Egyptian Spring -- Wael Ghoneim & Other Links

Kat's Catches and a couple from John

?Egyptian regime 'amazed, taken by surprise'
Jonathan Wright's short note.

Wael said he has blindfolded and held incommunicado for 12 days. State Security didn't even inform his family that he was alive and in their hands. He broke down in tears at the end of the interview when the TV station screened photographs of some of the young people killed by riot police and by thigs during the protests.

?Wael Ghoneim/Love letter to Egypt
from Sara Carr's blog

The day before yesterday I was standing on the wall which runs the perimeter of Tahrir�s grassy island watching men sing and dance. It was a tight squeeze and I was standing dead close to a middle-aged lady clapping and singing. She tapped me on the shoulder, I thought she wanted to say something to me so I leant over. She kissed me on the cheek and went back to watching.

?Back to Egypt An Alexandrian, in search of lost time. by Andre Aciman
in Newsweek

Egypt was my birthplace, but in name only. I grew up in Egypt, I went to school in Egypt, my first crush was in Egypt. But my family was not Egyptian. We did not speak Arabic, and those of us who did spoke it poorly. I studied Arabic for eight years, but it took a few months in Europe for me to forget all the classical Arabic that was drummed�and often beaten�into me.

I am a Jew born into a Turkish family in Egypt. But I am not Turkish. I was sent to British schools in Egypt, but I am not British. My family became Italian, and I learned to speak Italian, but my mother tongue is French. For years as a child I was under the misguided notion that I was a French boy who, like almost everyone else I knew in Egypt, would soon be moving back to France. �Back� to France was a paradox, since virtually no one in my immediate family was French or had ever even set foot in France. But France was my soul home, my imaginary home, and will remain so all my life, even if not a single ounce of me is French.

 
?Freed cyber activist lauds protests Google executive Wael Ghonim speaks after release from Egyptian custody, sparking outpouring of support from protesters.
The Al Jazeera snip with a half-minute video worth linking and watching.

?"Israel preferred Suleiman as Mubarak's successor"
WikiLeaks: Defense Ministry official tells US that if Egyptian president's dies, "Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Suleiman."
Jerulasem Post article.
Ham-fisted politicians understand one another. It takes one to know one.

?2009 cable tells of Mubarak resisting U.S. calls for reform
Washington Post -- Is anyone surprised?

?Wrongly choosing Egypt's generals over the democrats
WaPo editorial.
Now they've stopped reporting and gone to meddling. So where have they been for the last three decades?

?Third week of protests begins in Cairo
The CNN collection of videos and slideshow. This is where I got the picture of the painted faces.

?Egypt: Mubarak's pay ploy to stay in power
The Scotsman

Egypt's embattled regime tried another ploy to hang on to power yesterday, awarding a 15 per cent pay rise to government employees in an attempt to shore up its support base.

?Despite retreats, Egypt regime's core stands firm
Bloomberg's article.

"I've gone for days without going to work. What more do they want? They want Mubarak to go, fine, he's going. But he has to stay for now," said an unidentified man interviewed on state TV. "I haven't been able to even see my mother because of the disruptions."

Reminds me of Tony I-want-my-life-back Hayward. This is a replay of the  Harry & Louise ads resisting medical reforms seventeen years ago. Manipulation this subtle comes from years of practice and the patience of a spider waiting at the edge of his web. Does Joe the Plumber talk Arabic?

?Media figures demand resignation of Egyptian minister of information
This is interesting, not because of the content but the source. Al Ahram is the Saudi-owned news network which is far more circumspect than Qatar's wide open Al Jazeera. AJ was already ahead of Ahram when events of the last two months began, so this may indicate a timid attempt on the part of Ahram to get with the program. I just love it when autocrats start squirming. Is the naivete of Egypt's ruling class becoming transparent even to their closest allies? Mona Altahawy's tweet keeps playing in the background.

BTW, she was on PBS News hour last night.  Check this out.

She appeared with Bill Maher last week with both of them dropping the F-bomb left and right. (The video may have been pulled, but I haven't looked. 
And yes, she also blogs.
I could get a crush on this woman.