On the first of February, President Mubarak gave an emotionally charged speech in which he announced that he would serve out the last months of his term and ”die on Egyptian soil.” He promised not to seek re-election and pledged amendment of certain clauses of the constitution. This speech has been met with a wide spectrum of responses amongst Egyptians. A significant portion of those protesting in Tahrir square was dissatisfied.

– I was very angry after listening to the speech. I was at the protest and about 50 of us went to a little café downtown to listen. It angered all of us as he did not apologize about the people killed in the protests, about the strange withdrawal of the Army, and did not mention the emergency law. It made us more determined to get him out, not out of stubbornness but just because he does not deserve power, one of the protestors Dalia Mossad, a film editor, said.

At the other end of the spectrum are people like Sahar Emad el Din, a Law Student in Cairo University.

– I only care that he does not run for office again, and people who say he should leave now are incredibly ignorant, because if he leaves now things will only become worse than they already are. We should give him a chance: We've endured him for 30 years – surely a few more months will not harm us. I only want peace again and I want to feel safe in this country.

There are also people who are wavering between the longing for stability and what they feel is a justified exit from power, like Wael Iskandar, a film critic, who said he felt that Mubarak's promise to step down ”would be an ideal scenario, if it was true, but there is so much distrust about everything that the regime says” and this distrust is a result of that ”everything they say has turned out to be untrue over the past 30 years, including the most recent promise of free and fair elections”.

Computer engineer Mohamed Mazloum echoes these sentiments, especially after the violent scenes that occurred in Tahrir Square after Pro-Mubarak and Anti-Mubarak protestors clashed. He says:

– At first, I thought that it was a good speech that ought to calm the people down and allow Egypt to regain its stability. But then the following day, I read views that made me realize that it was made up entirely of empty promises that have been made over and over. Combined with yesterday's massacre, I cannot help but feel cheated and lied to.

No-one is entirely sure who is to blame for the fights that broke out on the 2:nd of February, which escalated into violence comparable with that of a war zone – with the government toll for the day standing at three dead and over 600 wounded. Al-Jazeera puts the injured at more than 1,500 and reports that the square is, for now, still controlled by the protesters.

But the response amongst people to this incident has been just as varied. Sarah el Sayeh, an economic researcher in a government office, thinks that it was done by the ruling party NDP:s businessmen.

This is contrary to Wael Iskandar's beliefs.

– There is a theory that there is a divide in the regime, but I think that Hosni Mubarak is accountable no matter what the truth of that theory is [and that the events] totally undermine the new government.

All that is certain now is that Egyptians now live in a state of fear and paranoia, where both distrust and conspiracy theories abound. And if the current government does not do more to assuage their fear, their future and that of the nation will remain unclear.