Egypt
>Egypt has much to teach the West
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Adam John Waterman recounts his journey in Egypt after the revolution @ Feminist Wire.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Everyone wants to talk about the camels. “Can you believe they brought camels to Tahrir?” I’ve been in Cairo less than two hours and I’ve already heard at least three stories about the day, February 2, when pro-Mubarak supporters swept through Tahrir Square, attacking demonstrators with makeshift clubs, astride camels and horses. Three days before, on January 30, Mubarak had ordered the Egyptian air force to fly its American-manufactured F-16s low over central Cairo, an obvious attempt at staunching the demonstrations through threat of military engagement. As we talk through the events of that first week, however, this is not what anyone wants to discuss. “The camels came from Giza,” one person volunteers, “because the revolution scared away all the tourists.” Another friend tells a slightly different tale. “Egyptian state TV was reporting that Tahrir was occupied by Afghan guerillas and that they were handing out Kalashnikovs. My brother rushed there to fight the Afghans because he’s a patriotic Egyptian. He didn’t know what was really happening until later. Then he joined the resistance.” Several people I speak with conflate the events of this day, February 2, with those of January 28, the “Friday for Martyrs and Political Prisoners.” January 28 began with the nation-wide Internet crackdown, saw police attacks on demonstrators following the Friday prayer, and ended with Mubarak’s National Democratic Party headquarters in flames. The camels didn’t show up for nearly a week. Nonetheless, at least one person recalled them making their first appearance on January 28, and—in his memory—it was decisive. “It was after they came with the camels that we attacked the police. It was after the camels that we knew that we were going to win.”
>There emerged spontaneous order out of chaos
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| Mohamed Elshamed @ Design Observer/ |
Mohammed Bamyeh reflects on the key elements of revolution in Egypt @ Eurozine.
Never has a revolution that seemed so lacking in prospects gathered momentum so quickly and so unexpectedly. The Egyptian Revolution, starting on 25 January, lacked leadership and possessed little organization; its defining events, on Friday, 28 January, occurred on a day when all communication technologies, including all Internet and phones, were barred; it took place in a large country known for sedate political life, a very long legacy of authoritarian continuity, and an enviable repressive apparatus consisting of more than 2 million members. But on that one day, the regime of Hosni Mubarak, entrenched for 30 years and seemingly eternal, the only regime that the vast majority of the protesters had ever known, evaporated.
Though the regime struggled for two more weeks, practically little government existed during that period. All ministries and government offices had closed, and almost all police headquarters were burned down on 28 January. Except for the army, all security personnel disappeared, and a week after the uprising, only few police officers ventured out again. Popular committees took over security in the neighbourhoods. I saw patriotism expressed everywhere as collective pride in the realization that people who did not know each other could act together, intentionally and with a purpose.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Undoubtedly this revolution, which is continuing to unfold, will be the formative event in the lives of the millions of youth who spearheaded it in Egypt, and perhaps also the many more millions of youth who followed it throughout the Arab world. Yet while the youth were the driving force in the earlier days, the revolution quickly became national in every sense; over the days I saw an increasing demographic mix in demonstrations, with people from all age groups, social classes, men and women, Muslims and Christians, urban people and peasants – virtually all sectors of society – acting in large numbers and with a determination rarely seen before.
>The whole city had a particular talent for fading
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Derek Vertongen recounts his travels in a decaying Egypt two decades ago @ Maisonneuve
When I first went to Cairo, Anwar Sadat had been dead for six years, but many of his official portraits still hung in shops and back rooms and petrol stations. Sadat looked friendly in the faded black-and-white pictures. His successor—the man sitting next to Sadat when he was gunned down in 1981—never did. The new rais, Hosni Mubarak, didn’t even smile. But slowly, his bovine gaze, his don’t-mess-with-me expression, was taking over. I remember seeing an art film in which, subtly, Mubarak’s portrait was in the background of every frame.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Cairo didn’t look promising on that first visit in August of 1987. I had landed in the middle of the night and decided to wait until dawn. The bus from the airport was brutal. At 6 a.m. the air was bad and I was shocked by the state that Egypt’s capital was in: covered in thick grime, it looked tired and squalid, as if something terrible had happened. When the sun rose and burned off some of the haze, the decay was even more obvious. I couldn’t tell if the buildings were half-completed or half-demolished. Policemen dressed in cheap uniforms stood outside government buildings. They looked like extras from a World War I movie. Then I noticed that the police were everywhere. That is what they did: they stood around, armed with machine guns and looking hungry.
>Our people have been saying no to him for years
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Robyn Creswell reflects on the Cairo
protests @ n+1.
No one knows how long the protests that began in Egypt on Tuesday will last, or how they will end. It isn’t clear how organized the protesters are, or how much violence the regime is willing to use against them now that the cameras are rolling and the posts are flying. What role the Muslim Brotherhood will play in the coming days is anyone’s guess. What is clear is that the crowds in downtown Cairo’s Midan Tahrir have been massive and fearless.
“Mubarak, Mubarak, Saudi Arabia is waiting for you!” was one slogan chanted by protesters on Tuesday—an allusion to the recent fate of deposed Tunisian President Ben Ali. The Egyptian demonstrators also called President Hosni Mubarak a moron, a traitor, a rhinoceros, a pest, a patsy for Israel, and warned that his death was imminent. They told him to get out of the country and to take his son, Gamal—who has been groomed as a possible successor—with him. Pictures of the president have been stomped on and burned. As of Friday, he had not yet made a public statement.
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The size and strength of the protests caught everyone by surprise, but a few proximate causes can be suggested, if only to provide some context amidst the onslaught of tweets and updates. The uprising in Tunisia is obviously a significant part of that context. It is true that Tunisia is a small country that plays a minor role on the international stage, while Egypt is a linchpin of regional governance and one of the US’s closest allies. But both regimes are reviled by much of their citizenry as corrupt and brutal gerontocracies. While it still seems unlikely that Mubarak will be toppled, Egyptian protestors can take heart from the fact that six weeks ago no one was predicting a rout of Ben Ali, either.
altimoniere 