Tahrir Square, also known as “Martyr Square”, is a large public marketplace in downtown Cairo, Egypt. Tahrir Square as we know it today would be almost unrecognizable from its past. After a trip to Paris, the Khedive Ismail Pasha tried to recreate Parisian architecture in downtown Cairo with Tahrir Square, or Ismailia Square as it was then called in the center of other European cities. This was one of the first known instances of control of the square; the shift from a room to a place, the shift from farmland and gardens to a specific symbol of power to promote and exemplify Ismail’s power.
The square has been the traditional site for numerous large-scale protests and demonstrations in Egypt over the years, including the Egyptian bread riots of 1977 and the March 2003 protest against the war in Iraq. After the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, the square became commonly known as Tahrir Square (Liberation Square) but it was not officially renamed until the 1952 Egyptian Revolution that transformed Egypt from a constitutional monarchy to an autocratic republic. In contemporary terms, it is presented as the core of the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in early 2011 and President Morsi in 2013.
Tahrir Square is large and in the center is a large and busy roundabout. On the northeast side is a square with a statue of nationalist hero Omar Makram, celebrated for his resistance to Napoleon I’s invasion of Egypt. Beyond that is the Omar Makram Mosque. The square is the northern terminus of the historic Qasr al-Ayni Street and the western terminus of Talaat Harb Street. Via the Qasr al-Nil Strait crossing its southern part, it has direct access to the Qasr al-Nil Bridge, which crosses the nearby Nile River.
Tahrir Square is a part of everyday life for manypeople; It’s a main downtown square surrounded by important government buildings and major cultural institutions, and it’s a busy intersection with honking cars and buses. For tourists, Tahrir is the site of the famous Egyptian Museum. for some Cairenes it’s the destination for official business, while for many others it’s one of the congested spots in downtown Cairo to avoid.
The Cairo Metro serves Tahrir Square with Sadat Station, the hub of the system’s two lines in the city center, providing connections to Giza, Maadi, Helwan and other districts and suburbs of Greater Cairo. The underground access viaducts provide the safest routes for pedestrians crossing the wide streets of the busy square.
The modernization of the square and Egypt as a whole in the spirit of the Ismail regime, which put Egypt in serious debt, and in the words of Haris Naeem: Ironically, in the process of modernizing or Europeanizing downtown Cairo and the square, Ismail Pasha suffered economically and was consequently banned by British Forces overthrew King Farouk, Ismail’s grandson, came to power and, like his grandfather, tried to control Tahrir for political purposes, issuing a statue of himself to be placed on a pedestal in the square, but in 1952 himself was overthrown.
The mass protests that took place from January 25 until Hosni Mubarak’s resignation on February 11 took place in Tahrir Square. Thousands of protesters showed their contempt for the Mubarak government, with the square being the epicenter of all protests. After the fall of Mubarak, the power to control what happens in the square was put in the hands of the people and not the government, so they controlled who went there and what happened there.
As the Tamrod movement opposed the increasing authoritarianism of Egypt’s very first democratic government and demands for a new election, even though they had the support of the people and the police, the people forbade the police and the army to enter the square until the army had done so had overthrow the government.
Even with the tremendous importance attached to the square, and while the square is rated more as good than bad, the number of rapes that took place during the 2011 demonstrations skyrocketed in 2013. According to Human Rights Watch, “Mobs raped, and in some cases raped, at least 91 women in Tahrir Square over four days following protests that began on June 30, 2013. The rapes occurred in hot spots like the entrance to the Mohammed Mahmoud from the square and Sharia Tahrir” (HRW 2013). The location of the square in the middle of downtown helps the rapists to kidnap women easily and escape after the crime.
In total, Tahrir Square is more than a square meterEgyptian. Without Tahrir, they would not have had democracy because of the advantageous geographic topography; it is a fusion of ideas, people and the symbolic power of the people, often contradictory but like the dreams of its inhabitants, eternally alive. Tahrir means liberation and has liberated the Egyptian people.
Most importantly, Tahrir Square is seen as the hand that planted democracy in Egypt.