After weeks of mass protests in Iraq, there are signs that the government’s patience is waning. Its current response — a mixture of spending and reform promises combined with violent security measures (at least 320 have been killed and approximately 15,000 injured) — has not placated the demonstrators. Scared by the threat to its interests, the political elite is shifting to sticks alone to quell the protests.

An incremental crackdown may temper protesters in the short term, but it is unlikely to break the spirit of Iraqi demonstrators. Something has happened in Iraq these past few weeks, which the government — and the international community — would do well to recognize. Iraqis’ patience with a self-serving, inept ruling elite is over. They are no longer scared to demand their rights, having shown themselves and others what they can do. The movement has given hope where there was a deep hopelessness. As an Iraqi protester from Baghdad told Al-Monitor, it is a “wakeup call. And there are no more red lines.”

Nowhere has this been clearer than in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the demonstrations, where protesters have displayed their collective spirit and capabilities in ways that are quintessentially Iraqi.

Iraqi talents, culture, generosity, resourcefulness, ingenuity and wit, which have often been hidden from much of the world through years of dictatorships, wars, sanctions and corrupt, sectarian politics, have burst forth. The demonstrators are showing they are a nation in search of a homeland, and in Tahrir Square, they have shown the world how they want it to be.