My colleague Osama Madany wrote to me two hours after the announcement that Hosni Mubarak had stepped down from the Presidency:
In tears and jubilation, I write to you my first e-mail from a free Egypt; in humility and pride, I write to you my first e-mail from the land of the brave; in disbelief and aspiration, I write to you my first e-mail from the cradle of civilization that will now be a beacon of liberty and justice. The dictator has fallen. The tyrant has conceded to the relentless will of the people. Decades of darkness have given way to the dawn of our revolution.
In the eyes of the young and the old, I see hope for a new Egypt, the same hope I saw when these same eyes witnessed torture and mutilation at the hands of a despotic regime. I thank you my dear friend for standing with us in our quest for salvation, and call upon you to continue to support us in this historic moment, to stand by our side in this critical transition, to believe in our will that we can seek and achieve freedom. With your unfaltering support for our cause, we have achieved the impossible.
Long live Egypt, long live the cradle of civilization, long live the free spirits of our brave people, and God bless the souls of those who have fallen in our battle for freedom. Their blood has not gone to waste.