Well they just burnt down the NDP building.
Interesting. (and maybe this should all go to MPSIMS but anyway)
NDP being the National Democratic Party, the current ruling party. So the current ruling party’s headquarters in Cairo and other Egyptian cities have been overrun and set on fire. This isn’t good for Mubarak.
Tom, from what I’ve been reading this morning, the Egyptian Army has a much better reputation for fairness than the state police. The state police are thugs, as far as I understand. Of course, from other things I’ve read, the army is at least a major part of what’s kept Mubarak in power all this time, so I don’t know, if that’s true, why the protesters would think the army would be more sympathetic.
Dunno if they expect it or they’re hoping for it; in either case, the protests are pretty much doomed unless the army comes on-side or is at best neutral (Tunisia: army sided with protestors; Lebanon c. 2005: Army stayed neutral and didn’t enforce a curfew. Iran: not so much.)
Only if we actually believe in democracy and stuff.
The Army has prospered under Mubarak; my feeling is that they won 't be eager to desert him unless it appears that he’s absolutely unsustainable.
Interesting tidbit on Al Jazeera English’s liveblog:
And now I have work that I really should have been doing for the past hour and a half.
Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera English language live stream
Al Jazeera have excellent coverage of this
I just hope we dont see any savage repression kinda stuff. Sooner or later somebody hauls the old spiked club out of the bag.
Problem is, when Islamists take over, democratically or otherwise, the first thing to go is democracy, followed shortly by such “and stuff” as human rights, especially for women. Subsequent attempts at democracy are typically met with the old spiked club.
Oh yeah, the Saudis are fine with Israel in reality, or at least the Al Saud family heads are. Saudi have offered Israel airspace and refuelling over their territory if they ever attack Iran, plus a bunch of other stuff. They’re best pals with Mubarak too. Both leaders are American clients.
This is the kind of thing that Mubarak’s security people will do to create an image of the demonstrators as lawless thugs, criminals etc. There’ll be a lot of this kind of stuff going on and it’ll almost certainly be perpetrated by the ruling regime to try and make the protestors look bad.
Funnily I would tend to think it works like the “Tropico” videogame. Where the President(e) comes from plays a role in his possible supports in times of crisis.
Ben Ali had mostly a police background, and damn if it shows on how he ran things in Tunisia, he was mostly relying on his police, not his army.
Mubarak is a former high-ranking military, so I doubt he has the same relationship with his army that Ben Ali had with his.
Of course, it’s not just “hey, he’s one of our guys, let’s back him up”, it’s simply that the networks that were crucial in seizing power will tend to be favored by the regime. They become part of the power base. I’m no expert on Egypt,and I really wonder how the Egyptian army will behave.
I doubt the US will play a role in the Egyptian “troubles” similar to what they allegedly did in Tunisia (convincing the army not to intervene). I do hope though that they dont offer their help in culling the rebellion, like France did a week ago with Tunisia.
The thing that blows my mind here is how all this started from tiny littlely Tunisia, one of the most insignificant Arab countries, and though a dictature, far from being the worst in terms of economic conditions or even liberty. These are interesting times.
Yeah, Turkey comes to mind.
Well, it will be up to the Egyptians to sort that out. The Islamist aspect of the present revolt, while not absent, hasn’t seemed to dominate. It seems that the Egyptian opposition (being described by journalists on the scene at this moment as a “rainbow coalition” of diverse groups and interests) sees their best chance for freedom and human rights in the banishment of the old regime.
Go Egypt!
Oh good gried, have you made even a basic effort to read up on Turkey’s rather troubling history between the secularists and the Islamists?
Sometimes I wonder how tolerant people would be if if this were some radical Chistian sect trying to overthrow a dictatorate.
Can’t see Egypt falling but then Mubarak has been in poor health and his sucession plan hasn’t really picked up steam just yet.
No idea what’s that supposed to mean in relation to what I wrote. Care to elaborate?
I assumed you were being sarcastic in your prior post. If not, I wsa wrong so nothing to elaborate.
I was being sarcastic. Turkey didnt start stamping out opposition with “old spiked clubs” nor killing women since an “Islamist” government was elected.
Despite so many claiming that was bound to happen.
Islamists can vary considerably, sometimes they’d be more or less Muslim equivalents of the Christian Democrats types, sometimes they’d be conservative but not djihadist types, and sometimes they could also be precisely djihadists.