By John Ballard
Continuing this morning with minimal blogging, a collection of pertinent links about events in Cairo and related subjects. I suppose this is "live blogging."
?Al Jazeera is launching a marketing effort to get on the menus of American cable and satelite providers.
I am enthusiastically in favor of such a move, having been impressed for years with the quality of that network's coverage. They are giving the story of the Egyptian uprising nearly undivided attention, with wide-ranging variety of input and interviews from just about anyone of any political pursuasion able to speakEnglish. Via Internet meetups are being planned for February 10, Thursday next.
?We Are All Egyptians by Nicholas Kristoff, NY Times. "Mr. Mubarak has disgraced the twilight of his presidency. His government appears to have unleashed a brutal crackdown � hunting down human rights activists, journalists and, of course, demonstrators themselves, all while trying to block citizens from Tahrir Square."
?Tweet -- Al-Jazeera Saying that Sheikh El #Azhar has resigned and is joining Tahrir. This news seems to be stirring excitement. Background links from last year (2010) HERE, HERE, & HERE. Someday Google should be nominated for a Nobel Prize of some kind.
?Egypt set for 'final push' protests -- Al Jajeera -- Protesters on Friday prepared for big demonstrations to mark the "Day of departure" for the beleaguered president. � The developments come as the New York Times reports, quoting US officials and Arab diplomats, that the US administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for Mubarak to resign immediately and hand over power to a transitional government headed by Omar Suleiman, the newly appointed vice-president.
As I write, narrators on Al Jajeera are describing the scene in Tahrir Square as "the calm before the storm." Today has been tagged The Day of Departure, referring to the moment when Mubarak is expected to leave the country or the office of the presidency. "Today is the final day for Mubarak. It's time for him to go." Prayers will continue for fifteen minutews or so, after which a march will begin. Some will likely remain behind to defend the square, and the rest will proceed to the palace to demand Mubarak's departure. I can feel the tension half a world away.
?David Remnick in The New Yorker, Judgment Days (H/T Arabist) The unsayable thing in contemporary domestic politics is that American influence in the world is neither limitless nor pure.
Reading this will have to wait until later. The square is now exploding with cheers, chants and "cacophony" (the announcer's word.)
?Go here for live tweets from Egypt. Don't get behind. By the time you read down the scroll there may be dozens of new messages waiting to hit the monitor.
?Al Jazeera live feed link here. Pictures are not as interesting as the running English narrative. Anyone who wants to call this reporting propoganda is either deaf, blind, dull-witted or all three.
?Egypt: Obama, audacity beckons, once again by Abiye Teklemariam and Janice Winter
There is no doubt that dictators all over the world are carefully studying the feasibility of the Egyptian playbook. In the past, these regimes crush people-power protests either by acting ruthlessly before a protest becomes sequential, or by massacring marchers if the response comes late. What demonstrators in Cairo are encountering is a different scenario. Caught by surprise, the regime was not ready for a swift and decisive crackdown at the first stages of the protest. It took at least five days before it regrouped. By that time, the protests had already snowballed. But instead of a Hungary 1957 or a Tiananmen, what we are seeing as a response is a mixture of facade concession, diversionary propaganda and chaos to divide the protesters, and heart-wrenching mob attacks to scare them. If indeed this well-crafted strategy works, Mubarak will go down into history as revolutionising regime responses to popular protests. When army officers dither or opportunists contemplate jumping ship in the face of street action, dictators will flag the Egyptian experience to convince them that even late reactions can be successful without pyrrhic costs. Outlast them, beat them.
?Sandmonkey reports from the scene in a sequence of Tweets -- The Gom3a Prayer emphasizes that all people there are muslims and christian together, not represented by a party nor clique. // The army has declared that if a bullet got fired there it will be his responsbility & that he won't allow it. we will see.//This is powerful, but will surely be used as propaganda by the regime to claim that they are letting people protest in peace.//If this doesn't touch all the people on the fence in their hearts, then they don't have one.//This is the first time the National Anthem makes me feel so emotional.//Xenophobia: �noun/ an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.//The Army and the Police are playing Good Cop/Bad Cop with the egyptian people on a very high level. emotional manipulation, defined.//Tahrir Square is hosting the biggest freedom festival this planet has ever scene!//I wonder if his next move is to leave Tahrir alone, & leave people there, & as they dwindle due to life he will shut it down slowly.//What's in Tahrir right now is the best kind of escalation required from the protesters. They responded to the regime magnificently.//Tahrir is bursting to its seams from people, and thousands more coming. They could end up filling the area until the 6 October bridge//And if they get all the way there, they could start their march to the presidential palace. This will get unpredictable fast.//Food and drinks are being shipped in at a big rate. The Protesters are set to go for a bit. The support is huge.
With reluctance I now leave the keyboard for an assignment.
What happens next, no matter how events unfold, will be historic.
My remarks and observations as an old man blogging in retirement will vanish like footprints in sand, washed away by the waves.
But the impact of these events will reverberate for many years to come.
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