Month: January 2011

by Chris Bodenner

Early news via EA:

1048 GMT: Very loud chants now around Tahrir Square as new demonstrations proceed. One appears to be from Shubra, a couple of kilometres away. Al Jazeera correspondent says this is the "most organised" demonstration he has seen during the week.

1045 GMT: Al Arabiya is reporting a "massive protest" in Alexandria. Al Jazeera says neighbourhood watch groups are refusing to allow police to patrol their streets.

1035 GMT: The Rafah border with Gaza remains closed indefinitely. Al Jazeera English is reporting on Palestinians who escaped from Egyptian jails and returned to Gaza in the last 72 hours.

1020 GMT: Dan Nolan of Al Jazeera writes, "No ATMs making life hard for all but at least we have credit cards. Most Egyptians use cash. Many feeling very much under siege."

1015 GMT: Egypt's stock exchange remains closed.

1010 GMT: Ben Wedeman of CNN reports, "Lots of gunfire in Maadi [upper-income section of Cairo]. Many foreigners, Egyptians have left or are leaving. Stores full of buyers stocking up."

In other developments:

1130 GMT: The new Egyptian Cabinet is being named. Headline so far is that General Mahmoud Wagdy replaces the long-time Minister of Interior Habib el-Adly. Goudat El-Malt, formerly of the audit office, is now Minister of Finance.

by Chris Bodenner

Issandr El Amrani catches up with a charismatic character:

The man on the front page of today's al-Masri al-Youm is a national hero. He's an army officer who decided to join the protestors (he hadn't been part of those deployed in Cairo). I spoke to him about what he and the Egyptian people wanted — here's the video. Again, please translate it in the comments if you have time, but a summary is below. His demands, in brief:

1. The end of the Mubarak regime and its apparatchiks
2. Constitutional reform
3. Free and fair elections
4. No more presidencies for life
5. An honest police force "like any developed country"

According to the YouTube caption, the officer's brother died in one of the demonstrations.

by Chris Bodenner

AJE reports:

Egyptian protesters have called for a massive demonstration on Tuesday in a bid to force out president Hosni Mubarak from power. The so-called April 6 Movement said it plans to have more than a million people on the streets of the capital Cairo, as anti-government sentiment reaches a fever pitch.

Some background on the April 6 Movement:

The April 6 Youth Movement is an Egyptian Facebook group started by Ahmad Maher in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6. Activists called on participants to wear black and stay home the day of the strike. Bloggers and citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other new media tool to report on the strike, alert their networks about police activity, organize legal protection and draw attention to their efforts.

by Chris Bodenner

Haaretz reports that the country has called on its allies to "curb their criticism of President Hosni Mubarak":

Israeli officials are keeping a low profile on the events in Egypt, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even ordering cabinet members to avoid commenting publicly on the issue. Senior Israeli officials, however, said that on Saturday night the Foreign Ministry issued a directive to around a dozen key embassies in the United States, Canada, China, Russia and several European countries. The ambassadors were told to stress to their host countries the importance of Egypt's stability.

Goldblog recently addressed that notion:

In any case, the "stability" created in the Middle East by autocratic regimes is an illusion, as we've learned again and again. There is ultimately no alternative to freedom and self-government. As Elliott Abrams has noted, the Arab world is not exceptional in this regard. I've gone back and forth on this question any number of times, but ultimately I have to come down on the side of people like Reuel Gerecht, who argue that the imposition of ostensibly pro-Western autocrats on Muslim populations leads to nothing good in the end.

Goldblog is well aware of the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, republishing some of its vile rhetoric toward the US and Zionists, but he's "unsure whether the Brotherhood will find its way to power in Egypt in the current situation."

by Chris Bodenner

An Al Jazeera reporter is in Tahrir Square with 200 protesters:

They've been chanting throughout the evening. There've been poetry readings. It seems as if they're saying 'It's early in the morning but we're here to stay. We're not going anywhere'.

One particular poem, "To the Tyrants of the World," by early 20th century Tunisian poet Abu al-Qasim al-Shabihas, has become a rallying cry in both Tunisia and Egypt. Listen to it here. Lyrics after the jump:

Hey you, the unfair tyrants…
You the lovers of the darkness…
You the enemies of life…
You've made fun of innocent people's wounds; and your palm covered with their blood
You kept walking while you were deforming the charm of existence and growing seeds of sadness in their land

Wait, don't let the spring, the clearness of the sky and the shine of the morning light fool you…
Because the darkness, the thunder rumble and the blowing of the wind are coming toward you from the horizon
Beware because there is a fire underneath the ash

Who grows thorns will reap wounds
You've taken off heads of people and the flowers of hope; and watered the cure of the sand with blood and tears until it was drunk
The blood's river will sweep you away and you will be burned by the fiery storm.

(Photo: Egyptian demonstrators sit around a fire to keep warm in Tahrir Square, in central Cairo, on January 30, 2011, following a day when people gathered on the streets for a sixth day running calling for their President Hosni Mubarak to resign. By Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images)

by Chris Bodenner

Violent protests have broken out in cities across the North African nation:

Hundreds of armed riot police on Sunday broke up groups of young Sudanese demonstrating in central Khartoum and surrounded the entrances of four universities in the capital, firing teargas and beating students at three of them. Police beat students with batons as they chanted anti-government slogans such as "we are ready to die for Sudan" and "revolution, revolution until victory".

And social media were there to lead the way:

No one took much notice when a Facebook page was created, calling on Sudanese to join protests today against the 21-year rule of President Omar al-Bashir.

Here's a video report from the BBC. Some context of today's events:

The unrest came on the day it was announced that some 99% of South Sudanese voted to secede from the north in region's recent independence referendum.

You can imagine how frustrating it is for me not to be blogging right now, with these momentous events going on. I can't imagine I could do a better job than Patrick, Chris, Zoe and Conor though – and I'd like to thank them for taking on this week with such gusto, passion and relentlessness.

My basic update: like the economic recovery. The initial respiratory infection and then asthma attacks were so severe my lungs are still in recovery. Every day a little more oxygen but the progress is frustratingly slow. My docs insist on bed rest until my lungs are back to full strength. I hope this week. People with respiratory illness (this is not HIV related) will know the drill, and I've been a chronic asthmatic since I was a toddler. Every now and again, a nor-easter of viral infection, bacteral infection, athma attack and, yes, refusing to stop work earlier lays you low. So I'm taking my doctor's advice and will be back as soon as I can. With bells on.

— Andrew

by Patrick Appel

Drezner poses five questions:

Why is Mubarak toast?  Everyone assumes that the Egyptian leader is a dead man walking, and given his speech on Friday, I can understand that sentiment.  There are, however, remaining options for Mubarak to pursue, ranging from a full-blown 1989 Tiananmen square crackdown to a slow-motion 2009 Tehran-style crackdown. 

Obviously, these aren't remotely good options for anyone involved.  The first rule in political science, however, is that leaders want to stay in power, and Mubarak has given no indication that he wants to leave.  He could be packing up as I type this — but 80-year old strongmen don't tend to faint at the first spot of trouble. 

The Days of Rage have clearly altered the future of Egypt — Gamel Mubarak is not going to succeed his father.  How much additional change will take place is unclear. 

by Patrick Appel

Joe Weisenthal points out that "food is far and away the biggest cost that Egyptians face." Therefore "agriculture inflation bites hard":

by Zoe Pollock

Fred R. Shapiro corrects the record on famous quotes often misattributed to men:

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men, and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory is a benediction.

This passage is often said to be by Ralph Waldo Emerson or Robert Louis Stevenson. In fact, it was written by Bessie A. Stanley of Lincoln, Kansas, in 1905. She earned $250 as the first-prize winner in a contest sponsored by the magazine Modern Women.