The speech by Asmaa Mahfouz which triggered the Egyptian Revolution

Asmaa Mahfouz is the one who started it all.
She recorded a vlog on January 18th and posted it in the net. It sparked everything. Tahrir Square became most known place in the entire world. She had shared it on her Facebook, and it had gone viral. It was so powerful and so popular, that it drove Egyptians by the thousands into Tahrir Square, and drove the Egyptian government to block Facebook . I’ll shut up now and let Asma talk. It is just four minutes.


Transcripts of the speech :

Four Egyptians have set themselves on fire to protest humiliation and hunger and poverty and degradation they had to live with for 30 years. Four Egyptians have set themselves on fire thinking maybe we can have a revolution like Tunisia, maybe we can have freedom, justice, honor and human dignity. 

Today, one of these four has died, and I saw people commenting and saying, “May God forgive him. He committed a sin and killed himself for nothing.”

People, have some shame.

I posted that I, a girl, am going down to Tahrir Square, and I will stand alone. And I’ll hold up a banner. Perhaps people will show some honor. I even wrote my number so maybe people will come down with me. 

No one came except three guys—three guys and three armored cars of riot police. And tens of hired thugs and officers came to terrorize us. They shoved us roughly away from the people. But as soon as we were alone with them, they started to talk to us. They said, “Enough! These guys who burned themselves were psychopaths.” 

Of course, on all national media, whoever dies in protest is a psychopath. If they were psychopaths, why did they burn themselves at the parliament building?

I’m making this video to give you one simple message: we want to go down to Tahrir Square on January 25th. If we still have honor and want to live in dignity on this land, we have to go down on January 25th. We’ll go down and demand our rights, our fundamental human rights.

I won't even talk about my political rights. We just want our human rights and nothing else. 

This entire Government is corrupt - acorrupt President and a corrupt security force!

The self-immolators were not afraid of death. But they were afraid of the security forces!

Can you imagine that? Are you like that?  Are you going to kill yourselves too? Or are you completely clueless?

Iam going down on January 25th and from now till then, I am going to distribute fliers  in the streets.

I will not set myself on fire! If the security forces want to set me on fire let them come and do it!

If you think yourself a man, come with me on January 25th

Whoever says  women shouldn't go to protest because they will get beaten

Let him have some honor and manhood and come with me on January 25th

Whoever says it is not worth it because there will be only a handful of people, I want to tell him, you ar the reason behind this.

And you are a traitor, just like the President or any security cop who beats us in the streets

Your presence with us will make a difference, a BIG difference

Talk to your neighbours, your colleagues, friends and family and tell them to come

They don't have to come to Tahrir Square, just go down anywhere and say it, that we are free humanbeings

Sitting at home and just following us on news or Facebook leads to our humiliation

Leads to my own humiliation!

If you have honor and dignity as a man, come. Come and protect me and other girls in the protest.

If you stay at home, then you deserve all that is being done to you. And you will be guilty before the nation and your people. And you will be responsible for what happens to us on the street while you sit at home.

Go down to the street, sen SMS's, post it on the net, make people aware. You know your own social circle, your building, your family, your friends. Tell them to com with us.

Bring 5 people, or 10 people if each of us manages to bring 5 or 10 to Tahrir Square and talk to people and tell them, THIS IS ENOUGH!!

Instead of setting ourselves on fire, let us do something positive. It will make a difference, a BIG difference!

Never say there is no hope! Hope disappears only when you say there is no hope! So long you come down with us, there will be hope.

Don't be afraid of the Government, Fear none but God!

God says that He ''will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves" (Quran 13 : 11)

Don't think you can be safe anymore! None of us are!

Come down with us, and demand your rights, my rights, your family's rights

Iam going down on January 25th and I will say "NO" to corruption. "NO" to this regime!

For More Here and Here. and Here

The Arab world will not be the same again...!

The upheaval in the Arab World these days is the second attempt within half a century to bring down the treacherous Sykes-Picot regime imposed on the region after the First World War. It was a secret Anglo-French treaty to usurp, divide and rule the region. During the same period Britain had promised freedom to the Arabs, through the Sharif of Mecca, if they joined its war effort against the Ottoman State. The same power had promised Arab Palestine to the Jews if they too helped it out during that war.

As a result of that war, not only was the Ottoman Empire dismantled, caliphate finally extinguished, Arabs betrayed and enslaved, and Jews rewarded, but also a cruel dependency regime was imposed on the divided Arab World where ruthless local satraps presided over police states with full support of London and Paris. After the Second World War, the masters changed. Now Washington was the qibla of these local nawabs. Russians too enjoyed a small period in the sun during the 1950s and 1960s. The Arab defeat in 1967 slowly drove away the Russians and Washington became the sole beneficiary and benefactor of these regimes especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

West had in 1948 succeeded in implanting “Israel” at the meeting point of the eastern and western flanks of the Arab World, thereby cutting it into two disjointed parts. A clear Western policy was devised to keep the tiny Israel more powerful than all the Arab countries together. Denial of arms and nuclear power to the Arabs was a basic constituent of this western policy while Israel was allowed to acquire an arsenal of unprecedented proportions complete with nuclear power and nuclear warheads pointed towards all major Arab countries.

When Egypt tried in the mid-1950s to rebel against this arms embargo, it was threatened, humiliated and finally taught a lesson in June 1967. Slowly, Arab satraps accepted Israel too which had all-along dreamt of emerging as the major power of the Middle East and tried this most disastrously in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon. That fiasco may have put paid to the power of Fateh but it also led to the emergence of new powers like Hamas and Hizbullah which emerged and evolved firmly outside the satrap-master equation prevailing in the region.

Arab people had earlier, during the 1950s, tried to change this equation. “Revolutions” erupted in Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan etc., but somehow the local armies were able to replace the old satraps.

The current revolution which started in Tunisia and soon spread to Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Iraq, Algeria, Bahrain and Mauritania etc., is the second popular attempt to dislodge and break free of the Sykes-Picot shackles. Apart from Washington (and West), the only big loser today is a trembling Israel whose long labour to become the sole imperial power of the Middle East suddenly has come to a naught. The revolution is still unfinished. Washington seems to be maneuvering to replace the old faces with new ones. But a lot of water has flowed down the Nile and Euphrates these past decades. Arabs are no longer an illiterate and innocent lot. Once the current upheaval settles down, the Middle East will not be the same again.

Zafarul Islam Khan in The Milli Gazette. More Here.

Egypt fallout: The days of American hegemony are over?

All of a sudden it is Washington, not the Middle East, that appears stagnant. The revolts in Tunisia and Egypt – and the proliferating signs of unrest in the American sphere of influence in the Middle East – have occurred in spite of American power, not because of it, and they have left the US looking confused and isolated. America’s closest ally in the region is an expansionist, increasingly chauvinist Jewish state whose friendship is as much a liability as an asset. If Obama’s assiduous efforts to rebrand the American empire have made little headway, it is in part because they have not been accompanied by any serious rethinking of these strategic priorities: the grandeur of his rhetoric barely masks the poverty of his vision.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the Egyptian revolt is the latest expansion of a new dynamism. A Hizbullah-backed coalition government has come to power in Lebanon by constitutional means, upending Washington’s calculations and deepening Tehran’s influence; Turkey, under an Islamic government, has been pursuing an ambitious foreign policy that ignores the Washington grid. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US can no longer count on the deference of the governments it helped to create.

Despite its uncontested military supremacy in the region, Washington can’t seem to translate its power into real influence, its dominance into lasting hegemony. Its help is rarely even sought in resolving disputes such as the recent tensions over Lebanon’s new government: a distinct preference for regional mediation has emerged.

The best that can be said of Obama’s Middle East policy is that he hasn’t got in the way of this trend as much as his predecessor did. He has been prevented from encouraging it by his own cautious instincts, and by the alliances with Israel that he inherited, the terms of which he is unwilling or unable to revise. The days of American hegemony in the Muslim East are not over, but for the first time in years, from Ankara to Cairo, from Tunis to Beirut, the outlines of a post-American Middle East can be glimpsed.

Adam Shatz in London review of Books. More Here.

Could our Jantar Mantar become our Tahrir Square?

Those of our political leaders who have paid attention to the protests in Tahrir Square must be spending sleepless nights. Not because a floodgate of public rage is about to burst open in Delhi or Mumbai but because the reasons for the rage are so familiar to us who live in the proudly democratic republic of India. Allow me to list a few similarities. Open loot of public money. Political leaders who become fabulously rich while ordinary people remain horribly poor. Dynastic succession. In our case this idea has roots so deep and wide that there is almost not a single political party that is not a family business. Then, as in most despotic Arab countries, we have followed economic policies that have created a small super-rich elite while the majority of our people live on less than $2 a day. And, just like Egypt we have a huge population of young people most of whom will move to cities and towns in the next twenty years. 

From Tavleen Singh's article in Indian Express. More Here.

Could it happen here? The leaderless revolution in Egypt has caused some anxiety locally over whether the wretched of our earth could come out to challenge their rulers. Conventional and unconventional wisdom has it that the answer is an emphatic no. We have a vibrant democracy, regular elections, a free media, an alert judiciary—all these checks and balances, it is fondly assumed, provide a safety valve through which the above-mentioned wretched can ventilate their frustrations. It is a cosy and comforting thesis but it needs to be tested. Not just to shake us out of complacency, but to force us to ask some hard questions.
One could in fact argue that it is already happening here. The injustices the protesters at Tahrir Square are raging about—corruption, no jobs, rising prices, appalling governance—are rampant in our blessed land. The tribal population of India, over three times the size of Egypt’s total population, lives daily with hardships ten times worse than those faced by the aam aadmi in Cairo. The per capita income in Egypt is four times the per capita income of adivasis in Dantewada. Moreover, under the influence of the Maoists, our destitute have taken up arms in a do-or-die struggle against the Indian state. Altogether, we are confronted with a situation infinitely more dangerous than the one prevailing in Egypt. Indeed, in contrast to the carnival and celebratory atmosphere in Tahrir Square, our deprived and desolate are waging a grim and violent battle. India is already at war with its own people. If you asked a bow-and-arrow-wielding woman to throw down her weapon because she possessed a wonderful thing called “democracy”, I shudder to think what her response would be.
Shining India, fortunately, does not have to watch pitched clashes outside the street on which it lives. However, unless we wake up, that prospect is fast approaching. Supposing, 2,00,000 of our citizens march into Jantar Mantar demanding regime change or immediate redressal of their grievances, how will the Indian state respond?

Vinod Mehta in Outlook. More Here.

Al Jazeera : 21st century's best hope for an independent press.

The recent crisis in Egypt makes clear what many have known for a few years now. Al Jazeera is the best major media source. The reporting is a little more fearless, the exposés are a little more in-depth, the feature stories and interviews are a little more thoughtful than all the other guys. If you’ve got to pick just one media outlet, you’d be a stubborn mule indeed not to pick Al Jazeera. It is more serious than CNN, more genuinely global than the New York Times, and more complicated than the BBC. This is not a matter for serious debate anymore. It is a basic fact. While watching Al Jazeera’s coverage of the revolution in Egypt on live web stream, I managed also to catch an extremely good interview with the important and eloquent President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, in which he was asked tough questions about freedom of the press that American media outlets usually tiptoe around or ignore.

Al Jazeera, it turns out, keeps afloat with money from the Emir of Qatar. The Emir of Qatar keeps afloat by means of oil money, with some help from natural gas. Qatar has so much of both things that it enjoys one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world. So, there’s an economic model for you. Sustainable? Probably not. Dependent on the whims of an absolute monarchy? You got it. But the economic model upon which the previous century of good journalism was based was no less compromised. It is not the compromised position that matters so much as how you compromise. So far, Al Jazeera has taken their oil money and run straight for the utopia of journalistic integrity. It may not last. The good graces of the Emir of Qatar may sour. But all we are really looking for here is a temporary safe haven for real journalism in a time of media crisis. And it is time to give Al Jazeera the nod as the most interesting thing out there. From a tiny country in the Arabian Peninsula soaked in wealth by a global economy’s voracious need for energy comes the 21st century’s best current hope for an independent press.

From a report by Morgan Meis in The Smart Set. More Here

Lessons from Egypt for the Islamists in India..!

Lessons from Egypt for the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind people.
This is in response to a request from my friend and guide to shed light on the lessons from Egypt.

What lessons could we learn from the mass uprising in Egypt? India is not Egypt. And we do not have any Hosni Mubaraks here. We may have our share of bigots like Narendra Modis and L K Advanis. But still we do not have Hosni Mubaraks here, by the grace of Allah.

As I reflected on the demonstrations in Egypt and news of the events that followed, it occured to me that there were FOUR vital lessons for the Islamists here in India that need to be highlighted.

Lesson No. 1: 

The agents of change are always the youth. If we want to bring change in the society, we have to capture the minds of the youth and mould them in the Islamic way. The Egypt revolution may have been scripted and drafted by the seniors, but it was executed by the youth. Youth were in the forefront and they took the plunge when it mattered most. Without the active involvement of the youth the brutal regime could not have been toppled so smoothly. It is amazing that the Ikhwans were able to nurture, train and groom such a large number of youth under the very nose of the tyrant Pharoah.

We have to do something to groom our own youth. At present we have SIO which has succeeded in mobilising students for the Islamic cause. There is a big gap as far as the Indian youth are concerned. There is no activism. There is no guidance. There is no mobilisation. Youth power is being wasted. There is an urgent need for proper planning in this regard. India has the largest concentration of youth. But the percentage of youth in the Islamic movement is not healthy and the figures presented by the General Secretary of the Jamaat in the recently held All India Members conference is alarming. The number of members of the Jamaat who have not seen thirty summers is very very meagre. Those with grey and white beards outnumbered those with shiny black beards in that Ijtema-e-Arkan. That does not augur well for a movement which strives to bring total change in the society. The success story of Solidarity Youth Movement in Kerala has to be repeated in all over the nation. And that is the need of the hour.

Lesson No 2: 
Patience and perseverance pays. Be patient. Never lose hope. Patience pays and it pays handsomely. Look at the Ikhwans. For 52 long years - more than two generations - they had been patient. They were suppressed and oppressed by the most brutal regime of the day. They bore all kinds of oppression. They were banned and persecuted for more than a half century. But still, they never lose hope. They never threw away their core idealogy. They never succumbed to the pulls and pressures of the brutal regime and its wily sponsor. They were steadfast in their belief and action.

Those who call for drastic changes in our core idealogy should stand and ponder over this phenonmenal perseverence displayed by the Ikhwanis. Let us not be impatient and make hasty decisions which may harm our larger goal.

Lesson No 3:
The Ikhwanis never called it Islamic revolution. They co-opted with others. They worked with other sections of the society. They even shared the struggle with the coptic Christians. Cross and Quran alongwith the Egyptian flag were raised in Tahrir Square. They warmly embraced with others for a common cause. Slavej Zizek has described it as the most sublime moment. I would say it as the most defining moment in the 21st century. In a multi-cultural and multi-racial world that is the most pragmatic approach.

We in India too should such an inclusive approach. We have to identify common goods and goals and join hands with the likeminded noble souls in attaining them. We have to learn from the pact which is known as "Hilful Fuzul" was arranged in the house of Abdullah ibn Jad'in in Makkah by certain important personalities of the time. Later during the period of his Prophethood, the Holy Prophet often mentioned this pact and said that he was still willing to participate in a similar pact and not to violate its provisions. We have vast number of right thinking and noble hearted activists here in India. They are not corrupt. They are not communal. We have to join hands with them and find ways and means to struggle with them towards attaining common good.


Lesson No 4:
Embrace the issues of the people and people would always sit in your lap. The Ikhwanis embraced the issues of the people. They joined hands with them when it mattered the most. They identified the simmering discontent against the regime and used it. They got availed of the opportunity and positioned themselves. They have always been in the forefront in tackling the basic issues of the lay man.

We have to strive for common goals instead of Muslim specific issues. The experience gained through Forum for Democracy and Communal Amity (FDCA) would be useful in this regard. It has to be noted that whenever we took common issues the nation responded passionately and positively. The Human Rights Campaign launched in 2003 and the Caravan for Peace and Justice in this meeqath are shiny examples for this. Similarly the more positive response we got when we took up the cause of anti-liquor campaign in Tamil Nadu could be cited as an example for this trend.

Still there are vast number of issues affecting the aam aadmi here. We have to take them up.

So why are the neocons uneasy?

One cannot but note the "miraculous" nature of the events in Egypt: something has happened that few predicted, violating the experts' opinions, as if the uprising was not simply the result of social causes but the intervention of a mysterious agency that we can call, in a Platonic way, the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity.

The uprising was universal: it was immediately possible for all of us around the world to identify with it, to recognise what it was about, without any need for cultural analysis of the features of Egyptian society. In contrast to Iran's Khomeini revolution (where leftists had to smuggle their message into the predominantly Islamist frame), here the frame is clearly that of a universal secular call for freedom and justice, so that the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt the language of secular demands.

The most sublime moment occurred when Muslims and Coptic Christians engaged in common prayer on Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting "We are one!" – providing the best answer to the sectarian religious violence.

Those neocons who criticise multiculturalism on behalf of the universal values of freedom and democracy are now confronting their moment of truth: you want universal freedom and democracy? This is what people demand in Egypt, so why are the neocons uneasy? Is it because the protesters in Egypt mention freedom and dignity in the same breath as social and economic justice?

From the start, the violence of the protesters has been purely symbolic, an act of radical and collective civil disobedience. They suspended the authority of the state – it was not just an inner liberation, but a social act of breaking chains of servitude. The physical violence was done by the hired Mubarak thugs entering Tahrir Square on horses and camels and beating people; the most protesters did was defend themselves.

Although combative, the message of the protesters has not been one of killing. The demand was for Mubarak to go, and thus open up the space for freedom in Egypt, a freedom from which no one is excluded – the protesters' call to the army, and even the hated police, was not "Death to you!", but "We are brothers! Join us!". This feature clearly distinguishes an emancipatory demonstration from a rightwing populist one: although the right's mobilisation proclaims the organic unity of the people, it is a unity sustained by a call to annihilate the designated enemy (Jews, traitors).

So where are we now? When an authoritarian regime approaches the final crisis, its dissolution tends to follow two steps. Before its actual collapse, a rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy; its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down …

Egypt's struggle of endurance is not a conflict of visions, it is the conflict between a vision of freedom and a blind clinging to power that uses all means possible – terror, lack of food, simple tiredness, bribery with raised salaries – to squash the will to freedom.

When President Obama welcomed the uprising as a legitimate expression of opinion that needs to be acknowledged by the government, the confusion was total: the crowds in Cairo and Alexandria did not want their demands to be acknowledged by the government, they denied the very legitimacy of the government. They didn't want the Mubarak regime as a partner in a dialogue, they wanted Mubarak to go. They didn't simply want a new government that would listen to their opinion, they wanted to reshape the entire state. They don't have an opinion, they are the truth of the situation in Egypt. Mubarak understands this much better than Obama: there is no room for compromise here, as there was none when the Communist regimes were challenged in the late 1980s. Either the entire Mubarak power edifice falls down, or the uprising is co-opted and betrayed.

And what about the fear that, after the fall of Mubarak, the new government will be hostile towards Israel? If the new government is genuinely the expression of a people that proudly enjoys its freedom, then there is nothing to fear: antisemitism can only grow in conditions of despair and oppression. (A CNN report from an Egyptian province showed how the government is spreading rumours there that the organisers of the protests and foreign journalists were sent by the Jews to weaken Egypt – so much for Mubarak as a friend of the Jews.)

One of the cruellest ironies of the current situation is the west's concern that the transition should proceed in a "lawful" way – as if Egypt had the rule of law until now. Are we already forgetting that, for many long years, Egypt was in a permanent state of emergency? Mubarak suspended the rule of law, keeping the entire country in a state of political immobility, stifling genuine political life. It makes sense that so many people on the streets of Cairo claim that they now feel alive for the first time in their lives. Whatever happens next, what is crucial is that this sense of "feeling alive" is not buried by cynical realpolitik.

From Slavoj Zizek's write-up in Commondreams. More Here.

Is it a leaderless revolution?

The revolution was successful because it had no leaders, only coordinators of bottom up energy. Its use of social media was brilliantly conceived to meld online organizing with offline action, not supplant it. The inability of older generations to understand the power of this new form of leadership among Egypt's, and ultimately the world's, young people suggests there will be many more such surprises in the future, both at home and abroad.

It's not surprising that the facility of young people in using new technology is the first thing older generations notice and comment upon when talking about "kids today."

Many older people, however, fail to look beyond those surface behaviors to the deeper values that now animate young people around the world. The belief of the emerging generation in democratic values, in the ability of people to govern themselves, free from dictation from above, and in the power of individual initiative to inspire collective action on behalf of the community's greater good, determine the way young people use technology, not the other way around.

All of those attitudes and values were in clear evidence in Egypt over the last few weeks, reminding those clinging to power and outdated perceptions of how to hold onto it, that a new generation has arrived. Like their civic-oriented counterparts in America eight decades ago, this century's emerging generation has a "rendezvous with destiny" and will lead the world in entirely new ways into a new era.

Michael Hais and Morly Winograd in The Huffington Post. More Here.

A giant has awakened after long centuries of slumber.

This genuinely democratic, watershed change is almost impossible to derail now, no matter what the scheming Israelis and their nervous patrons think.

What makes this movement that has captured the world imagination truly historic is the fact that it has rediscovered and revived the confidence and unleashed the fighting spirit of the long demoralized and dormant Arabs.

As an Arab writer wrote last week, the Arabs haven’t witnessed any significant victory or memorable achievement since the glorious victory of Salahuddin Ayuubi (Saladin the Great), the conqueror of Jerusalem, 800 years ago over the Crusaders. The legacy of the great warrior king lives on in the proud falcon that is the insignia of Egyptian Army, and that of numerous Arab countries.

Those marching on the streets of Egypt and elsewhere in the region give hope and a sense of purpose and direction to the faceless, long repressed multitudes across the Arab-Muslim world and beyond!

Suddenly, it’s cool to be an Arab, easily the most vilified, dehumanized and demonized character in Western popular culture. Those young people — and old — standing their ground at the Tahrir Square day after day with a simple yet defiant finality make you proud. (Who says democracy and Islam can’t be the best of pals?)
The Tahrir Square has elbowed out the Tiananmen Square and will remain seared in popular imagination for years to come, long after Mubarak is gone. No wonder people around the world, from Americas to Australia, are increasingly standing up to make common cause with the people of Egypt.

In his much quoted 2009 Cairo speech, and before that in the profound Inaugural address, President Barack Obama had reached out to the Arabs and Muslims, seeking a “new way forward.”
And people of the Middle East have given him just that: A new way forward! Yet all you’ve heard from Washington — and from other Western capitals — over the past two weeks is either deafening silence or diplomatic gobbledygook that means nothing. As usual, the best emanates from Israel. Netanyahu warns: “When there are rapid changes, as it happened in Iran, an oppressive regime of radical Islam will rise. Such a regime will crush human rights and will not allow democracy or freedom, and will constitute a threat to peace.”

Now we need lessons in democracy, freedom and human rights from those who have stolen someone else’s land imprisoning its population! Hillary Clinton seconds Netanyahu arguing, “revolutions have overthrown dictators in the name of democracy, only to see the process hijacked by new autocrats.”

What’s the West really afraid of? What’s it about Islam that so terrifies the champions of democracy and freedom of faith? But it’s not Islam, as Chomsky argues, but independence of the Middle East that worries the West.

In a fine dispatch this week from Cairo titled, Tehran 1979 or Berlin1989?, Roger Cohen pleads with the US and Israel to not handle Egypt the way they dealt with Iran after the revolution. He plumps for a more “nuanced approach” that helped the West bring down the so-called evil empire and regimes across Eastern Europe. So what’s it going to be? Tehran 1979 or Berlin 1989? Whichever way Washington and London go, it’s not going to be the Egyptians’ way. Gone is the time of the empire ruling by proxy. It’s time for the people of Egypt – and the Middle East – to chart their own future without the expert advice or promptings of the empire. Call it Islamic resurgence, Arab revival or whatever but a giant has awakened after long centuries of slumber. Change is in the air.

Aijaz Zaka Syed in Arab News. More Here.

"மக்கள் புரட்சி இது வரை பார்க்காத ஒன்று..." எகிப்திலிருந்து நேரடி ரிப்போர்ட்

மக்கள் புரட்சி இது வரை பார்க்காத ஒன்று... இந்தியாவில் இது போல நடக்க என்ன செய்ய வேண்டும் என்று தெரியவில்லை.  இது ஒருவிதமான மெஷின் புரட்சி என்று கூட சொல்லலாம்.  வலைத்தளங்களும், சமூகவலைத்தளங்களும், ப்ளாக்குகளும் பேசிக் கொண்டிருந்த ஒரு விஷயம்.  இளைஞர்கள் மட்டுமே அதிகம் புழங்கும், டிவிட்டர், பேஸ்புக், ப்ளாக்ஸ்பாட், ஆர்குட் என்ற மேடையில் ஒத்திசையாய் பேசப்பட்ட விஷயங்கள்.  கருத்து சுதந்தரம், பேச்சு சுதந்தரம், ஊழலற்ற ஆட்சி, அரசு இயந்திரங்கள், போலீஸின் அராஜகம் என்றெல்லாம் கருத்து பரிமாற்றங்களாய் இருந்த ஒரு விஷயம், ஒரு வலை அழைப்பாய் மாறியது. 25 ம்தேதி இந்த போராட்டம் நடைபெறும் போது பெரும்பாலும் இளைஞர்களும், இளைஞிகளும் தான். மெதுவாக அந்த நாளின் இறுதியில் தொழில் வல்லுனர்கள், மருத்துவர்கள், அமெரிக்க நிறுவனங்களில் வேலைபார்க்கும் எகிப்தியர்கள், கர்ப்பிணிகள், வயதானவர்கள் என்று பலதரப்பட்ட மனிதர்களும் கூட ஆரம்பித்தார்கள்.  அன்றைய தினத்தில் போலீஸின் கையில் அதிகாரம் தரப்பட்டிருந்தது. கலவரத்தை ஒடுக்க, துப்பாக்கிகளில் ரப்பர் குண்டுகள் வைத்து வெடிக்கப்பட்டன, கண்ணீர்ப் புகைக் குண்டுகள் வீசப்பட்டன. ஒருவர் உயிரிழந்தார்.

26ம் தேதி அங்காங்கே சிறு சிறு ஆர்ப்பாட்டங்கள், எதிர்ப்பு ஊர்வலங்கள் நடந்தன.  சூயஸ், அலெக்ஸாண்டிரியா, கெய்ரோ, லக்ஸர் என்று.  இதில் பெரிய பாதிப்புகள் இல்லை.  அன்று வரை தொலைபேசிகள், வலை, அழைபேசிகள் எல்லாம் உயிர்ப்புடன் இயங்கிக் கொண்டிருந்தன.  ஒரு கூகிள் ஊழியர், அமெரிக்காவில் இருந்து சொந்த வேலை இருப்பதாக, எகிப்து வந்தவனை காணவில்லை. சமூகவலைதளங்களில் மிகவும் ஆக்டிவ்வாக செயல்பட்ட வாயல் கோனிம் என்ற முப்பது வயது இளைஞனைக் காணவில்லை. எல்லோரும் தேடினார்கள், கூகிளும் தேடியது கிடைக்கவில்லை.  எல்லா சோஷியல் நெட்வொர்க், மீடியாக்களில் இந்த போராட்டங்கள் பிரதான இடத்தைப் பிடித்தன. அல் ஜசிரா எல்லாப் போராட்டங்களையும் ஒளிபரப்பினார்கள், பாதிக்கப்பட்ட தனிமனிதர்கள், பாதிக்கப்பட்ட குடும்பங்கள், பத்திரிக்கையாளர்கள், நிருபர்கள் என்று எல்லோரின் கதைகளையும் ஒளிபரப்பியது அல்ஜெசிரா.  பழைய கதைகளை, முபாரக்கின் அடக்குமுறைகள்  நடந்த ஐந்து வருடத்திற்கு முன்னால் நடந்த கதைகளை அவர்களின் பேட்டிகளுடன் காண்பித்தது.  போலீஸின் அராஜகம் காட்டப்பட்டது, டிவியின் முன்னால் அமர்ந்து பார்த்துக் கொண்டிருந்தவர்களுக்கும் ஆவேஷம் வந்தது.

வெள்ளிக்கிழமை என்று முடிவானது.  நாங்கள் கிஸ்ஸா போய்விட்டு, சக்காராவிற்கு சென்று ஸ்டெப் பிரமிடு பார்ப்பதற்கு கிளம்பிய வழிகளில் எல்லாம் போராட்டங்கள். வாகன எரிப்புகள் என்று போராட்டம் அப்போது தான் எங்கள் கவனத்திற்கு வந்தது. சக்காரா போகமுடியவில்லை.  கெய்ரோ ஏர்போர்ட் தாண்டி போகும்வழியில் பெரிய போராட்டக்கூட்டம். எகிப்தின் கொடிகள், உயரத்தூக்கியப்படியே சட்டையில்லாமல் ஓடிய இளைஞன், ஒரு போலீஸ் வாகனத்தைப் பார்த்து கத்த, மொத்தக் கூட்டமும் அந்த பக்கம் திரும்பியது. மொத்தமாக எங்களுடைய அழைபேசிகள் வேலை செய்யவில்லை.  அந்த இடத்தை கடந்து இஸ்மாலியா போய்விட முடியுமா என்று தெரியவில்லை.  போவது உசிதமில்லை என்று முடிவானது. 

என் நண்பன்  அவனுடைய நண்பனின் நண்பன் வீடு இங்கு எங்கோ இருப்பதாகவும், விசாரித்துப் போய் விடலாம் என்று கூறினான். வழி சரியாத் தெரியாது, போனில் விசாரிக்க முடியாது என்ன செய்வது என்று தெரியாமல் வண்டியை மாற்றி இடத்தை சொல்லி, டிரைவரிடம் சொல்ல, அவன் பாதுகாப்பில்லை என்றும் தான் திரும்பி இஸ்மாலியா போகப்போவதாகவும் சொல்ல, நாங்கள் என்ன செய்வது என்று தெரியாமல், அவனிடம் பாஷை தெரியாத நாங்களும் கெஞ்ச திரும்பவும் ஹீலியா போலீஸ் இடத்தை சுற்ற ஆரம்பித்தோம்.  விவேக்கிற்கு இடமா வலமா என்ற குழப்பத்தில் நேரத்தை விரல் வழி நழுவ விட்டுக் கொண்டே இருந்தோம். அப்போது ஒரு அபார்ட்மெண்ட் வாசலில் டிவி பார்த்துக் கொண்டிருந்தார் ஒரு செக்யூரிட்டி. அவரிடம் போய் இடம் பற்றி விசாரிக்கச் செல்ல டிவியில் காட்டிய படங்கள் எங்களை உலுக்கிவிட்டது.  சூயஸ் பற்றி எரிகிறது. இஸ்மாலியாவின் அரசு அலுவலகத்தின் முன்னால் கலவரம். என்ன செய்வது என்று தெரியாமல் அவரிடம் விவேக் அரபிக்கில் பேச, அவர் நாலாவது மாடியில் இந்தியர் ஒருத்தர் இருப்பதாகச் சொன்னார்.

இந்தியர் என்ற ஒரு வார்த்தை போதாதா நமக்கு, லிப்டில் ஏறி நாலு பொத்தானை அமுத்தி மேலேறிய போது, கலவரமான என் மனைவியின் முகம் எனக்கு மேலும் கலவரத்தைக் கொடுத்தது. அவர் இப்போ இல்லேன்னா என்ன பண்றது என்ற என் மனைவியின் கேட்க, வெள்ளிக்கிழமை பெரும்பாலும் வெளியே போவதில்லை இந்தியர்கள் என்றான்.  போய் அழைப்பு மணி அழுத்தியதும் வந்து திறந்தவன் இன்னுமொரு விவேக்... தேடிக்கொண்டிருந்த அதே நாள், அட பழைய சினிமா மாதிரி இருக்கேண்ணு ஆச்சரியமாய் இருந்தது. அவன் வீட்டில் வந்தபிறகு தான் இண்டர்நெட் இல்லை என்பதும், தொலைதொடர்பு எல்லாம் துண்டிக்கப்பட்டதும் தெரிந்தது.  அல்ஜெசிராவின் செய்திகளில் பார்த்த வன்முறையும் துப்பாக்கிச்சுடும் எங்களை நிம்மதி இழக்கச்செய்தது. ஊரடங்கு உத்தரவு அமுலுக்கு வந்தது, ஆனால் அதை யாரும் இன்றுவரை பொருட்படுத்தவில்லை.

அன்றைய கலவரத்தில் நூற்றுக்கும் அதிகமானோர் கொல்லப்பட்டனர்.  வாகனங்கள் எரிக்கப்பட்டது.  முபாரக்கின் கட்சி அலுவலகம் தீயிடப்பட்டது. எங்கள் டிரைவர் எங்களை பாதுகாப்பான இடத்தில் விட்டுவிட்டதால், கிளம்பிச் சென்றுவிட்டான். நாங்கள் காலையில் இஸ்மாலியா போய்விடலாம் என்று முடிவானது. போராட்டம் வலுப்பெற்றுக் கொண்டே இருந்தது. முபாரக் அன்று இரவே தனது கேபினெட்டை கலைத்தார். புதிய பிரதம மந்திரி நியமிப்பதாய் அறிவித்தார். 

மக்கள் போராட்டம் வலுப்பெற, எல்லா பள்ளிகளும், கல்லூரிகளும், வங்கிகளும், அரசு அலுவலகங்களும், தனியார் தொழிலகங்களும் காலவரையற்று மூடப்பட்டதாக அறிவிக்கப்பட்டது.  அடுத்த நாள் காலை இஸ்மாலியா திரும்பினோம்.  போராட்டங்களில் அடிபட்டவர்களுக்கு, போராட்டக்குழுவில் இருந்த மருத்துவர்களே சிகிச்சை செய்தார்கள்.  சூயஸ், அலெக்ஸாண்ட்ரியா, லக்ஸர், கெய்ரோ என்று எல்லா இடங்களிலும் வன்முறையும் கலவரங்களும் வெடித்தது.  போலீஸ் நிலையங்கள் தீக்கிரையாக்கப்பட்டன. போலீஸ் அலுவலர்கள் எல்லோரும் மறைவிடத்தில் பதுங்கினர்.  அரசு அவர்களை கலவர இடங்களில் இருந்து திரும்ப பெற்றுக் கொண்டது. அல்ஜெசிராவின் அரபிக் சேனல் நிர்வாகி கைது செய்யப்பட்டார். அல்ஜெசிராவின் அரபிக் சேனல், போட்டோகிராபர் தாக்கப்பட்டு, கேமிரா பிடுங்கப்பட்டு, சேனல் முடக்கப்பட்டது. அல்ஜெசிரா இந்த போராட்டம் வலுப்பெற்றதற்கு ஒரு காரணியாய் அறியப்படுகிறது.

எல் பாராதேயின் பங்கு என்ன இந்த போராட்டங்களில் என்று கேட்டால் ஒன்றுமில்லை. ஆனால் எல் பாராதே அரசாங்கத்திற்கு எதிரான ஒரு பிரச்சாரகராய் அறியப்படுகிறார். இசுலாமிய சகோதரத்துவம் என்ற கட்சியில் இருந்து தேர்தலில் பங்குபெற்று, தேர்தலின் முறைகேடுகளால் கீழே தள்ளப்பட்டவர். சட்ட வல்லுனரான எல் பாராதே, ஐநாவின் சர்வதேச கூட்டுமுயற்சியான சர்வதேச அணுசக்தி மையத்தின் டைரக்டர் ஜெனரலாக பதவி வகித்தவர்.  நோபல் பரிசு பெற்றவர்.  இவரின் தலைமையையும் மக்கள் ஏற்க தயாராக இல்லை. மக்கள் தலைவர்களின் வழி நடத்துதல் இல்லாமல் ஒரு PURE FORM OF REVOLUTION MODE ல் இருக்கிறார்கள்.  தலைவர் இல்லாததாலும், சீரிய வழி நடத்துதல் இல்லாததாலும் தான் இந்த போராட்டம் இத்தனை நாள் நீடிப்பதற்குக் காரணம்.  எல் பாராதே வந்து இறங்கியதும் கைது செய்யப்பட்டு வீட்டுக்காவலில் வைக்கப்பட்டார்.

முபாரக்கின் அரசில் எகிப்திய பொது உளவு பணியகத்தின் தலைவராய் பணியாற்றி வருகிற ஓமர் சுலைமானை, அவசர அவசரமாக துனை அதிபராய் ஆக்கினார் முபாரக். ஓமர் சுலைமான் ஏறக்குறைய முபாரக்கின் வழியில் வந்தவர். பூரண ஆங்கில அறிவு அவரை, அமெரிக்காவுடனான வெளியுறவு, உளவுத்துறையில் நண்பர்களை சம்பாதித்துக் கொடுத்தது.  முபாரக்கைப் போலவே படித்தது மிலிடெரி அகாடெமி... சோவியத் யூனியனின் ஃப்ருன்ஷே மிலிடெரி அகாடெமியில் பயிற்சி பெற்றவர்.  பதவி ஏற்றதும் ஓமர் சுலைமான் செய்த காரியங்கள். ஏர் போர்ஸின் ஜெட் விமானங்களை போராட்டம் நடக்கும் கூட்டங்களுக்கு மேலே தாழ பறக்க வைத்து பயங்காட்ட முனைந்தது.  போலீஸ் ஆட்களை சாதாரண உடைகளை அணியவைத்து, ஒட்டகங்கள், குதிரைகளின் மீது வந்து  முபாரக்கின் ஆதரவாளர்கள் என்ற போர்வையில் அராஜகம் செய்ய வைத்தது, போராட்டக்காரர்களை தாக்க வைத்தது.  இது போராட்டக்காரர்களுக்கு சிறிது அச்சத்தைக் கொடுத்தாலும், சர்வதேச மனித உரிமை ஆர்வலர்களிடம் இருந்து வந்த எதிர்ப்பினால் அடங்கியது. ஒவ்வொரு நாளும் நடக்கும் போராட்டத்திற்கு ஒரு பெயர் வைக்கப்பட்டது... நிஜமாகவே பத்து லட்சத்திற்குமேல் கூடிய கூட்டத்தை பார்த்திருக்கிறீர்களா?

8 ம்தேதி கூடிய கூட்டம் அதற்கும் மேல்... வர்த்தகமுடக்கம், தொழில் உற்பத்தி பாதிப்பு என்று எத்தனையோ இருக்கிறது... புத்தகம் போடலாம். 

From a gripping narration by Raghavan in his blog. More Here.

A day at Tahrir Square..!

On a regular day, the office district in which Tahrir Square is located, at the crossing of eight roads in downtown Cairo in front of the Egyptian Museum, overlooks one of the busiest junctions in Egypt, with a 100-metre drive taking up to half an hour in peak traffic. Today it's a closed community of pedestrians with its own rules, facilities and even entertainment.

The thousands of anti-Mubarak protestors having been camping here since Police Day on January 25, and tens of thousands  have been joining them every day for the past two weeks. Tents and shelters made of bed covers and plastic have sprouted along the traffic islands. Cha (pronounced 'shaay') is available from dozens of vendors for an Egyptian pound (about R8) and stalls are selling kosheri, a lifeless mix of rice, macaroni and lentils. There's constant sloganeering and singing. Men and women, young and old are periodically clearing garbage from the streets. The children, some of them cradled by elders, stare around in silence in this mega-mela atmosphere.

Democratic freedom may be the grand goal, but several Tahrirites have also found a personal axe to grind against Hosni Mubarak. Behraiya, an 18-year-old girl selling tea, stubs out her cigarette and says, "I'm a beggar because of his policies." Reda, a 40-year-old jewellery maker, asks for a cigarette and says, "I haven't been able to marry because of that guy. I would have earned three times in [Anwar] Sadat's time." After three decades of pharaonic power, Mubarak is the System.

Others are here for a slice of history. Emad Osman, a 43-year-old technician who repairs air-conditioners, on being asked why he has been bringing his nine-year-old son Ahmed every day to such a potentially violent territory, replies, "I don't want him to miss these moments." Does Ahmed discuss Mubarak in school? "Yes, but not everyone thinks he's bad," says the boy.

Nearby, two large white cloths serve as screens on which news from Al Jazeera and other television channels are projected round the clock. There's also a smaller screen near a laptop on which people download and beam their personal videos every day. When not used as a makeshift stage for anti-regime rants, a carefully built pyramid of a dozen-odd large speakers blares nationalist songs.

But nobody forgets that Tahrir Square is, above everything else, a battleground. Stones and rubble are neatly cairned on walls and laid by the roadside for another possible pelting match. Charred vehicles are 'parked' on kerbs as if objects in a museum of violence. There are at least half a dozen 'clinics' - small barricaded areas near the tanks blocking all roadheads - manned by seven to 10 doctors with various specialities. "We have to stay close to the frontline. So we move when the line moves," says Dr Taufiq Ala-Iddin, a 25-year-old vascular surgeon. "We treat the bastards [pro-Mubarak 'thugs'] as well as the revolutionaries [the anti-Mubarak protestors]."

From Amitava Sanyal's write-up in Hindustan Times. More Here. and Here

Lessons from Egypt for the Islamists in India..!

Obama's bagman in Egypt

Could our Jantar Mantar become our Tahrir Square?

'Denial of Power to Islamists is the root cause for Egypt crisis' : Ayed bin Abdullah Al-Qarni

Popular Saudi author and religious scholar Ayed bin Abdullah Al-Qarni says the current ferment in the Arab world can be traced to the denial of power to Islamists in the past. Only Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states have been the exception where Shariah or Islamic law became the constitution.

Writing in Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Ayed bin Abdullah Al-Qarni said that in Egypt, a revolution for change took place in 1952, championing reform and an adherence to post-monarchical values, whereas the Egyptian people actually wanted Islam as their means of reform, as advocated by Muhammad Abduh and Jamaluddin Afghani.

When the Free Officers assumed power in 1952, they cast Islam aside, denounced the Shariah and ruled according to a constitution derived from French and English law.

In Yemen, Islamic scholars, judges, and intellectuals such as Al-Zubayri, Ibn Al-Numan, Al-Kibsi and others, staged a revolution in 1962. Al-Qarni said they were putting forth the Islamic project against the Yemeni imamate. However, Abdullah Al-Sallal, a former student of Abdel Nasser, hijacked the Yemeni revolution along with the military. Again, they cast Islam aside, objected to Shariah law and ruled in accordance with a set of legislation derived from various dubious sources.

The Algerians staged their glorious revolution against French colonialism, under the leadership of great Islamic scholars such as Abdel Hamid Ben Badis, Lakhdar Brahimi, and others — all carrying the spirit of Islam. Al-Qarni noted that when Algeria achieved independence, it was governed by a socialist, Western-orientated regime, which deprived the Algerian Muslim people of their ambitions and aspirations for Islamic rule. “The Algerian people are Muslims; Islam is inherent to the Arab nature,” Al-Qarni said.

In Sudan, the Mahdi reformist revolution took place advocating a project of Islamic renaissance. When English colonialism was ousted, military figures assumed power, although they knew nothing about Islam. Hence, they rejected the Shariah and imposed a foreign, Western-oriented constitution.

In Libya, the descendants and followers of the martyred freedom fighter, Omar Mukhtar, were eager to raise the banner of Islam during the 1969 revolution. However, the Libyan people were surprised when this movement was hijacked by a government that discounted the Shariah and usurped freedom.

In Iraq and Syria, Al-Qarni said the people were 100 percent Muslim, and they led their struggle and revolution against French and English colonialism under the banner of Islam. However, when the Baath Party assumed power in both countries, its first move was to denounce Shariah and marginalize Islam.

Regarding revolutions in the Middle East, Al-Qarni said no one has adhered to Islam, its rule, doctrine and approach, except King Abdul Aziz when he led the revolution in the Arabian Peninsula. He was revolting against delusion, heresy, division, dispute, looting and robbery. His first announcement was that Saudi Arabia was an Islamic state, which would be governed according to the Qur’an and Sunnah. He wrote on its flag: “There is no god other than God, and Muhammad is His Messenger.”

Al-Qarni says this is not hypocrisy or flattery, but it is a fact to which historians, Western or otherwise, have testified. Such historians include Muhammad Jalal Kishk, author of “The Saudis and the Islamic Solution.”

He is an impartial writer who wrote the book from a neutral standpoint supporting it with documents and evidence. Another example would be the late Austrian Muslim, Muhammad Asad, who mentioned in his book “The Road to Mecca” that he had met King Abdul Aziz. According to Asad, all that King Abdul Aziz spoke about during their meeting was Islam and his pride in the religion.

The Tunisian people are Sunni Muslims who follow the Maliki school. Their land is the home of great heroes and conquerors such as Uqba bin Nafi, Ibn Khaldun and Al-Tahir bin Ashur. It is also the land of great seats of learning such as Al-Zaytuna and Al-Qayrawan. The majority of Tunisian people want Islam as their source of governance. However, the followers of some left-wing parties considered themselves to be worthier of running the country than anyone else and thus tried to remove Islam from Tunisian life. "This was yet another example of a revolution being hijacked in the same manner as previous Arab republics," said Al-Qarni.

More Here and here. and here.

It's not radical Islam that worries the US – it's independence

It's not radical Islam that worries the US – it's independence. The nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains.

"The Arab world is on fire," al-Jazeera reported last week, while throughout the region, western allies "are quickly losing their influence". The shock wave was set in motion by the dramatic uprising in Tunisia that drove out a western-backed dictator, with reverberations especially in Egypt, where demonstrators overwhelmed a dictator's brutal police.
Observers compared it to the toppling of Russian domains in 1989, but there are important differences. Crucially, no Mikhail Gorbachev exists among the great powers that support the Arab dictators. Rather, Washington and its allies keep to the well-established principle that democracy is acceptable only insofar as it conforms to strategic and economic objectives: fine in enemy territory (up to a point), but not in our backyard, please, unless properly tamed.
One 1989 comparison has some validity: Romania, where Washington maintained its support for Nicolae Ceausescu, the most vicious of the east European dictators, until the allegiance became untenable. Then Washington hailed his overthrow while the past was erased. That is a standard pattern: Ferdinand Marcos, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Chun Doo-hwan, Suharto and many other useful gangsters. It may be under way in the case of Hosni Mubarak, along with routine efforts to try to ensure a successor regime will not veer far from the approved path. The current hope appears to be Mubarak loyalist General Omar Suleiman, just named Egypt's vice-president. Suleiman, the longtime head of the intelligence services, is despised by the rebelling public almost as much as the dictator himself.
A common refrain among pundits is that fear of radical Islam requires (reluctant) opposition to democracy on pragmatic grounds. While not without some merit, the formulation is misleading. The general threat has always been independence. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.
A familiar example is Saudi Arabia, the ideological centre of radical Islam (and of Islamic terror). Another in a long list is Zia ul-Haq, the most brutal of Pakistan's dictators and President Reagan's favorite, who carried out a programme of radical Islamisation (with Saudi funding).
"The traditional argument put forward in and out of the Arab world is that there is nothing wrong, everything is under control," says Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian official and now director of Middle East research for the Carnegie Endowment. "With this line of thinking, entrenched forces argue that opponents and outsiders calling for reform are exaggerating the conditions on the ground."
Therefore the public can be dismissed. The doctrine traces far back and generalises worldwide, to US home territory as well. In the event of unrest, tactical shifts may be necessary, but always with an eye to reasserting control.
Noam Chomsky in The Guardian. More Here

Muslim Brotherhood is not a radical movement

To help explain the thrilling developments in Egypt, Farooq Sulehria interviewed leading Arab scholar-activist Gilbert Achcar on February 4.

Do you think that Mubarak's pledge on February 1st not to contest the next election represented a victory for the movement, or was it just a trick to calm down the masses as on the very next day demonstrators in Al-Tahrir Square were brutally attacked by pro-Mubarak forces?

The Egyptian popular anti-regime uprising reached a first peak on February 1st, prodding Mubarak to announce concessions in the evening. It was an acknowledgement of the force of the popular protest and a clear retreat on the autocrat's part, coming on top of the announcement of the government's willingness to negotiate with the opposition. These were significant concessions indeed coming from such an authoritarian regime, and a testimony to the importance of the popular mobilisation. Mubarak even pledged to speed up ongoing judicial actions against fraud perpetrated during the previous parliamentary elections.

He made it clear, however, that he was not willing to go beyond that. With the army firmly on his side, he was trying to appease the mass movement, as well as the Western powers that were urging him to reform the political system. Short of resignation, he granted some of the key demands that the Egyptian protest movement had formulated initially, when it launched its campaign on January 25. However, the movement has radicalized since that day to a point where anything short of Mubarak's resignation won't be enough to satisfy it, with many in the movement even demanding that he gets tried in court.

Moreover, all the regime's key institutions are now denounced by the movement as illegitimate––the executive as well as the legislative, i.e. the parliament. As a result, part of the opposition is demanding that the head of the constitutional court be appointed as interim president, to preside over the election of a constituent assembly. Others even want a national committee of opposition forces to supervise the transition. Of course, these demands constitute a radical democratic perspective. In order to impose such a thorough change, the mass movement would need to break or destabilise the regime's backbone, that is the Egyptian army.

Do you mean that the Egyptian army is backing Mubarak?

Egypt––even more than comparable countries such as Pakistan or Turkey––is in essence a military dictatorship with a civilian façade that is itself stuffed with men originating in the military. The problem is that most of the Egyptian opposition, starting with the Muslim Brotherhood, have been sowing illusions about the army and its purported "neutrality," if not "benevolence." They have been depicting the army as an honest broker, while the truth is that the army as an institution is not "neutral" at all. If it has not been used yet to repress the movement, it is only because Mubarak and the general staff did not see it appropriate to resort to such a move, probably because they fear that the soldiers would be reluctant to carry out a repression. That is why the regime resorted instead to orchestrating counter-demonstrations and attacks by thugs on the protest movement. The regime tried to set up a semblance of civil strife, showing Egypt as torn apart between two camps, thus creating a justification for the army's intervention as the "arbiter" of the situation.

If the regime managed to mobilise a significant counter-movement and provoke clashes on a larger scale, the army could step in, saying: "Game over, everybody must go home now," while promising that the pledges made by Mubarak would be implemented. Like many observers, I feared these last two days that this stratagem might succeed in weakening the protest movement, but the huge mobilization of today's "day of departure" is reassuring. The army will need to make further and more significant concessions to the popular uprising.

When you talk of the opposition, what forces does it include? Of course, we hear about the Muslim Brotherhood and El Baradei. Are there are other players too like left wing forces, trade unions, etc?

The Egyptian opposition includes a vast array of forces. There are parties like the Wafd, which are legal parties and constitute what may be called the liberal opposition. Then there is a grey zone occupied by the Muslim Brotherhood. It does not have a legal status but is tolerated by the regime. Its whole structure is visible; it is not an underground force. The Muslim Brotherhood is certainly, and by far, the largest force in the opposition. When Mubarak's regime, under US pressure, granted some space to the opposition in the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood––running as "independents"––managed to get 88 MPs, i.e. 20 percent of the parliamentary seats, despite all obstacles. In the last elections held last November and December, after the Mubarak regime had decided to close down the limited space that it had opened in 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood almost vanished from parliament, losing all its seats but one.

Among the forces on the left, the largest is the Tagammu party, which enjoys a legal status and has 5 MPs. It refers to the Nasserite legacy. Communists have been prominent within its ranks. It is basically a reformist left party, which is not considered a threat to the regime. On the contrary, it has been quite compliant with it on several occasions. There are also leftwing Nasserite and radical left groups in Egypt––small but vibrant, and very much involved in the mass movement.

Then there are "civil society" movements, like Kefaya, a coalition of activists from various opposition forces initiated in solidarity with the Second Palestinian Intifada in 2000. It opposed the invasion of Iraq later on, and became famous afterwards as a democratic campaign movement against Mubarak's regime. From 2006 to 2009, Egypt saw the unfolding of a wave of industrial actions, including a few impressively massive workers strikes. There are no independent workers unions in Egypt, with one or two very recent exceptions born as a result of the social radicalisation. The bulk of the working class does not have the benefit of autonomous representation and organization. An attempt at convening a general strike on April 6, 2008 in solidarity with the workers led to the creation of the April 6 Youth Movement. Associations like this one and Kefaya are campaign-focused groups, not political parties, and they include people of different political affiliations along with unaffiliated activists.

When Mohamed El Baradei returned to Egypt in 2009 after his third term at the head of the IAEA, his personal prestige enhanced by the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, a liberal and left coalition gathered around him, with the Muslim Brotherhood adopting a lukewarm reserved position. Many in the opposition saw El Baradei as a powerful candidate enjoying international reputation and connections, and constituting therefore a credible presidential candidate against Mubarak or his son. El Baradei thus became a rallying figure for a large section of the opposition, regrouping political forces as well as personalities. They formed the National Association for Change.

This whole array of forces is very much involved in the present uprising. However, the overwhelming majority of the people on the streets are without any sort of political affiliation. It is a huge mass outpouring of resentment at living under a despotic regime, fed by worsening economic conditions, as prices of basic necessities, like food, fuel, and electricity, have been sharply on the rise amid staggering joblessness. This is the case not only in Egypt but in most of the region as well, and that is why the fire of revolt that started in Tunisia spread so quickly to many Arab countries.

Is El Baradei genuinely popular, or is he in some way the Mir-Hossein Mousavi of the Egyptian movement, trying to change some faces while preserving the regime?

I would disagree with this characterisation of Mousavi in the first place. To be sure, Mir-Hossein Mousavi did not want to "change the regime" if one mean by that a social revolution. But there was definitely a clash between authoritarian social forces, spearheaded by the Pasdaran and represented by Ahmedinejad, and others coalesced around a liberal reformist perspective represented by Mousavi. It was indeed a clash about the kind of "regime" in the sense of the pattern of political rule.

Mohamed El Baradei is a genuine liberal who wishes his country to move from the present dictatorship to a liberal democratic regime, with free elections and political freedoms. If such a vast array of political forces is willing to cooperate with him, it is because they see in him the most credible liberal alternative to the existing regime, a man who does not command an organised constituency of his own, and is therefore an appropriate figurehead for a democratic change.

Going back to your analogy, you can't compare him with Mousavi who was a member of the Iranian regime, one of the men who led the 1979 Islamic revolution. Mousavi had his own followers in Iran, before he emerged as the leader of the 2009 mass protest movement. In Egypt, El Baradei cannot play, and does not pretend to play a similar role. He is supported by a vast array of forces, but none of them see him as its leader.

The Muslim Brotherhood's initial reserved attitude towards El Baradei is partly related to the fact that he does not have a religious bent and is too secular for their taste. Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood had cultivated an ambiguous relationship with the regime over the years. Had they fully backed El Baradei, they would have narrowed their margin of negotiation with the Mubarak regime, with which they have been bargaining for quite a long time. The regime conceded a lot to them in the socio-cultural sphere, increasing  Islamic censorship in the cultural field being but one example. That was the easiest thing the regime could do to appease the Brotherhood. As a result, Egypt made huge steps backward from the secularisation that was consolidated under Gamal Abdul-Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Muslim Brotherhood's goal is to secure a democratic change that would grant them the possibility to take part in free elections, both parliamentary and presidential. The model they aspire to reproduce in Egypt is that of Turkey, where the democratisation process was controlled by the military with the army remaining a key pillar of the political system. This process nonetheless created a space which allowed the AKP, an Islamic conservative party, to win elections. They are not bent on overthrowing the state, hence their courting of the military and their care to avoid any gesture that could antagonize the army. They adhere to a strategy of gradual conquest of power: they are gradualists, not radicals.

From Gilbert Achcar's Zspace page. More Here

Obama's bagman in Egypt

From inside the bowels of Washington's power elite, Frank Wisner emerges, briefcase in hand. He has met the President, but he is not his envoy. He represents the United States, but is not the Ambassador. What is in his briefcase is his experience: it includes his long career as bagman of Empire, and as bucket-boy for Capital. Pulling himself away from the Georgetown cocktail parties and the Langley Power-point briefings, Wisner finds his way to the Heliopolis cocktail parties and to the hushed conferences in Kasr al-Ittihadiya. Mubarak (age 82) greets Wisner (age 72), as these elders confer on the way forward for a country whose majority is under thirty.

Obama came to Cairo in 2009, and said, "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone." Those words should have been cast in gold and placed in the portico of the White House. Instead, they drift like wisps in the wind, occasionally sighted for propaganda purposes, but in a time of crisis, hidden behind the clouds of imperial interests (or those of Tel Aviv). America presumes to know, and presumes to have a say equivalent to those of the millions who have thronged Egypt's squares, streets and television sets (one forgets about the protests of the latter, too tired to get to the square, nursing sick children or adults, a bit fearful, but no less given over to anger at the regime).

The Republicans have their own ghouls, people like James Baker, who are plucked out for tasks that require the greatest delicacy. They are like diplomatic hit-men, who are not sown up by too much belief in the values of democracy and freedom, but to the imperatives of "stability" and Empire. The Democratic bench is lighter now, as the immense bulk of Richard Holbrooke has departed for other diplomatic assignments. He had been given charge of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he found little traction. The Taliban could not be cowered, and nor would the Pakistani military. Holbrooke had much easier times in the Balkans, where, according to Diana Johnstone, he instigated the conflict by refusing the road of peace. Wisner comes out of the same nest as Holbrooke. He is the Democrat's version of James Baker, but without the pretend gravity of the Texan.

Wisner has a long lineage in the CIA family. His father, Frank Sr., helped overthrow Arbenz of Guatemala (1954) and Mossadeq of Iran (1953), before he was undone in mysterious circumstances in 1965. Frank Jr. is well known around Langley, with a career in the Defense and State Departments along with ambassadorial service in Egypt, the Philippines, and then India. In each of these places Wisner insinuated himself into the social and military branches of the power elite. He became their spokesperson. Wisner and Mubarak became close friends when he was in country (1986-1991), and many credit this friendship (and military aid) with Egypt's support of the US in the 1991 Gulf War. Not once did the US provide a criticism of Egypt's human rights record. As Human Rights Watch put it, the George H. W. Bush regime "refrained from any public expression of concern about human rights violations in Egypt." Instead, military aid increased, and the torture system continued. The moral turpitude (bad guys, aka the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy advocates need to be tortured) and the torture apparatus set up the system for the regime followed by Bush's son, George W. after 911, with the extraordinary rendition programs to these very Egyptian prisons. Wisner might be considered the architect of the framework for this policy.

Wisner remained loyal to Mubarak. In 2005, he celebrated the Egyptian (s)election (Mubarak "won" with 88.6% of the vote). It was a "historic day" he said, and went further, "There were no instances of repression; there wasn't heavy police presence on the streets. The atmosphere was not one of police intimidation." This is quite the opposite of what came out from election observers, human rights organizations and bloggers such as Karee Suleiman and Hossam el-Hamalawy. The Democratic and Republican ghouls came together in the James Baker Institute's working group on the Middle East. Wisner joined the Baker Institute's head Edward Djerejian and others to produce a report in 2003 that offers us a tasty statement, "Achieving security and stability in the Middle East will be made more difficult by the fact that short-term necessities will seem to contradict long-term goals." If the long-term goal is Democracy, then that is all very well because it has to be sacrificed to the short-term, namely support for the kind of Pharonic State embodied by Mubarak. Nothing more is on offer. No wonder that a "Washington Middle East hand" told The Cable, "[Wisner's] the exact wrong person to send. He is an apologist for Mubarak." But this is a wrong view. Wisner is just the exact person to send to protect the short-term, and so only-term, interests of Washington. The long-term has been set aside.

One wonders at the tenor of the official cables coming from Cairo to Washington. Ambassador Margaret Scobey, a career official, has been once more sidelined. The first time was over rendition. She is known to have opposed the tenor of it, and had spoken on behalf of Ayman Nour and others. This time Obama did an end run around her, sending Wisner. Scobey went to visit El-Baradei. Similar treatment was meted out to Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad. Her brief was narrowed by Holbrooke's appointment. What must these women in senior places think, that when a crisis erupts, they are set-aside for the men of Washington?

Wisner urged Mubarak to concede. It is not enough. More is being asked for. Today, Mubarak's supporters have come out with bats in hand, ready for a fight. This has probably also been sanctioned in that private meeting. It is what one expects of Empire's bagman.

From Vijay Prashad's analysis in Counter punch. More Here 
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