How they see it: leading Egyptian expatriates interpret this photo

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"Diverse Egyptian men and women, peacefully and rationally conveying their message to an apparently sympathetic police commander."

Jamal Badawi, Emeritus Professor, St. Mary's University

"In spite of the confrontation and the massive presence of police, I see an element of even restraint. But I'll ask myself when I look at this massive demonstration with a massive presence of police: Is this a tipping point?"

Mamdouh Shoukri, president, York University

Look at the people on the sides. The police are massed in a kind of phalanx, but at the sides you have people just discussing things. They might as well be drinking coffee. It captures the sense that people are angry, but I don't see violence. I think of Egyptians as one big crowd, they all act in unison, they all obey orders. You're not having that. Egypt for me is one sentiment, one religion, one party, one everything. And suddenly you have people suddenly thinking differently, as if they'd been thinking like that all along but hadn't been able to express it."

Andre Aciman, author of Out of Egypt and distinguished professor at the City University of New York

"They're just standing there and we can not predict what's going to happen. You never know what's going to come later. I don't know what can make these people feel better or get calm or stop. I was there just last week: I came back on the 24th. There was talk that people would go to the street, but everything was calm. Things are not going in the right direction. It's going too fast and things are going out of hand."

Adel Iskander, Egyptian Canadian Friendship Association