What happens when much of yer protest movement consists of middle class enginering students.
And here’s a Guardian photo series of protestors protecting themselves with improvised helmets.
Real Life Revolutions
Egypt: the War Nerd weighs in
You can’t help thinking of Ancient Rome when you watch this riot video from Cairo. What you see is humans re-learning the lessons of ancient warfare. And they do it in a matter of minutes! I swear, this video had me more upbeat about the species than I’ve been for a long time. It’s not that we’ve lost our edge, we’re just rusty.
The War Nerd.
The symbosis between Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood
Jack Shenker in the Guardian on how Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood have entered into symbiosis, each needing the other to legitimise itself:
The group was formed in 1928 and is still officially outlawed. Hundreds of Brotherhood members have been jailed in periodic crackdowns, yet it is from the existence of the Brotherhood, and the regime’s perceived ability to suppress its influence, that Mubarak has derived much of his legitimacy in international circles.
This, combined with the fact that the Brotherhood’s current leadership has often devoted more of its energies to “dawa”, or social evangelism, than overtly political projects, has led many analysts to accuse it of a symbiotic relationship with the government it claims to resist. At crucial moments of popular public tension with the Mubarak regime in recent years, such as the killing of three people in the Delta town of El Mahalla El Kubra in April 2008, and during an attempted general strike one year later, the Brotherhood has opted to take a relatively non-combative stand towards the authorities.
“The Mubarak regime was adept at inflating the influence of the Brotherhood and painting them as a threat to Egyptian society and to the west,” said Anani. “It was the pretext for Mubarak’s rule, and it was a lie. I think that if Egypt held free and fair elections tomorrow the Brotherhood would not get a majority; it would enjoy a significant presence in parliament, but the overall makeup of seats would be pluralistic.”
Alex takes speculation a bit further and wonders who exactly managed to flood Cairo with Mubarak supporters when his own party couldn’t:
This does, by the way, make you – or me, at least – wonder exactly which organisation was able to put a significant mob on the streets at the drop of a hat, when the NDP had spectacularly failed to mobilise any sign of mass support for days on end. Military dictatorships with religious stylings are far from unknown – that was, after all, the fix Jaruzelski tried to impose on Poland after 1981, mixing more Catholicism and nationalism in with his communism but keeping the security state more in place than ever. And I can well imagine someone – someone, quintessentially, like Tony Blair – hailing cooperation between an Islamist movement and Central Security as being just the kind of faith-based initiative that contributes, helpfully, to shared norms for the new reality. As usual with Blair, it’s the secular left that is his real enemy.
Turning point in Egypt
Note the megalomaniac subtext to Blair’s comments: “You people out there don’t realise how good Mubarak is. I do because I’m in on the inside track. So, believe me, I know he’s a good guy. And that’s all you need to know. Take my word for it, because I’m one of the important guys in the world. You’re not. You don’t know as much as me.”
— Michael Rosen.
Egypt the day after Mubarak’s counter attack is in flux. The revolution has not been crushed, the pro-democracy forces have managed to beat back Mubarak’s hired goons and the army remains passive, but it all hangs in the balance: either the thugs are able to crush the protests in the next couple of days or there will be a genuine revolution in Egypt. The situation as we’ve seen in Tunesia, where Ben Ali fled, but his regime remained largely intact and is only grudgingly sharing power with the protestors, no longer seems an option in Egypt. As Jamie says:
And it’ll have to end now. A couple of days ago it was pretty clear that if they put Husni on a plane then the policy status quo could stay basically unchanged; that the removal of Mubarrak would carry enough of a symbolic charge to preserve most of the power of the local overclass, though of course things would have to become more inclusive. I thought that was the strategy: make Husni, or his absence, the change we can believe in, and yay reform. But not now. How can you hope to have an even partially fair election in nine months with the power structure that caused today’s carnage still basically in control?
The thing about revolutions is that they extend the realm of the possible. A month ago the protests we saw last week were impossible, the idea that prodemocracy protestors could win the battle against the police and state security unthinkable, the suggestion that the army would remain neutral in such a situation laughable. But it all happened, as people threw off their fears and discovered their own strength. Doesn’t mean the revolution cannot be repressed anymore, but if it is suppressed it will need Tianamen Square levels of repression, deliberate massacres and years of torture and brutality. Not impossible, but this price may be too high for Egypt’s ruling classes to pay. Egypt has reached a turning point and I think Jamie is right to say a compromise solution is no longer possible.
Meanwhile, the essential live updates to watch on Egypt remain The Guardian’s liveblog as well as Al-Jazeera.
“Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability”
Tony Blair does not want democracy, whisky, sexy:
Tony Blair has described Hosni Mubarak, the beleaguered Egyptian leader, as “immensely courageous and a force for good” and warned against a rush to elections that could bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power.
The former prime minister, now an envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, praised Mubarak over his role in the negotiations and said the west was right to back him despite his authoritarian regime because he had maintained peace with Israel.
But that view is likely to anger many Egyptians who believe they have had to endure decades of dictatorship because the US put Israel’s interests ahead of their freedom.
Forget the Egyptians, who was the fucker who decided Blair needed a platform to put his repulsive views forward? Saddam Hussein must be rolling in his grave, wondered what Mubarak has that he had not.