I dont know if this will help you understand what is going on there - Edit 2
Before modification by Aisha at 30/01/2011 02:54:56 AM
But my close Egyptian friends have family down there in the protests. In fact one of my best friends cousins who are lawyers helped organize the protest at Tahrir Square. They are NOT the ones looting. It is the secret police (in plain clothes) that is doing this to make the protesters look bad. Protesters as young as 13 years of age have made human shields around the museum and other places to stop the looting and other bullshit certain people are trying to pull (most of the looters that have been caught have police ID's). Its easy to sit here and judge and say that they should be protesting peacefully and not violently but even the peaceful protests were met with violence from the police. In Egypt you are not allowed to protest against the government, Period. This is a government that has tortured, killed and imprisoned its people for decades and the people have had enough.
The secret police I am talking beat a british journalist quite badly today and trashed his camera. there is video footage of a protester being shot in the back while running away from the police. These protesters are fucking heroes not animals like you seem to think.
Maybe these links will help you learn some more about the situation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/26/egypt-protests
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/1/29/live_from_the_egyptian_revolution_by_sharif_abdel_kouddous
I mean, I'm no fan of one party authoritarian states sustained by the military and corrupt businessmen, but if Mubarak is opposing people who torch buildings and storm hotels while guests huddle in hiding wondering where the police are it's hard for me to question his response. This isn't the people peaceably assembling to petition for a redress of grievances, it's a national riot. Virtually any Western democracy faced with indiscrimate violence, possibly even killing, though it's hard to be sure from the little chaotic info I've seen, would declare martial law, and with that in mind Mubaraks response so far doesn't seem too unreasonable. I have no illusions about his nobility, but let's keep things in perspective and recall that neither the Reign of Terror nor the Bolshevik Revolution significantly improved things for the oppressed; it just meant they were oppressed at least as much and more violently. The relevance I see to those terms, even in an advanced modern nation like Egypt, is precisely the sort of thing I have in mind when I suggest the Mid-East isn't capable of full participation in 21st Century international relations.
So, who wants to clue me in on what I'm missing here...?
The secret police I am talking beat a british journalist quite badly today and trashed his camera. there is video footage of a protester being shot in the back while running away from the police. These protesters are fucking heroes not animals like you seem to think.
Maybe these links will help you learn some more about the situation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/26/egypt-protests
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/1/29/live_from_the_egyptian_revolution_by_sharif_abdel_kouddous
This link has been updated near-continuously for a while now.
Yikes.
Yikes.
I mean, I'm no fan of one party authoritarian states sustained by the military and corrupt businessmen, but if Mubarak is opposing people who torch buildings and storm hotels while guests huddle in hiding wondering where the police are it's hard for me to question his response. This isn't the people peaceably assembling to petition for a redress of grievances, it's a national riot. Virtually any Western democracy faced with indiscrimate violence, possibly even killing, though it's hard to be sure from the little chaotic info I've seen, would declare martial law, and with that in mind Mubaraks response so far doesn't seem too unreasonable. I have no illusions about his nobility, but let's keep things in perspective and recall that neither the Reign of Terror nor the Bolshevik Revolution significantly improved things for the oppressed; it just meant they were oppressed at least as much and more violently. The relevance I see to those terms, even in an advanced modern nation like Egypt, is precisely the sort of thing I have in mind when I suggest the Mid-East isn't capable of full participation in 21st Century international relations.
So, who wants to clue me in on what I'm missing here...?