“I’ve never seen men so angry, yet so happy to be expressing their anger,” Courtney Graves, an American living in Giza told the BBC, describing what she witnessed in Tahrir square in Cairo today. “I walked next to girls in hijabs screaming for the downfall of Hosni Mubarak. I walked behind men begging God for freedom.” At least three people died in clashes between police and demonstrators.
In Hillary Clinton’s assessment, “the Egyptian Government is stable,” although Gamal Mubarak, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s son who is widely tipped as his successor, has fled to London with his family, Arabic website Akhbar al-Arab said on Tuesday.
The Mubarak regime is clearly rattled and has blocked Twitter.
Christian Science Monitor reports:
A popular uprising in Tunisia may have just pushed out President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but Egypt — the Arab world’s largest country with a vast security establishment — is something else again.
But activists, political analysts and average people in Egypt insist that something crucial shifted for Egypt today. Egyptian political scientist Mustapha Kamel Al Sayyid predicts that now the dam has broken, protests will continue. “the reservoir of discontent is huge,” he says. He adds it is much too soon to talk about a revolution in Egypt, where several factors would make a Tunisia-style toppling of Mubarak much more difficult.
Though both nations suffer from high unemployment and a have a large youth population, Egypt has a much smaller middle class than Tunisia. The regime’s power is not only concentrated in the security forces, as Tunisia’s was, but also in the Army. Tunisia’s military is credited with helping to bring about Ben Ali’s demise, while Egypt’s military is loyal to Mubarak, he says.
And while the corruption of Tunisia’s ruling family was a rallying point for protesters, corruption in Egypt extends further, meaning a widespread base of people who would have much to lose from the fall of the regime. Yet Egyptians have hope.
“All this is happening because we are not afraid,” said Shaimaa Morsy Awad, a young woman who held aloft an Egyptian flag during the protest. “Every day more people will join us. We are still weak, and there’s a lot of work we have to do. But there’s a revolution coming.”
It is time for another US’s puppet to go!!!
Egypt, you have the support of the rest of the World!!! Go for it!!!!!!!!!!1
Viva Egypt !
Lets remember that so far the Muslim Brotherhood haven’t even begun protesting. If they jump on the bandwagon it will mean much larger support on the streets and more organisation at a grassroots level.
Also you just know that Israel is scared out of its mind at the thoughts of losing a Pro-Israeli government right on its border. Could Jimmy Carters Egypt-Israeli peace deal fall when Mubarak falls?
Unlikely, but its likely that a peoples government in Egypt would open up the Rafah Crossing into Gaza allowing food to re-enter as normal again, effectively ending the siege of Gaza. Also Palestinians would be alot freer to hid out in Egypt without the Mubarak security service hunting them down.
How do you censor the conversations of those mobs? Blocking twitter can’t stop the gathering from communicating. One thing that few appreciate is that these people really have nothing else to do. So, why not. When I was in Algeria, one young man told we, “I would swim to America.” His brother is a medical doctor who is out of work, he’s a DJ, spinning records earns him more money than his brother.
When I was there I was trying to get them to gather to simply walk down the streets and pick up trash. How remarkable would be a mob that actually cleaned the streets, drove the cops back. Fuck, imagine if they cleaned windows while they marched–I’m totally serious. The gov’t couldn’t oppose them, why would they. But they learn to organize. And, the gov’t will have take them seriously. My own proposal was, “ferme la bouche, ouvre la poubelle!”
I seriously want to get garbage bags made with that written in French and Arabic. Then, the protesters could deposit these bags of trash at the gov’t buildings and military installations. Those buildings, in Algeria at least are as clean as Western gov’t buildings. But the streets are dirty with the regular refuse of living. If these kids would clear their streets, show some civic pride, it would foster tourism, perhaps giving themselves the jobs they so desire.
How can the Adan, the call to prayer which invokes believers to “Come to Prayer, Come to Success” call believers who’ve just cleansed themselves, according to the tradition of the Prophet walk though dirty streets on their way to the mosque? Are they still clean to pray? So, the imams too can embrace this message. This is protesting without threatening anyone directly. This organizing, this demonstration of the need to be taken seriously will accrue its own leadership, its own structure. It will be ready to demand more. It must demand win, win, win solutions, those that make the their land safe for worship, commerce and civility. This will enrich both the people and the gov’t–any other proposal will go nowhere.