Tahrir Square: Egypt's Dealey Plaza

Will Tahrir Square be tomorrow's Dealey Plaza (where a change in the USA government occurred)? Such a question is to not be taken literally but metaphorically. Sometimes, however, the metaphorical can certainly be rather grounded in a deeper meaning.

The Egyptian symbols are everywhere. 

Dealey Plaza's obelisk denotes the site of the first Masonic Lodge in Texas.

The observations made at this blog are that the answers may be in the "where" and the "when," as much as the "what" and the "who." Such threads of reality are being played out in the events from the Middle East.


Others have said this in different ways, regarding the breaking news out of Egypt. Indeed, the evidence is mounting for the pivotal role of this ancient land in the current state of affairs.  I, for example, have been pondering the location and histories of the "squares" in the events, oftentimes sparked by the self-immolations taking place within them, and then watching as they remain significant as the sites of the mass demonstrations.


Despite the beginnings in Tunisia for this current Arab/Moorish/Muslin wave of revolutionary/freedom feelings and changes, it seems to be all coming down to what is going to happen in Egypt for a clue to that part of the world's future.


"If you consider yourself a magician, and especially if you identify with the Rosicrucian or Hermetic traditions -- or even if you're a freemason, or a member of one of dozens of other traditional orders -- Egypt is the source. Egypt is where you end up when you follow all the lines of the Western Tradition to their origins," writes Magian Rumination.

One key location, of course, is Tahrir Square.  Tahrir Square or Midan Tahrir (Arabic: English translation, Liberation Square) is a major public town square in downtown Cairo, Egypt. The square was originally called Midan Ismaileyya (Ismailia Square), after the 19th-century ruler Khedive Ismail Pasha, who commissioned the new downtown district's "Paris on the Nile" design. After the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, bringing Egypt from a constitutional monarchy with British occupation into an independent republic, the square's name was changed to Midan Tahrir or "Liberation Square."

The squares were basically built as Masonic sites. Prince Ismail Pasha (1830-1895) was the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Egypt .

On the northeast segment of Tahrir Square is a plaza with a statue of Ottoman Egypt era Cairene Omar Makram, and beyond is the Omar Makram Mosque.

The square is the northern terminus of the historic Qasr al-Ayn Street, western end of Talaat Harb Street, and near the Qasr al-Nil Bridge crossing of the Nile River. 

The area around Tahrir Square includes the Egyptian Museum (the resting site of King Tut and most of the important treasures of Ancient Egypt), the National Democratic Party-NDP headquarters building, the Mogamma government building, the Headquarters of the Arab League building, the Nile Hotel, and the original downtown campus of the American University in Cairo.

The Cairo Metro serves Tahrir Square with the Sadat Station (named after the assassinated leader Anwar al-Sadat), which is the downtown junction of the system's two lines, linking to Giza, Maadi, Helwan, and other districts and suburbs of Greater Cairo. Its underground access viaducts provide the safest routes for pedestrians crossing the broad roads of the heavily trafficked square.

The above statue of Prince Ismail Pasha is located in Alexandria.

There is another Tahrir Square, which is the former Mohammed Ali Square, originally Place des Consuls, in downtown Alexandria, the other major city where mass demonstrations are occurring in Egypt. Alexandria's Mansheyya Square was the site of the October 1954 failed assassination attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood on Gamal Abdel Nasser.

President Obama appeared at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 3, 2011, and the Drudge Report posted a photo that placed the moment in a spiritual light.  Obama said he prays for Egypt.