, Egyptians have awoken with a jolt and are spontaneously organizing themselves in a manner that is nothing short of a miracle. The police, after teargassing, beating and shooting protesters during the first few days of protests, have now vanished from the streets. Instead, citizen committees are doing everything from controlling traffic to patrolling their neighborhoods and protecting the shops.

The main square in Cairo—Tahrir Square—is the headquarters of the revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people clogged the square today, and thousands have been camping out all week and insist they will stay until Mubarak leaves. They are young and old, mostly men but a surprising number of women and children. They are professionals and farmers, well off and poor, urban and rural, PhDs and barely literate. Some are long-time political activists who have been jailed by the regime; most have never engaged in anything political.

Army tanks line the entrance to the square, but a cordon of civilians separate the army from the protesters. Civilians also set up a 24-hour security detail to check people coming in—men frisk the men to make sure they have no weapons; women inspect the women’s belongings. The young people have organized clean-up crews, collecting garbage, sweeping, holding signs encouraging people to put their trash in the bins. A group of volunteer health workers in white coats walk around taking people’s blood pressure and checking up on their health.

All the stores around the square are closed, but no one is going hungry. Supporters are constantly bringing in food and water to share. “Please, take a roll, madam,” an elderly man urges me. “Have some candy,” says a young girl handing out sweets. “Is there anything you need? Water? Food? Drink? Just tell us,” a man insisted. People are taking care of each other as if they were one big family.

“Where do you go to the bathroom?,” I asked one of the women, as there is not one port-a-potty or bathroom in sight for this sea of people. “We go out to the street, knock on doors and ask to use the facilities. Complete strangers are opening their homes to us,” she answered.

The techies in the group hooked up a live wire from the light pole to set up a phone charging station. Others hung a big white sheet from a building overlooking the square and rigged up a projector to broadcast Al Jazeera live. The government has closed down the internet, but everywhere you look, people are photographing and videoing the street scenes from their cell phones.

Circles of people gather to recite poetry, play music or sing. Others march round and round chanting “Down with Mubarak, down with Mubarak.” They hold handmade signs with all kinds of slogans. While mostly in Arabic, some signs in English say things like “Christians and Muslims, together against Mubarak” and “USA, Stop supporting Mubarak; We don’t wanna hate the USA.”

Some people are playing chess; others are quietly reading the Koran. Young girls gather around their Kindle reading revolutionary verses. A women walks around with a picture of Che Guevara, explaining who he is to anyone who will listen. “It’s important to educate the young generation about revolutionary heroes,” she insisted.

Everywhere, people are engaged in animated political discussions about their nation’s future. Some support Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad El Baradei as an interim leader. Others believe he is too far removed from the people, since he has lived abroad for 30 years, and they prefer a collective, interim government to write a new constitution and hold free and fair elections. Religious men with long beards, aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, argue that Egypt needs a Muslim government; others disagree vehemently, insisting on a secular state. The discussions are passionate, but also friendly and respectful.

Egyptians have no idea what the future will bring, but one thing is certain: they have discovered their voices. One man who is helping with security told me that a few weeks ago, when his family was watching news on TV about people taking to the streets in Tunesia, his 10-year-old son asked him if he would participate in something like that in Egypt. “I was silent,” he said, “because I didn’t know the answer.” At the first sign of protests in Cairo, however, he jumped in. Now every night he runs home to show his son photos from the day’s events. “My son is very proud of me,” the father beamed. “So you are doing this for your son and the next generation?” I asked. “Not really,” he laughed. “I am doing this for myself. For the first time in my life, I am proud to be Egyptian.”

No matter how the situation in Egypt unfolds, a new nation has been born. Ordinary people are doing extraordinary things. They have overcome their fears and regained their dignity. They are writing their own destiny.

This is what a revolution looks like.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange. She can be reached for interviews in Cairo at (20) 107148431.

Just after midnight I couldn’t sleep. Went out to get a bite to eat or maybe a glass of wine to help me sleep.

See several CodePink people and others with the Gaza Freedom March, say they are going to the French embassy — they had put out an alert:

“As we are writing this hundreds of French delegates are camped outside the French Embassy, pitching tents and sleeping bags on the sidewalk, chanting ‘Palestine Freedom!’ The French Ambassador and his wife are outside negotiating with the delegates and the police and Egyptian authorities. It is a powerful action and the French invite solidarity and support – come wherever you can! This is a critical situation and the police are surrounding the group. Check it out if you can. We will send out an update when possible.”

Indeed, it was a powerful action. By the time we got there, the protest was lively, but almost all on the sidewalk in front of the embassy, it had been on the street. A while after we got there, a long line of at least 100 government forces with riot gear appeared across the street. They had helmets and shields and clubs.

They came towards us. But it was not to beat us.

It was I think to keep us confined. Not letting the passing drivers see a vibrant protest.

I began talking to the riot police. In my broken Arabic: “Gaza wants to eat.” And then through a French translator: “These people want to get supplies to Gaza. The Egyptian government is stopping them, why?” A commander came by, told the woman who was translating for me to stop talking to them. Of course, he doesn’t want his men to fully appreciate how the Egyptian state appears to be doing the bidding of Israel.

I tried to get him to answer if he really has a government. One of the apparent demands that the Egyptian government on the convoy led by Galloway is that he get permission from Israel.

What does Israel have to do with it?

Egypt has a border with Gaza. If Egypt is a nation state, it should be able to do what it wants with its border. But it is saying that what it does is dependent on Israel. So Egypt is a puppet state, not a nation state.

When the commander went away, most of the soldiers looked dolefully upon me, one pointed to his eye and his heart — after looking in either direction to make sure none of the commanders could see him.

I think a larger opportunity may be here. It’s one thing for a few hundred, or maybe a thousand people from the US and France and such to protest in Cairo. But if Egyptians know what their government is doing and feel safe protesting, will they join us? This is one more reason why the cause of Palestine linked globally to the cause of human freedom, and perhaps how the cause of human freedom is linked to solidarity.

Sharing this, maybe I can sleep for an hour or two.

Nine members of international women’s delegation stay behind in Gaza
A Palestinian delegate is detained at border, will attempt to cross again March 15

AL-ARISH, EGYPT –  Nine members of the 60-member aid delegation to Gaza with novelist Alice Walker have decided to stay back in Gaza several extra days until this Sunday, March 15, and one member, Palestinian Abdullah al Ghoul, was detained at the Rafah border and will attempt to leave early next week.

The rest of the 60 delegates crossed out of the war-torn region March 11 and will return to Cairo and home today and within the next few days.

The delegation, which includes Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker and organized by the peace group CODEPINK, was allowed through the Rafah, Egypt, crossing in time for International Women’s Day, March 8. The crossing has been closed by the Egyptian government almost continuously since July 2007. However, Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak, chairman of the Egyptian Red Crescent (similar to the Red Cross) and president of the National Women’s Committee, communicated her “blessing” of the mission through the Red Crescent team that escorted the delegation through the crossing.

“We want to send a message to the governments of both Egypt and Israel that the borders must be opened to all individuals and organizations,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK. “ Long-term peace and prosperity are not possible without freedom of movement.”

The CODEPINK delegation was invited to the region by the Gender Initiative of the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a program dedicated to promoting the rights of girls and women in the Gaza Strip. On the six-day visit in Gaza, the delegates met with social-service organizations and delivered more than 1,000 gift baskets to Gazan women and celebrated International Women’s Day March 8. This weekend they plan to visit the Palestinian Human Rights Center, the Palestinian Relief Center, hospitals and farms.

The Red Crescent estimates that 1,000 truckloads of supplies and other goods are needed every day to meet the needs of the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip. Yet, the UN reports that the daily average has been only 125 truckloads since the borders closed about 18 months ago.

Also among the participants are Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, who was struck and killed six years ago this month by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to block the demolition of a Gazan home.

For more information and interviews, contact Jean Stevens, national media coordinator, at 508-769-2138 or Medea Benjamin at 018 9561919.

The Egyptians blinked!! We were contacted by the Egyptian Red Crescent just before dinner on the 7th and told that they and the Palestinian Red Crescent would facilitate the transportation of our relief supplies from Egypt to Palestine. This was a BIG signal. They also mentioned that Mrs. Mubarak was “very interested” in our International Women’s day project. At that point we knew that they Egyptian government did not want 60 international human rights activist camping out with big banners, Alice Walker and Rachel Corrie’s parents at the Rafah Gate. So…. Yesterday morning we set out from El Arish at 9 a.m. and after lots of bureaucratic screw-ups — including that LAST passport which was found on the copy machine — we were in Raffa, Palestine, where we were met by the mayor and had a press conference. We arrived, exhausted but exhilarated, in Gaza City at 5 p.m. and, after a brief lecture/q&a on the actual conditions in Palestine and hopes/despair for the future, we dispersed, some of us to the homes of Palestinians and some to hotels. Some of us stayed with a man who is a paramedic, studying to be a nurse. It was his ambulance which picked up Rachel Corrie’s body when she was mowed down by and Israeli bulldozer. More later about our families and our IWD events.

Our delegation is complete, 59 people from the US and Canada and other points on the globe on a journey which will end either with our visit to Gaza and honoring Palestinian women on International Women’s Day or with our camping out on the border at the Raffa crossing to bring attention to the fact that the Egyptian government, in my opinion on orders from Washington, D.C. and Jerusalem, will not allow our humanitarian aid into Gaza. So far, our trip has been amazing, remarkable, uplifting and fun. We are about 50 women and about 10 men, all of us compelled to witness the devastation which Israel inflicted on Gaza during December and January and to bring attention to the ongoing economic and human blockade of Gaza.

Among our group are life-long activists, people who have been wanting to come to Gaza for years, people who have traveled many times to Gaza, to Israel, to the West Bank and someone for whom this is a way to challenge the routine of his life. The conversations are excited and animated. There are several young women who are studying Arabic in Egypt. They shared wonderful stories about life in Egypt — wonderful and terrible, but that is for another day.

Our trip from Cairo to El Arish took about six hours and we’re now about an hours drive from the border. We had police escorts the whole way — we’ve been told “it’s required” when a lot of Americans travel around Egypt. We passed through 4 or 5 checkpoints. At some we were waved through, at one we waited for most of half and hour. We’ve checked into our hotels and will gather for dinner and to put together the gift baskets — 1000 of them — we hope to deliver to the Gazan women. Our initial idea was to bring staples, basic foods. The women of the Gender Division of the UN in Gaza suggested that, instead, we bring gifts that will lift the women’s spirits. They have been through so much, they and their families have been so traumatized by the bombing and the invasion and still they continue to care for their families and their neighbors. So our baskets, pink of course, are filled with a beautiful scarf, hair and other personal products and some beautiful candies for the children, contributed by a CODEPINK supporter in Los Angeles. When we went out to make our purchases in Cairo, the prices plummeted as soon as merchants found out the purpose of trip. Retail became wholesale in an instant. The same thing happened with the women-owned tour company which provided our buses. They told us we would not be permitted to pay for their services. We want to make sure they don’t lose money helping us, so we’re negotiating the price. It is clear we are welcome here and everyone who hears about our humanitarian mission wishes us well.

We just heard that 50 people got through today!!! 50 activists!!! Tomorrow should be a good day.

CAIRO — The parents of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American killed by an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer in Gaza six years ago, will arrive here Thursday to join Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Alice Walker and 58 other Americans, Canadians and Europeans on a historic aid delegation to Gaza this week.

Craig and Cindy Corrie will appear at a press conference at 3 p.m. Thursday at the Arabesque Hotel in downtown Cairo to announce the purpose and itinerary of the delegation, the first of its size and kind to attempt to enter Gaza since July 2007. Delegates — which include members of the Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as doctors, businesspeople, lawyers and college students — will meet with Palestinian aid groups, Gazan women, and United Nations officials. They will also bear witness to the aftermath of the three-week Israeli assault earlier this year and deliver 2,000 gift baskets to Gazan women, purchased through an outpouring of donations through the CODEPINK website to honor Gazan women on International Women’s Day, March 8.

“I have been to Gaza several times since my daughter’s death,” Cindy Corrie said. “But now it is so important for me to go back, after the people of Gaza have suffered such outrageous devastation — beyond understanding, beyond imagination. I feel a personal need to show the people that I am in solidarity with them, and that I will continue to be in solidarity until the women and children and families have the same opportunities that my family has.”

Traveling at the invitation of the Gaza Gender Initiative of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the delegation will camp out at the Rafah border if Egyptian authorities prevent them from entering Gaza, said delegation organizer Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK co-founder. Most humanitarian groups and aid have been denied entry. Delegates will also pressure the U.S. government to demand Israel lift the blockade and halt settlement expansion into Palestinian land.

“We’ve had an overwhelming positive response to this delegation and its mission,” Benjamin said. “Women worldwide feel tremendous compassion toward the women of Gaza and are ready for a U.S. policy based on respect for the human rights of all people in the region.”

For more information, please call Jean Stevens, national media coordinator, at 508-769-2138 or Medea Benjamin, delegation organizer and CODEPINK co-founder, at 018 9561919 (in Cairo).