Young, web-savvy fight for change

Cairo: They are young, street smart and their pride at being Egyptian trumps any religious loyalty. They have mobilised behind a single aim: the toppling of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak.

"The people demand the fall of the regime!" they chanted in their thousands in Cairo's central Tahrir Square for several hours on the "Day of Wrath" that started a wave of protests across the country on Tuesday.

"An electrifying chant. I never heard it before," university graduate Sami Shabaan, 24, said, joining in and shouting it over and over.

"We are not leaving here until the regime falls."

Egyptian and other authoritarian Arab governments have often warned that the choice was "us or them" — meaning militant extremists — a threat that shored up support from wary Western leaders.

These protesters suggested otherwise.

When one man stood up in the middle of Tahrir to give a sermon on Islam to the crowd on Tuesday, he was quickly asked to tone it down. "This is not about religion, it is about Egypt," people around him said.

Other protesters shouting Islamic chants against the government were held back by colleagues who said the chants must remain secular to unite a crowd that Christians had also joined.

"We are Egyptians who want change and better lives," said 36-year-old government worker Mursi Minawi, who came out with his wife and two children to participate.

Many protesters, organised by internet campaigns through social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, are young.

Two-thirds of Egypt's 80 million people are below the age of 30, and many of them have no jobs.

About 40 per cent of Egyptians live on less than $2 (Dh7.35) a day.

For months, protesters from labour unions and opposition groups have called for higher wages and help for the poor. This time, emboldened by the protests in Tunisia, they want an end to Mubarak's 30 years in power.