Shit Has Gotten Real in Egypt

So, as I've been hearing/reading, the people of Egypt are calling for the ouster of Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak.

Quote :

Violence escalated in two cites outside the capital Cairo Thursday where anti-government protesters torched a fire station and looted weapons that they then turned on police. Egypt's top democracy advocate returned to the country and declared he was ready to lead the campaign to oust longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

Link

And then of course there's this shit:

Quote :

After cutting access to social-networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as BlackBerry Internet Service, officials in Egypt have now reportedly cut off all access to the Internet in the country.

"Every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world," James Cowie, chief technology officer at Internet monitoring firm Renesys, wrote in a blog post.

So anyway, what I know about the situation is minimal at best and I was wondering the thoughts of WGW. Anyone know any more about this? Care to inform me?

Dammit I was just about to post this.

The Guardian has a truly excellent set of live updates going on—and, of course, Al Jazeera's extensive coverage is well worth reading. (And both are probably a sight better than Yahoo.)

As to what I know (and this is all on the Guardian and Al Jazeera, but here's for the link-phobic)—there have been rumours that the Nobel Peace laureate ElBaradei, who had stated he'd be willing to lead the country through a "transition," has been arrested—though other reports merely claim that there's a "restriction on his movements." The government has imposed a curfew but nobody's following it even though the the air is practically opaque with tear gas, and the army has come in, but it's unclear whose side they're on so far. The government has claimed they called them in to help impose the curfew, but people have been cheering them for a while to no negative reaction.

Oh, yeah. And all reports are in agreement that basically all incidents of violence were started by the police. There have been numerous incidents of protesters chanting "we are peaceful" and immediately getting gassed and shot with rubber bullets. In at least one area where the police gave up (I think this was in Alexandria), protesters gave them water. There have been several instances of protesters trying to get the police to join them.

Honestly, I find this all oddly heartening. After all those protests in the UK over student fees amounted to exactly nothing, it's good to know the People can make themselves heard after all. Some of them, anyway. I just wish there were protests like that in the US over the sorry state of democracy.

I've been glued to the live coverage on Al Jazeera this afternoon. At the moment there's gunshots and explosions. I hope it's not live ammo. The government called in the army.

It's a very interesting movement, because it appears to be a completely leaderless bunch of people who have finally had enough of crap from their dictator. I wish them the best of luck.

Also, this just in from the Associated Press:

Quote :

An Associated Press reporter saw the protesters cheering the police who joined them and hoisting them on their shoulders in one of the many dramatic and chaotic scenes across Egypt on Friday. After chasing the police, thousands of protesters were able to flood into the huge Tahrir Square downtown after being kept out most of the day by a very heavy police presence. Few police could be seen around the square after the confrontation.

Well that's hopeful.

Quote :

Violence escalated in two cites outside the capital Cairo Thursday where anti-government protesters torched a fire station and looted weapons that they then turned on police.

Quote :

Violence escalated in two cites outside the capital Cairo Thursday where anti-government protesters torched a fire station

Quote :

protesters torched a fire station

>mfw Egypt

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And you just know Khadafy's got to be sweating bullets over this...what we're seeing right now in Cairo, and what happened last week in Tunisia, could easily repeat itself in Libya.

Chris91 wrote:

And you just know Khadafy's got to be sweating bullets over this...what we're seeing right now in Cairo, and what happened last week in Tunisia, could easily repeat itself in Libya.

Probably will. It's kicking off in Yemen, and there's been a lot of talk about how Egypt's the key to North Africa.

Anyway, on Al Jazeera now: tanks rolling through streets of Alexandria, people waving, shaking hands with soldiers, standing on tanks. State has completely lost control of this. Looks like the regime's fucked.

Oh please please please for once let's all live in the 21st century.


edit: Oh FFS.

Quote :

...Fox News, where coverage has been more muted. "You probably don't give a lot of time thinking about Egypt," a Fox News presenter suggested about an hour ago, before explaining that "groups linked to al-Qaida" were in danger of taking over the government in Cairo.

Oh snap:

Quote :

There is a White House briefing on Egypt promised shortly, but the Associated Press has this bombshell – that the Obama administration is using US aid to Egypt as leverage over the Mubarak regime:

An Obama administration official says the US will review its $1.5bn in aid to Egypt based on events unfolding in the country, where the authoritarian government is struggling to extinguish huge and growing street protests.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation. Egypt has been a key US ally in the volatile region. US officials are now increasing calls on President Hosni Mubarak, the target of the protesters, to respond with restraint and reverse steps taken to cut off the protesters' ability to communicate.

The decision to review assistance to Egypt is a significant step as the US seeks to balance the desire to maintain stability in the region with a recognition of the unexpected scope and uncertain outcome of the protests.

I first heard about this when #jan25 started trending on Twitter the other day (which happened to be Tuesday ). But the reports were all so vague and unverifiable that it's been hard to be sure exactly what's going on, where, and by whom. My impression, though, was that if this does turn out to have been a full-scale revolution, then it seems to have been almost miraculously successful right from the get-go. It seems like no one in the government was able to muster even a pretense of enforcing order. Which, from what I'm hearing about that government, could very well be a good thing. But, as I said, as unsure of the specifics as I am, that's only a vague impression.

KelinciHutan wrote:

It seems like no one in the government was able to muster even a pretense of enforcing order.

Not for lack of trying, though; the police have been gassing the hell out of the protesters, turning rubber bullets and water cannons on them, etc. It hasn't worked.

Oh, and apparently Mubarak has appeared on TV saying he will force the government to resign of tomorrow—but he hasn't given any indication that he'll be going with them. In fact, it seems quite the opposite is the case. He also urged people to 'not cause chaos', saying that there can't be democracy 'if they allow chaos'. Translation: "okay protesters, you've done your bit, now let me make my token concession (which will still allow me to keep the reins of power) and then you can go home nice and peaceful-like." Right.

Personally I find this amusing, but everyone still stops for prayer time. Then they file out and go right back to rioting.

Shit has hit the fan so spectacularly in Tunisia that it splattered all over the Arabic world and mutated into a hellish fiery shitdemon.

The local media is trying to make everyone go into hysterics since we share a border with Egypt and all, but whatever, I'm not even anywhere near the border. And it's a fucking desert beyond the border, I didn't hear of any protests in the fucking desert. People should really chill, I mean, it's not like they're going to cancel our peace agreement from 30 years ago because of this whole mess or anything.

From what I can gather, Mubarak has authorized the military to start firing on crowds using live ammo. The police have mostly joined the protesters and there are some military who have told Mubarak to go screw himself and joined the protesters.

Things might get really ugly.

Aww, what's wrong Egypt? Did your people finally get tired of being treated like they were worse than dogs? That's just too bad. Oh, and look, your own soldiers have kind of scratched their heads and gone "Huh, you guys have a point" to the protesters. Darn, of all the luck.

I don't care if the the current regime is our "ally". They've been cruel and wrong to their people for decades, and they deserve every bit of revolution they get. Personally, I don't want friends like that anyway.

And FOX News can go fuck themselves. I hate when they call everyone "terrorists", because what it really means is "these people are doing something inconvenient to me".

Lapin wrote:

And FOX News can go fuck themselves. I hate when they call everyone "terrorists", because what it really means is "these people are doing something inconvenient to me".

On FOX, 'terrorist' is a code word for anyone who doesn't agree with their rabid, right-wing stance. It's bad enough we have to put up with them in the US; why they think it's any of their business what people in other countries do regarding oppressive regimes is beyond me.

You're supposed to be reporting the news, guys. You don't make national policy.

grmblfjx wrote:

Oh please please please for once let's all live in the 21st century.


edit: Oh FFS.

Quote :

...Fox News, where coverage has been more muted. "You probably don't give a lot of time thinking about Egypt," a Fox News presenter suggested about an hour ago, before explaining that "groups linked to al-Qaida" were in danger of taking over the government in Cairo.

As I understand it, the Muslim Brotherhood group is strongly supporting the protesters. These guys are said to have inspired the likes of al-Qaida and Hamas. Not necessarily terrorists, but it really doesn't sound like a good thing.

Snake Bandage wrote:

Shit has hit the fan so spectacularly in Tunisia that it splattered all over the Arabic world and mutated into a hellish fiery shitdemon.

The local media is trying to make everyone go into hysterics since we share a border with Egypt and all, but whatever, I'm not even anywhere near the border. And it's a fucking desert beyond the border, I didn't hear of any protests in the fucking desert. People should really chill, I mean, it's not like they're going to cancel our peace agreement from 30 years ago because of this whole mess or anything.

So you think that a new oppressive government that hated the old oppressive government will gladly honor all peace agreements from the previous government?

Do explain.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Snake Bandage wrote:

Shit has hit the fan so spectacularly in Tunisia that it splattered all over the Arabic world and mutated into a hellish fiery shitdemon.

The local media is trying to make everyone go into hysterics since we share a border with Egypt and all, but whatever, I'm not even anywhere near the border. And it's a fucking desert beyond the border, I didn't hear of any protests in the fucking desert. People should really chill, I mean, it's not like they're going to cancel our peace agreement from 30 years ago because of this whole mess or anything.

So you think that a new oppressive government that hated the old oppressive government will gladly honor all peace agreements from the previous government?

Do explain.

Consider yourself honored, Mikey, I usually have you on ignore and displayed your post just to see if you addressed my childish hopes.

I don't know if a new government would honor the peace agreement. The pessimist in me says that they probably won't. And I'd rather not think of what will happen if they don't. I don't exactly have enough resources to GTFO of here when things go seriously pear-shaped.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Quote :

...Fox News, where coverage has been more muted. "You probably don't give a lot of time thinking about Egypt," a Fox News presenter suggested about an hour ago, before explaining that "groups linked to al-Qaida" were in danger of taking over the government in Cairo.

As I understand it, the Muslim Brotherhood group is strongly supporting the protesters. These guys are said to have inspired the likes of al-Qaida and Hamas. Not necessarily terrorists, but it really doesn't sound like a good thing.

I get your point. However, the main thing happening in Egypt is ordinary people being sick of their leaders, and Fox News apparently decided to make it about something that may or may not be going on in the background. You can spread a lot of misinformation while telling nothing but the truth.


Here, I'll use Scrubs to illustrate:

Melody: "JD said you found it weird that I haven't changed since college."
Elliot: "Yeah, I said I loved that about you!"
JD: "...did I not mention that? Heh."




Also, "You probably don't give a lot of time thinking about Egypt,"? You might as well come out and say "I know you're barely aware of a world outside our borders". Seems to me they know their audience rather well.

What I find interesting is that, even though Egypt has cut off all Internet access, the protests continue. It's popular wisdom these days that social networking sites are necessary for revolts to happen, but it's proven untrue in Egypt (and let us not forget that the age of revolutions from the late 18th century to the early 20th century all took place without social networking sites or even the Internet).

I don't know that overthrowing Mubarak and putting a new government in place would be a good thing--revolutions are far too often nothing more than a chance for the oppressees to become the oppressors. It cannot be denied, though, that the present government has some serious problems, or that the ever-volatile Middle East is, at the moment, in more and more turmoil (Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and let us not forget what happened in Iran within the last few years--not that it did much good). In Iraq, various factions are still jostling for power, and I'm sure that the leaders of the countries not currently in turmoil are looking at all this nervously (and I sure wouldn't want to be in Israel right now).

One wonders what the powers that be in Tel Aviv are thinking about all of this...they've been conspicuously quiet so far. It could just be that I'm not looking in the right place, but so far I have yet to find any official Israeli government comments on the uprising in Egypt.

The powers that be are centered in Jerusalem, yo. Just FYI.

Our Prime Minister instructed everyone to STFU and not to issue any official or unofficial statements no matter how much they want to troll the world (Liberman, I'm looking at you). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs set up its situation room to get the Israeli diplomats' families out of Egypt because it's getting fucking dangerous, but they stopped short at that because getting the diplomats themselves back would be making a stand.

Seriously. Our relationship with Egypt is rocky as is, we don't need to take sides and make everything worse.

My cousin theorized that this is the beginning of World War Three. Of course, my cousin is a weird artistic type who is never very sober, but it does feel a bit apocalyptic-y from this end.

Snake Bandage wrote:

My cousin theorized that this is the beginning of World War Three. Of course, my cousin is a weird artistic type who is never very sober, but it does feel a bit apocalyptic-y from this end.

But honestly, people are forever saying that. In 1991, in the first days of the first Iraq war, so many people were saying that that 11-year-old me was scared to tears. Watching TV on 9/11 and seeing bombs over Kabul within half a day from the attacks didn't feel so safe, either. Let's not freak out yet. And if the shit really does hit the fan, you can stay with me.

Syria just cut their internet services. It looks like this is spreading like wild fire.

China has also apparently blocked all internet searches related to egypt.

I wonder why.