I really appreciate the mothership and people who have kept it up. What I don't appreciate are the people who have taken these incredibly historic and inspiring events, which are about the people in Egypt coming together in an unprecedented way to demand democracy, as further proof to themselves that Obama can do no wrong or can do no right, and that this shows they have been right all along about xxx or xxx or xxx.
This does an injustice to the historical nature of what's going on, and makes many of us waste our time wading through a bunch of muck in order to find useful conversations and updates.
So, what I would like to do here is take it back to the people. I've come across some interesting information on the people's movement today, as well as some opinions on how the U.S. is handling this from people who know what they are talking about because they are ON THE GROUND in the crowds, or have been studying this for years.
I give credit to The Field for leading me to this great Wall Street Journal article about this movement.
These protests weren't spontaneous or acephelous. They had roots going back to the beginning of the dictatorship, and were planned. Some really intelligent organizers came together to outsmart the Ministry of the Interior.
The Movement
The protests were planned by a Youth Revolutionary Movement, but other groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are also involved. Hysterical assumptions about the role of the latter group are inaccurate.
The organizers wanted to replicate the success in Tunisia, but had to be very careful. While they depended on the Internet initially, the success of this revolutionary movement depended on including classes of people coming into the streets who have no access to Facebook or Twitter.
Their immediate concern was how to foil the Ministry of Interior, whose legions of riot police had contained and quashed protests for years. The police were expert at preventing demonstrations from growing or moving through the streets, and at keeping ordinary Egyptians away.
...snip....
They chose 20 protest sites, usually connected to mosques, in densely populated working-class neighborhoods around Cairo.
...snip...
The group publicly called for protests at those sites for Jan. 25, a national holiday celebrating the country's widely reviled police force. They announced the sites of the demonstrations on the Internet and called for protests to begin at each one after prayers at about 2 p.m.
But that wasn't all.
"The 21st site, no one knew about," Mr. Kamel said.
...snip...
The plotters say they knew that the demonstrations' success would depend on the participation of ordinary Egyptians in working-class districts like this one, where the Internet and Facebook aren't as widely used. They distributed fliers around the city in the days leading up to the demonstration, concentrating efforts on Bulaq al-Dakrour.
...snip...
On Jan. 25, security forces predictably deployed by the thousands at each of the announced demonstration sites. Meanwhile, four field commanders chosen from the organizers' committee began dispatching activists in cells of 10. To boost secrecy, only one person per cell knew their destination.
In these small groups, the protesters advanced toward the Hayiss Sweet Shop, massing into a crowd of 300 demonstrators free from police control. The lack of security prompted neighborhood residents to stream by the hundreds out of the neighborhood's cramped alleyways, swelling the crowd into the thousands, say sweet-shop employees who watched the scene unfold.
...snip...
It was the first time Egyptians had seen such a demonstration in their streets, and it provided a spark credited with emboldening tens of thousands of people to come out to protest the following Friday. On Jan. 28, they seized Tahrir Square again. They have stayed there since.
If you have time, here's a great Al Jazeera report on the organizing.
So, this is how so many thousands of Egyptians came to demonstrate...it started like this and more and more people joined in.
Mubarak's speech today was more than tone deaf. It was arrogant and out of touch, as were the VP's comments later on. The people were yelling and starting to wave their shoes even before he finished, obviously not buying into this dinosaur dictator's egotistical and condescending bs.
So, what's next?
They certainly are not going home. They are certainly not going to stop watching satellite TV.
They want democracy.
What I have learned from experience with people from around the world is so many people really hold the U.S. is a beacon of democracy, even if many of us don't. So, this week it has been no surprise that the protesters were expecting more words of support than they got from President Obama.
Judging from Mubarak's comments today, I would guess that there has been some rather significant behind-the-scenes pressure from the U.S. and other countries, in addition to the cautious public remarks. However, I have also found the Administration lacking here.
Nick Kristof is on the ground right now. He's been making some very interesting observations on his blog and Facebook page. Here's what he thinks about the U.S. position, or lack thereof, from a blog post called The Pharaoh Refuses To Go:
Another question: what should the United States do? At the end of the day, Washington has relatively little influence, but its messaging will be hugely important. And the flaw with our messaging has been that we’ve been too wishy-washy, and we’ve been perceived as supporting a slow and gradual transition under Suleiman — rather than siding with democracy. I hope that we will speak out more clearly (and Obama’s speech today was a step in that direction) to show respect for popular aspirations and against any kind of crackdown. One of the big questions in the next 48 hours is whether the authorities will crack down — and we should always be very clearly on the record against any use of violence.
A crackdown would be horrible.
Here's another view from the Guardian UK
The administration has shifted from solidly supporting Mubarak, to a few days later suggesting he should go now, only to back him at the weekend to remain in office until the autumn – a decision that secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, reversed hours later when she threw US support behind Suleiman.
Speaking earlier in Michigan, Obama had sought to align the US belatedly with the young demonstrators of Tahrir Square, acknowledging their role in the uprising.
His words seemed to pave the way for Mubarak to go, but, as throughout the crisis, they were ambiguous enough to be open to various interpretations. The US president can now say he was only speaking generally about the Egyptian crisis.
"What is absolutely clear is that we are witnessing history unfolding," he said. "It's a moment of transformation that's taking place because the people of Egypt are calling for change."
Wishy washy, vacillating. That was then. If there is a crackdown the U.S. is going to have to come down very decisively on the side of the protesters.
Here are a couple of more opinions cited in that article:
Robert Springborg, professor of national security affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School, described Mubarak's refusal to leave as "an enormously provocative step". He told Reuters: "There are desperate men, willing to gamble the fate of the nation for their own personal interest. It's a very sad historic moment for Egypt. The speeches tonight are not intended to bring an end to the crisis in a peaceful way but to inflame the situation so there is justification for the imposition of direct military rule. They are risking not only the coherence of the military but even indeed, and I use this term with advisement here, civil war."
Stephen Grand, a Middle East specialist at Washington's Brookings Institution, said the US must "use all of its leverage to get Mubarak to recognize that he needs to leave" and cast doubt on Suleiman's leadership. "We need to help the Egyptians find a mechanism for a credible transition," Grand said. "Omar Suleiman has shown that he's not a credible figure."
The Egyptian Military
I've also seen various comments on the military. Here, Kristof also provides useful commentary:
One crucial question is what the military does next. It is sending signals of impatience, and there are hints that a coup could come. Senior generals have a huge stake in continuing the existing system, and at this point Mubarak is becoming an obstacle to their retaining their privileges. But in an Egyptian context, what would a coup mean? Mubarak’s regime is a largely military one (in civilian clothes): Mubarak, Vice President Omar Suleiman and so many others — including nearly all the governors — are career military men. So if the military now takes over, how different will the system be?
..snip...
To me, this speech is a reminder of how entrenched the powers that be are in Egypt. They have their entire way of life — and billions of dollars — at risk, and they’re not going to go easily. My hunch is that at some point they’ll throw Mubarak overboard, but even then they may then seek to maintain Mubarakism without Mubarak. This could get uglier. It will certainly be historic.
Militaries around the world, especially in Latin America, have the reputation for supporting State actors over the people. While there have been several reports of the military enabling the repression of the protesters, aside from what the police are doing, the people tend not to see the Egyptian military the way we would.
This was an important fact that I was hearing from the Egyptian protesters as they were being interviewed this week. Not only did they strategically decide to embrace the military's presence among them, people in general tend to think the military is on their side. These are the times when it's especially important to turn off our ethnocentrism if we are truly to understand what's going on in Egypt.
Here's a scene from NarcoNews School of Authentic Journalism last year. The student, Noha, is an Egyptian journalist.
A couple of North American participants in that gathering raised what they thought was the “most important issue” for Egyptians: “What about the Army? It helped the CIA imprison and torture people after 9/11.” I stepped in and replied in a voice heavily laced with sarcasm, “That’s right Noha! It’s not enough that you have taken on the entire national police! The sacrifices you have made are insufficient! You’re not politically correct unless you also take on the entire Armed Forces too!” Noha, as I’ve learned is her nature, responded soft-spokenly to the question about the Egyptian Army. She said, “In Egypt the police are our repressors, but the Army is of the people and is the people’s friend.” That was in February of 2010, and her statement left a number of our participants from the Western Hemisphere – where Armed Forces have historically been the worst repressors against popular movements – scratching their heads, unable to comprehend such a statement.
The truth is probably that there is a combination of things going on in the military right now. But as far as the perception of the people on the streets goes, the military is on their side, no matter what the reality is. And relative to the police, it IS on their side. That is politically important right now.
The only thing I am 100% sure of is that the next 48 hours are going to be decisive, and probably very dangerous.