 I'm here with Ashraf Khalil, a journalist, Cairo base for the past 15 years covering the Middle East. He's the author of Inside the Liberation Square, Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation. The cover is here, a very emotive, exciting cover. Ashraf, I want to ask you, given the three decades of an entrenched dictator and your experience being inside the revolution for 18 days, what was the tipping point? What made the difference? What led to the fall of Mubarak? Well, I think there was a number of smaller tipping points, all through the previous year or so. There was a notorious police brutality case in June 2010 when a young man named Khalid Saeed was killed by plainclothes police officers and that really touched a much deeper nerve. It was hardly the first police brutality death. It was hardly the first time the government tried to cover up something like this in a shameless way. But something about Khalid Saeed's case touched a huge nerve and brought people off the fences, brought people who had never been involved in politics or protest before and really signaled this escalated wave of protest activity that didn't really stop until the revolution. There was the parliamentary election in 2010 in November, which was a complete sham and so over the top in the vote stuffing that it was an embarrassment for the government. That didn't really make people any angrier than they already were, but it embarrassed the government and made them look weak. It wasn't the kind of thing that a confident dictatorship does. And then the final tipping point, in my opinion, was Tunisia. Without Tunisia, I really think that the Egyptian revolution might have happened in a couple of years, but does not happen this way and does not happen on this timeline. The sight of a people, an Arab people peacefully forcing out an entrenched military backed dictator, just showing them it was possible. You know, Egyptians have always had that potential in them, but they've been, they lost faith in themselves. And I think that's one of Mubarak's larger crimes is that they lost faith in their ability to change what they knew was a rotten and corrupt situation. So the final match was Tunisia, but it had been coming for a long time, but they needed to see someone like the fuse. And you describe in great eloquent detail the humor and the creative tactics of the people in Tahir Square, which is quite an inspiration. What was the exciting moment of revolution 25 January? 2011. January 25th was amazing just for seeing this organism come together and that it wasn't one protest. It was 40 protests and you would wander around downtown and there's one going this way and one going that way and people are joining up. I remember walking with a protest of maybe 150 people. They're walking right in front of the headquarters of the National Democratic Party, which would be burned down like three days later. Coming the other direction on the Corniche is about a thousand people. And seeing two protests come together and everybody hugs and cheers and starts chanting Batil, which is illegitimate outside the NDP building. It was just there was so many that day alone. There was like 12 things I witnessed that I never thought I would see in modern day Egypt. My other favorite moment from that day was there were sort of clashes and pushing and shoving outside of the Supreme Court building downtown. And right next to where the lawyer syndicate is and the journalist syndicate is, which are hotbeds of activism and protests. I'd seen this, I'd watched it, I'd documented it for a little while. I decided to take a walk away from the fray to kind of see what other protests I could find. I see a young family, middle-aged man, middle-aged woman. They're both maybe 40, 45. They've got a 10-year-old kid with them. They are walking down the middle of the street, which has been blocked off by the protest and there's no traffic. They're walking down the middle of the street, holding hands and screaming Yeskut, Yeskut, Hosni Ubarak, down, down with Hosni Ubarak. You couldn't find a more normal-looking middle-class, middle-aged couple. And they were in on it. That was the point where I kind of realized that something had like metastasized, had gone viral, basically. It was in the bones of the regime now and they weren't going to recover from this. Right. And presumably the ambitions and desires of this family to see a better day still stand with us and are part of the new Egypt. And I'd like you to say a few words about the challenges the country faces now. I think the greatest challenge now is just being patient. I think Egyptians, they have a right. It's understandable that after all these years of stagnation, they just want everything to be better right away. And there's been this kind of rush to judgment. And you saw it within six months after the revolution where people were saying, oh, at the slightest bit of frustration, the slightest setback, they're like, oh, the revolution has been lost. The revolution has been hijacked. And I'm just, when I have conversations with people there, I just say, you guys need to toughen up a little bit because whatever's happening is going to take 10 years to even judge. 10 years of hard work, not 10 years of waiting and seeing. 10 years of getting involved and educating yourself and politicizing yourself. And there is a large percentage of Egyptians that are in on that. But there's also kind of this very worried fence sitting population that they look back on the one year anniversary and their life isn't immediately better. And it makes them concerned. It makes them worried. So patience, staying patient and staying focused and recognizing that they're winning. I think one of the most depressing things in Egypt now is that people don't feel like they're winning. And they are. Right. And they have one, they beat the sense of fear. They have the freedom. Multiple points of no return have been crossed. And that doesn't mean that a utopian society is going to magically spring up. Another 10 years of hard work is ahead of them, maybe more. But they are winning. And it's frustrating when you go there and you talk to people and they don't feel like they're winning. And after you talk to enough people, you don't feel like they're winning. Right. Well, we hope that there will be a win. And we hope that people will stay strong because pessimism is one of the obstacles to see a new day in Egypt. Thank you, Ashraf. Thank you.