Can Egypt hold it together? President's son, family flee to Britain

[deep]

Suleiman needs to borrow this guys speechwriters


YouTube - Our long national nightmare

 

[ryancoke71]

Mubarak just stepped down, and the video coverage of the celebrations are amazing!

 

[Just_Boy]

Apparently, the army has been entrusted with the republic.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Well the celebration will not last too long... unfortunately.

 

[mama cass]

why not LuckyNumber7?

tis only the beginning but it is a huge thing!

let's hope the essential reforms can be pushed thru and a fair system implemented!

 

[LuckyNumber7]

why not LuckyNumber7?

tis only the beginning but it is a huge thing!

let's hope the essential reforms can be pushed thru and a fair system implemented!

I mean, I hope that it will last. Either way, their tourism industry is a dud for a while. I hope for the best, but expect the worst.

 

[kramwest1]

Egyptians

 

[deep]

I heard a report that Mubarack's accounts in Swiss banks have been frozen.



Also, I think the Muslim Brotherhood card has been way over-played.


This movement is very broad, at least 60-65% of the people.

I do believe a good 30% + or -, is/was satisfied with the status quo.
That is why Mubarak, who probably kept hearing from them behind the scenes, believed he could ride this out with some compromises.

Anyways, I do not see Egypt falling under the heavy hand of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This same group, the under 30 crowd (play station generation) would take to the streets again if they had some kind of authoritarian government imposing restrictions on them again.

Yes, the genie is out of the bottle.

 

[yolland]

They're not out of the woods with regard to how much change the army will ultimately allow. Yet the people have succeeded in forcing the resignation of one of the world's longest-standing dictators in the face of harsh resistance at the highest levels, and they did it peacefully and in a deliberate spirit of national unity and civic virtue. That is an incredible and historic achievement right there. They have also paid a high price for it, sadly.

I wish my own government had taken a stronger stand in support of the right thing, but considering the money we've invested in this regime since and because of the Camp David accords, I can't say I'm surprised.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

They're not out of the woods with regard to how much change the army will ultimately allow. Yet the people have succeeded in forcing the resignation of one of the world's longest-standing dictators in the face of harsh resistance at the highest levels, and they did it peacefully and in a deliberate spirit of national unity and civic virtue. That is an incredible and historic achievement right there. They have also paid a high price for it, sadly.

I wish my own government had taken a stronger stand in support of the right thing, but considering the money we've invested in this regime since and because of the Camp David accords, I can't say I'm surprised.

Now that's just a harsh use of words there. Though recent times haven't been so great, Mubarak did bring great things to Egypt. Stuff that separated Egypt from the rest of the Middle East.

I'm white as sin (yet half Egyptian) and never once feared being in Egypt. Hell if I'd go anywhere else (perhaps Jordan) in the Middle East.

 

[mama cass]

I mean, I hope that it will last. Either way, their tourism industry is a dud for a while. I hope for the best, but expect the worst.

yeah i hope the industry picks up again... it is the livelihood for many though... i'm still heading over there for a holiday in a few weeks time... quite excited about it, little bit scared too though lol! will be going unless the UK foreign office says otherwise i think, or unless things get complicated...

 

[deep]

Now that's just a harsh use of words there. Though recent times haven't been so great, Mubarak did bring great things to Egypt. Stuff that separated Egypt from the rest of the Middle East.

.

I have heard it said that Mubarak had 12 good years followed by 18 bad or
10 good years followed by 20 bad years.

Either way if the last 18-20 years are viewed as bad, that is foremost in the people's minds. That is why his last couple of speeches that included his life story, with his service as a young man, failed to impress the protesters.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

I have heard it said that Mubarak has 12 good years followed by 18 bad or
10 good years followed by 20 bad years.

Either way if the last 18-20 years are viewed as bad, that is foremost in the people's minds. That is why his last couple of speeches that included his life story, with his service as a young man, failed to impress the protesters.

In the midst of all of this, two things happened. 1st, there is a bit of corruption going on which is why you get the bad, but second Mubarak was scapegoated by the people of Egypt for issues that are a worldwide problem.

I believe Egypt is the #1 importer of wheat, or something to that extent. The cost of food has shot up significantly, and so it has in Egypt as well. People demand affordable food, but that's sometimes not the governments fault.

I'm not saying Mubarak should've stayed, but that government was neither a dictatorship nor oppressive. Just poorly ran. The government system is what failed Egypt and led to the riots. The same man shouldnt be able to be in power for 30some years.

 

[yolland]

Though recent times haven't been so great, Mubarak did bring great things to Egypt. Stuff that separated Egypt from the rest of the Middle East.

I'm white as sin (yet half Egyptian) and never once feared being in Egypt. Hell if I'd go anywhere else (perhaps Jordan) in the Middle East.

If you were a labor activist, an opposition politician or a journalist (for starters), I think you would probably have a different view. 'Dictatorship' is primarily a characterization of a mode of governance (authoritarian rule by an individual or small faction which freely bends or ignores constitutional limits on its behavior); it's not based on ideas of how evil the leader(ship) is relative to other governments, and yes freely elected governments can be persecutory and corrupt too, not to mention monarchies and totalitarian regimes.

No argument on much of the rest of the Middle East's governments being as oppressive (or worse) in their own way.

 

[deep]

Suleiman needs to borrow this guys speechwriters


YouTube - Our long national nightmare

YouTube - Mubarak leaves

close enough.​

 

[CrashedCarDriver]

The devil is in the details with Mubarak stepping down

Mubarak is a cruel, corrupt, tyrant, yet the Americans (the world police) wanted him to stay on because with him as leader Egypt was an American ally in the Middle East

The chances are: with him gone the Egyptian people could vote in a questionable candidate who might not side with the Americans and possibly let the extremists (and theres plenty of them there in Egypt) reign!

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Mubarak is a cruel, corrupt, tyrant, yet the Americans (the world police) wanted him to stay on because with him as leader Egypt was an American ally in the Middle East

Corrupt. Absolutely. Cruel? Absolutely not. Tyrant? No.

He gave Egypt a sense of security. Especially for the minorities there (the Christian Copts). Promoted religious freedom and tolerance. And was strong against terrorism in his own country. Cracked down hard.

So he cheated his way through some elections, and ran all other aspects of the government very poorly that led to the standard of living in Egypt to be driven down the shitter. But there was nothing wrong with his ideals at all. At all.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Thrilled the protesters got what they wanted .

Now everyone's going to have to deal with the inevitable tension between the army taking over for the time being and seeing who will eventually be Egypt's new leader. Should be a very interesting time of it for a while.

Angela

 

[Bonoa]

A bit late but:

YOOHOOO!!!

 

[yolland]

Al Jazeera (op-ed), Feb. 11

...Arab protests in solidarity with the Egyptian people also suggest that there is a strong yearning for the revival of Egypt as a pan-Arab unifier and leader. Photographs of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the former Egyptian president, have been raised in Cairo and across Arab capitals by people who were not even alive when Nasser died in 1970. The scenes are reminiscent of those that swept Arab streets in the 1950s and 1960s. But this is not an exact replica of the pan-Arab nationalism of those days. Then, pan-Arabism was a direct response to Western domination and the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel. Today, it is a reaction to the absence of democratic freedoms and the inequitable distribution of wealth across the Arab world...This is not to say that there is no anti-imperialist element within the current movement. But the protests in Egypt and elsewhere promote a deeper understanding of human emancipation, which forms the real basis for freedom from both repression and foreign domination.

Unlike the pan-Arabism of the past, the new movement represents an intrinsic belief that it is freedom from fear and human dignity that enables people to build better societies and to create a future of hope and prosperity. The old "wisdom" of past revolutionaries that liberation from foreign domination precedes the struggle for democracy has fallen. The revolutionaries of Egypt, and before them Tunisia, have exposed through deeds--not merely words--the leaders who are tyrants towards their own people, while humiliatingly subservient to foreign powers. They have shown the impotence of empty slogans that manipulate animosity towards Israel to justify a fake Arab unity, which in turn serves only to mask sustained oppression and the betrayal of Arab societies and the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

...Equally, it is no longer acceptable for the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas to cite their record in resisting Israel when justifying their suppression of each other and the rest of the Palestinian people. Young Palestinians are responding to the message of the movement and embracing the idea that combatting internal injustice--whether practised by Fatah or Hamas--is a prerequisite for the struggle to end Israeli occupation and not something to be endured for the sake of that struggle. Events in Egypt and Tunisia have revealed that Arab unity against internal repression is stronger than that against a foreign threat--neither the American occupation of Iraq nor the Israeli occupation galvanised the Arab people in the way that a single act by a young Tunisian who chose to set himself alight rather than live in humiliation and poverty has. This does not mean that Arabs do not care about the occupied people of Iraq or Palestine--tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands have taken to the streets across Arab countries at various times to show solidarity with Iraqis and Palestinians--but it does reflect the realisation that the absence of democratic freedoms has contributed to the continued occupation of those countries.

I think ambivalence towards resurgent Arab nationalism as a force for democratization in the Middle East may be bound up in the surprising divides and strange bedfellows currently on display in Washington concerning the significance of events in Egypt. Ethnic nationalism has some tendencies which broadly appeal to liberals (friendly to religious freedom, but not to politicized fundamentalists; redirects the military's loyalty to 'the people,' rather than the regime or person of the leader), and other tendencies which broadly appeal to conservatives (romantically reifies the 'traditional values' of the people; frowns on class-war politics as a bar to unity). But nationalist leaders are harder to manipulate because of their accountability to their publics, and the classic way around that obstacle--making the army the foremost guardian of the 'national interest'--steadily erodes its popular legitimacy over time. Then there's the inherent risks blood-and-soil nationalism poses for resident minorities, as well as militarily weaker neighbors.

It'll be interesting, if that's the word, to see what unfolds in both the short- and long-term. Granted, the above article is one person's opinion, but its basic themes have cropped up repeatedly in news analyses on the Egyptian uprising, and I've noticed quite a bit of sometimes ambivalent nostalgia for Nasserism in Arab and Arab-American academics' commentaries, as well.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

A news story I saw last night referred to some report, the findings were that over 90 percent of female foreign visitors to Egypt are harassed in some way.




CBS News says correspondent Lara Logan "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault" while covering the resignation of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The CBS statement:

On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.

In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.

There will be no further comment from CBS News and Correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time.

On Tuesday's "CBS Evening News," Katie Couric said that she was "pleased to report" that Logan is "recovering well in the hospital."

Logan had previously been detained by Egyptian authorities while attempting to enter Cairo.

The Committee to Protect Journalists report on attacks on the press in Egypt in 2005 referenced female journalists facing sexual assault:

A report published in 2005 by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said that "journalists in Egypt suffer numerous forms of discrimination including unfairness in legislation, judicial prosecution of journalists for their writing and opinions, assault and death threats, and sexual assault of female journalists."

 

[yolland]

There was a steady stream of comments from women (both Egyptian and foreign) attending the protests throughout the uprising as to the general lack of harassment at the scene(s)--which of course tells you that harassment is normally common, since otherwise there'd be no reason to comment on it. In much of the Middle East as well as Central and South Asia, that is also the case. Obviously, being gang-raped and beaten by a mob who drags you from your companions (as would sound to be the case here) isn't 'normal' anywhere, but there was nothing whatsoever 'normal' in the situation she was covering--it had been a brutal couple of weeks, with repeated extreme lurches from collective emotional highs to lows and back again.

More than 140 journalists were physically injured to various degrees, some very badly, and there was one fatality as well, plus she's been a war correspondent, so I'm sure she understood quite well the risks she was taking. I do admire her courage in going public with the information--often, female foreign correspondents (and women in some other traveling professions as well) are deeply reluctant to say anything about harassment or assaults abroad, because they fear they won't be given foreign assignments any more if they do.


[ETA -- The WSJ is citing a CBS source as telling them the assault was "not a rape." Also several outlets have reported that Logan didn't actually choose to go public with the information; rather, other news outlets had somehow found out and were calling CBS with questions, so she and CBS wanted to at least get ahead of the story.]

 

[mama cass]

A news story I saw last night referred to some report, the findings were that over 90 percent of female foreign visitors to Egypt are harassed in some way.




CBS News says correspondent Lara Logan "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault" while covering the resignation of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The CBS statement:

On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.

In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.

There will be no further comment from CBS News and Correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time.

On Tuesday's "CBS Evening News," Katie Couric said that she was "pleased to report" that Logan is "recovering well in the hospital."

Logan had previously been detained by Egyptian authorities while attempting to enter Cairo.

The Committee to Protect Journalists report on attacks on the press in Egypt in 2005 referenced female journalists facing sexual assault:

A report published in 2005 by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said that "journalists in Egypt suffer numerous forms of discrimination including unfairness in legislation, judicial prosecution of journalists for their writing and opinions, assault and death threats, and sexual assault of female journalists."

that is so horrific! poor lady!!!

i really really hate the general harassment aspect... it's just awful... but it can be the same in many big cities... when i first moved to Paris i would get harassed/followed/groped/propositioned the whole time - it was hideous! and i nearly got myself/husband/male pals into a few fights because of it... but then i developed my secret deterrent: the permanent "fuck-off-and-don't-even-think-about-it scowl" - it seriously made all the difference!

the harassment thing has been bothering me a lot about my forthcoming trip to Egypt, and i know i won't be letting my young teenage daughter out of my sight the whole time i am there...

 

[yolland]

Wow, I've never had a problem in Paris or anywhere else in northern Europe. It wouldn't surprise me if routinely smiling at and making eye contact with male strangers might occasionally get you verbal harassment and leering there, but I wouldn't expect groping, not in Paris.

 

[mama cass]

i didn't expect groping either - it was a bit of a shock! lol

i guess i was living in some pretty rough areas though, away from the touristy spots... and out and about pretty late at night... yeah and i was definitely too smiley to start with - that really didn't help, and eye contact too is a big no no... you just have to think on your feet and constantly be on the alert, it's horrible though - i remember one time being followed all the way thru Gare du Nord late at night, it got pretty scary and i couldn't shake the b*stard, and in the end i ended up practically running to the top of the escalator with this guy hot on my heels, and then at the last moment i jumped sideways and didn't get on the escalator, but he was too close and moving too fast so he did and down down down he went - the look on his face was priceless!! i gave him the middle finger from my safe spot but was pretty terrified though and legged it out of there as fast as i could! jeesus i hated those days lol!!!

 

[Bono's shades]

that is so horrific! poor lady!!!

i really really hate the general harassment aspect... it's just awful... but it can be the same in many big cities... when i first moved to Paris i would get harassed/followed/groped/propositioned the whole time - it was hideous! and i nearly got myself/husband/male pals into a few fights because of it... but then i developed my secret deterrent: the permanent "fuck-off-and-don't-even-think-about-it scowl" - it seriously made all the difference!

the harassment thing has been bothering me a lot about my forthcoming trip to Egypt, and i know i won't be letting my young teenage daughter out of my sight the whole time i am there...

My experience has been exactly the opposite. I've been to Rome, which has a terrible reputation for women getting harrassed, but no one bothered me. I've walked at night in downtown Minneapolis with no problems. My experiences with guys harrassing me on the streets or in parking lots have all been in the various small, Midwestern towns I've lived in all my life.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I can believe that. I've been fortunate enough to avoid that sort of experience, but yes, I felt much more comfortable wandering around, say, New York City, than I do some afternoons walking to work here in this town of about 30,000 people. Granted, I was with a big group in New York City, which helps, but still...

i didn't expect groping either - it was a bit of a shock! lol

i guess i was living in some pretty rough areas though, away from the touristy spots... and out and about pretty late at night... yeah and i was definitely too smiley to start with - that really didn't help, and eye contact too is a big no no... you just have to think on your feet and constantly be on the alert, it's horrible though - i remember one time being followed all the way thru Gare du Nord late at night, it got pretty scary and i couldn't shake the b*stard, and in the end i ended up practically running to the top of the escalator with this guy hot on my heels, and then at the last moment i jumped sideways and didn't get on the escalator, but he was too close and moving too fast so he did and down down down he went - the look on his face was priceless!! i gave him the middle finger from my safe spot but was pretty terrified though and legged it out of there as fast as i could! jeesus i hated those days lol!!!

Ugh. How terrifying. I'm sorry to hear that's happened to you . I also think it sucks that you had to put those qualifiers at the beginning of your post-yes, knowing what we know about certain places, it helps to keep your guard up and try and avoid them as much as possible and whatnot, but sometimes that's easier said than done, and besides that, you should be able to wander anywhere you want, and be friendly, without worrying about such crap happening. The only people in the wrong are the assholes who don't know how to respect boundaries or women or whatever.

That's horrible to hear that about what women like Logan have been going through. I'm glad that she felt brave enough to come forward about this, and that she'll be okay (relatively speaking), and I hope that they find the people who did this and they get the punishment they deserve.

Angela

 

[yolland]

i guess i was living in some pretty rough areas though, away from the touristy spots... and out and about pretty late at night... yeah and i was definitely too smiley to start with - that really didn't help, and eye contact too is a big no no... you just have to think on your feet and constantly be on the alert, it's horrible though - i remember one time being followed all the way thru Gare du Nord late at night...

Ah, yeah, some of the areas around Gare du Nord are pretty gritty and macho. Sometimes it can be so hard when you don't know the local culture to tell the difference between areas which are seedy or insular and kind of uncomfortable vs. areas which are rough and downright unsafe. That sounds like a really frightening experience, very glad you weren't hurt.

I also think it sucks that you had to put those qualifiers at the beginning of your post-yes, knowing what we know about certain places, it helps to keep your guard up and try and avoid them as much as possible and whatnot, but sometimes that's easier said than done, and besides that, you should be able to wander anywhere you want, and be friendly, without worrying about such crap happening.

It's totally true, but unfortunately this is just a reality of living and traveling abroad. It's not always a question of safety, either (as in, not getting physically injured)--often there can be quite a lot of overt hostility and moderate physical and verbal harassment without imminent risk of being beaten, raped or worse. Every society organizes social relations, gender and otherwise, differently from every other and you can't always just jump in as you are and expect the same responses as back home, nor can you fully protect yourself from stereotypes which may come attached to your basic physical appearance. Sometimes I think it's especially hard for North Americans to come to terms with this, because we value superficial displays of goodwill and openness so highly, almost as an honor thing (though from a foreign visitor's POV, this may be undercut by our fairly high violent crime rate).

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

What not to say about Lara Logan - Media Criticism - Salon.com



On Feb. 11, CBS reporter Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten in the crush of a Tahrir Square mob. She was subsequently rescued by a group of women and Egyptian soldiers, flew home the next day, and is currently recovering in a hospital. All of which is a horrendous, sickening crime. And when the news of the attack broke Tuesday afternoon, it took all of minutes before somebody decided to hinge the story on the blond reporter’s looks.

In a stunningly offensive blog post titled "Lara Logan, CBS Reporter and Warzone 'It Girl,' Raped Repeatedly Amid Egypt Celebration" for LA Weekly, writer Simone Wilson managed to mention Logan’s "shocking good looks and ballsy knack for pushing her way to the heart of the action" before getting to the assault itself. She then went on to imagine how it happened: "In a rush of frenzied excitement, some Egyptian protestors apparently consummated their newfound independence by sexually assaulting the blonde reporter." Well, sure, what other motive for an assault could there be, given that Logan is, in Wilson’s words, a "gutsy stunner" with "Hollywood good looks"? And how else do Egyptians celebrate anyway but with a gang assault? It's not like she deserved it, but well, she is hot, right?

Perhaps Wilson was going for some postmodern commentary on the media’s obsession with attractive reporters. She did cite in her post how Mofo Politics commented, when Logan was detained in Egypt earlier this month, that "I would totally rape her," and she noted the New York Post’s chronicling of Logan's robust sex life. That’s the kindest explanation for a hideously twisted bit of commentary on an assault victim, one that repulsively mingles the woman's attractiveness and sexual history with a violent crime, and ends with the brutally off-key observation that "nobody’s invincible."


Wilson wasn’t the only person out there to be wildly tone-deaf in response, either. When the news broke, Nir Rosen, a fellow at the New York University Center for Law and Security, promptly whined to Twitter, "It’s always wrong, that’s obvious, but I’m rolling my eyes at all the attention she’ll get," adding, "She’s so bad that I ran out of sympathy for her." He soon backpedaled, deleting several of his most offensive posts and tweeting, "I apologize and take it back. joking with friends got out of line when i didnt want to back down. forgot twitter is not exactly private." Apparently he still hasn't remembered that sexual assault isn't great joking around material.

And the ever-heinous Debbie Schlussel was quick to jump on her regular line of racism, noting how the assault happened in a "country of savages," because that never ever happens anywhere else, and it's never committed by light-skinned people! She then twisted the knife by going after Logan herself, saying, "So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows... How fitting that Lara Logan was 'liberated' by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the 'liberation.'" Debbie Schlussel, what's it like to be so liberated from the burden of having either a mind or a soul?

Here’s what you do say when something like this happens. Like countless women around the world, Lara Logan was attacked in the line of duty. She was assaulted doing her job. It was a crime of unspeakable violence. And your opinion of how she does that job, the religion her assailants share with a few million other people, or the color of her hair has nothing to do with it.

UPDATE: After an overwhelmingly negative reaction to his tweets, Nir Rosen has resigned his post at N.Y.U.

 

[yolland]

Not surprising really, everything out of Debbie Schlussel's mouth is filthy and hateful, and while Rosen's a talented journalist, he's also always been a swaggering macho jerk who can't resist vulgar swipes at competitors and opponents. I'm not familiar with Simone Wilson.