1st Anniversary of 25th January

Last night the Governor of Luxor Dr Ezaat Saad hosted a wonderful celebration of the anniversary of the revolution. It was a mixture of song, dance and recitals together with speeches and the honouring of the martyrs and relatives of the martyrs. It started with a march from the library to the conference centre of children dressed up as ancient Egyptians and carrying flags of the various places around Luxor. An enormous flag was laid out in the road the whole length of the street.

The celebration started with the Egyptian national anthem followed by an iconic slide show. Here is a copy


the roar of crowd when the announcement of Mubarak’s resignation was shown was spine chilling. There is a small demonstration where some young men held up homemade placards and chanted anti SCAF slogans but it was completely peaceful and handled without trouble. So different from the past. Then it was on to the entertainment. The music was reminiscent of Um Kalthoum and the singers were lovely. I enjoyed the Upper Egyptian Folklore Dancing, the AK47 dance was unusual to western eyes but the use of guns in celebrations is very Arab.

The governor presented medals to those that had been hurt during the revolution and the families of those who died. That was really moving as some of them could not make it on stage and the he had to go down to them.

I have done a video which is a mixture of photos I took and clips from videos that are on my channel



If you want to see all the videos full length they are here.






This clip has to be the most unusual showing a dance with AK47s!!!!