“…The collection of kings and dictators fear the example the people in Egypt are setting?…” Yes, the economic situation is dire in so many areas. This is a true revolution with wide ranging implications. I believe that this event is one of the best (most positive) happenings in my lifetime. My main fear is the reaction by Israel. Netanyahu has become a madman.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Feb 1 2011 14:41 utc | 4

They may be worried about where to hide. Saudi Arabia, or any of the other arab countries, doesn’t look that much more secure anymore for a golden retirement. With the current king close to death and the princes fighting for power and the arab population globally revolted. In Europe it’s too easy now to become involved on long tiring judicial prosecutions (though they may not produce any real conviction). The US won’t agree to receive them, at least openly just after being ousted, they have already a horrible image in the arab society without becoming their protectors.
It’s going to become a problem where to put all this people if the trend becomes more widespread.

Posted by: ThePaper | Feb 1 2011 15:12 utc | 6

it seems that the bbc is not good with maths – saying there is 200,000 people – the direct opposite of what it did in iran – they have not been trustworthy for many deades – but their institution of hacks has become a low farce

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 15:24 utc | 8

I doubt Israel, as the apartheid regime that is today, will last must longer after this either …
The Egyptian regime isn’t showing any strength. A few announcements and limited footage of the Mubarak entourage performing speaks or meeting between themselves isn’t a show of strength. Curfews, that I think I heard was announced to become for the full day tomorrow, that none follows. Where is the leadership parading with their followers and the mighty army that obeys their order? No where. They may be affair from showing up under units that they aren’t sure are loyal to them. I only see weakness.
The only reason it’s lasting so long is because the protests are mostly pacific and not organized as a monolithic movement with a defined timeline and objectives. But the time will come. And the ambiguousness of the army isn’t helping. The top army leadership may not be sure if their orders, or what kinds of orders, will be followed. Some young hot headed officers may be pushed to act if this doesn’t end soon.
Just now in AJE. El Baradei is acting as the western anointed successor, rumour he has meet with the US ambassador. The Guardian carries a rumour saying that Mubarak is already in Bahrain.

Posted by: ThePaper | Feb 1 2011 15:40 utc | 10

Protesters putting up big screens? That’s unheard off. They basically own Tahrir Square. And showing Al Jazeera, obviously. What does this means? Someone with a large budget? Someone from the show business helping the revolution?

Posted by: ThePaper | Feb 1 2011 17:22 utc | 12

The Last Crusade
The concept of Materialism is an extremely appropriate, and I would say urgent topic, considering the serious issues currently confronting Man and the Globe. I believe the topic lends itself to a multi-faceted analysis, however, I will limit my discussion to the facets that appear to me, to be the most crucial and pertinent.
Materialism, the word itself, in my opinion is somewhat of a misnomer in that Material refers to something concrete, physically identifiable, tangible and measurable. As such, the term precludes something less tangible such as services. Therefore, I feel it more appropriate to refer to the issue as Consumerism; the purchase or acquisition of wants versus needs.
It has been my observation that the discussion of this topic centers around the assumption that Consumerism has been adopted wholesale by the inhabitants of the Globe, or in the least, will be, and as such the analysis of the issue proceeds according to this precept. I do not agree with this assumption/precept as a given, however, for the sake of the point I am about to make I will allow the assumption in the hypothetical. My second point will address the validity of this assumption, so hang in there.
Assuming that Consumerism is fully accepted and adopted as the way of life under the New Global Order, then I fear, the implications of such will be destructively far-reaching and ultimately catastrophic. I will attempt to illustrate my point through the use of an analogy, given the disclaimer that analogies are not foolproof; nonetheless, I will do my best to come close.
Try, if you will, to envision mankind collectively as a fetus in its Mother’s womb. Ideally, the Mother and Fetus coexist in a state of equilibrium for the entirety of the gestation period; the Fetus requires exactly what the Mother can provide. Suppose the Fetus has a genetic defect though, a defect that alters the nourishment equilibrium and leaves the Fetus yearning for more than the Mother can provide; an unquenchable yearning that must be satisfied regardless of the implications.
The Mother, in an attempt to quench the fetus’s “unreasonable” nourishment requirements, diverts life- sustaining nutrients from herself to her Fetus, thus depriving herself of vitality. The Fetus’s requirements increase exponentially to the point where it is defecating in the womb. Alas, the Mother can no longer provide any additional nourishment, in fact, her yield to the Fetus declines precipitously, and she is on the verge of death, while the Fetus wallows in a cesspool of its own excrement with an unquenchable and veracious hunger.
It is no longer receiving satisfaction from the Mother so it proceeds to devour its host. It begins with the umbilical cord and proceeds to the uterine lining, consuming layer upon layer.
The Mother is in physical arrest at this point, she is writhing in pain; the internal bleeding is massive and irreversible. She succumbs and the Fetus is violently vomited from the now deceased Mother’s womb.
Such is Man’s destiny if we continue to globalize the concept of Consumerism; the production and/or the delivery of wants.
As I mentioned earlier, I do not believe that Consumerism will be adopted under the New Global Order, in fact, the resistance to such will ultimately lead to a Global clash and human self-annihilation. An analogy of such could be likened to two diabolically opposed fraternal twins in the Mother’s womb fighting for position in the birth canal and ultimately destroying each other in the process.
I believe the current clash between many of the Arab nations and the West (exemplified by the U.S.) is a clash over ideology; that ideology being Materialism or more appropriately, Consumerism.
There is no doubt in my mind that Western Civilization is marked by among other things, Consumerism. It is “our” way of life. There is no need for me to elaborate on what is obvious, one need only turn their head about and observe to prove this point.
However, since I do not have the luxury of observation related to the Arab world, I have to rely on the observations of others; for example, T. E Lawrence.
Lawrence gives a profound (given that he was speaking to the issue in the early part of the 20th century) insight into the Arab, Semitic, Bedouin disposition, specifically as it relates to Western Materialism/Consumerism.
In his book, Seven Pillars OF Wisdom-A Triumph, Lawrence expounds,
“The common base of all the Semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness. Their profound reaction from matter led them to preach bareness, renunciation, poverty; and the atmosphere of this invention stifled the minds of the desert pitilessly. A first knowledge of their sense of the purity of rarefaction was given me in early years, when we had ridden far out over the rolling plains of North Syria to a ruin of the Roman period which the Arabs believed was made by a prince of the border as a desert-palace for his queen. The clay of its building was said to have been kneaded for greater richness, not with water, but with the precious essential oils of flowers. My guides, sniffing the air like dogs, led me from crumbling room to room, saying, ‘This is jessamine, this violet, this rose.’”
“But at last Dahoum drew me: ‘Come and smell the very sweetest scent of all’, and we went into the main lodging, to the gaping window sockets of its eastern face, and there drank with open mouths of the effortless, empty, eddyless wind of the desert, throbbing past. That slow breath had been born somewhere beyond the distant Euphrates and had dragged its way across many days and nights of dead grass, to its first obstacle, the man-made walls of our broken palace. About them it appeared to fret and linger, murmuring in baby-speech. ‘This,’ they told me, ’is the best; it has no taste.’ My Arabs were turning their backs on perfumes and luxuries to choose the things in which mankind had had no share or part.”
Western civilization cannot buy the Arab world. We may think we can, witnessed by the various puppet governments placed in power and kept in power by the Western Multinational Corporations, however, that device is only temporary, and we are beginning to see the dismantling of it before our very eyes. The Royal families and the Puppet dictatorships of the Arab world are not a true representation of the Arab people. The renunciation of Materialism/Consumerism is woven into the life-breathing fabric of Arabs. Conversion, considering this pretext, is impossible.
One might well say, nonsense, look at the Royal families of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. I would say, yes, let us look at them. They appear to me to be irresponsible and contradictory individuals according to Western logic. Their life of opulence is a conflict for them and their erratic behavior exemplifies this.
T.E Lawrence writes,
“To live, the villager or townsman must fill himself each day with the pleasures of acquisition and accumulation, and by rebound off circumstances become the grossest and most material of men. The shining contempt of life, which led others into the barest asceticism, drove him to despair. He squandered himself heedlessly, as a spendthrift: ran through his inheritance of flesh in a hasty longing for the end.
……The Semite hovered between lust and self-denial.”
So you see, the Arabs are not at peace, at home, amongst Materialism/Consumerism, and as such, will ultimately squander their fortune due to a un-conscience longing to return to worthlessness.
What we are seeing now, in the resurgence of fundamentalist Islam, is not so much a religious revival, as much as a Cultural revival. According to Lawrence, these revivals have come in waves as follows,
“Since the dawn of life, in successive waves they had been dashing themselves against the coasts of flesh. Each wave was broken, but, like the sea wore away ever so little of the granite on which it failed, and some day, ages yet, might roll unchecked over the place where the material world had been, and god would move upon the face of those waters. On such wave (and not the least) I raised and rolled before the breath of an idea, till it reached its crest, and toppled over and fell in Damascus. The wash of that wave, thrown back by the resistance of vested things, will provide the matter of the following wave, when in fullness time the sea shall be raised once more.”
Lawrence experienced a wave that predicated his novel. There have been waves since, and, I believe, we are in the midst of a wave right now; a tidal wave of astronomical proportions. One that may perhaps strip the granite clean in one fell swoop and clear the Earth of Materialism/Consumerism once and for all. Of course, Mankind would be a casualty, leaving only Purity (God).
T. E. Lawrence, when he mentioned, “ages yet”, obviously, had no knowledge of Nuclear Weaponry. With the advent of such, and his knowledge thereof, I’m certain he would have asserted “years yet.”

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Feb 1 2011 17:58 utc | 14

Duly noted, mistah charley, duly noted. But keep in mind, the fetus (foetus, if you’re European)is genetically defective….a Frankenstein, of sorts, so all manner of abnormalities are possible.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Feb 1 2011 18:40 utc | 16

Its you? B?
I missed you and all the group.
We have a lot of work. Wikileaks etc.
Thank you.

Posted by: timidcurious | Feb 1 2011 19:16 utc | 18

Dedicated to my brothers and sisters in Egypt…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 1 2011 19:29 utc | 20

difficult to believe the masses would accept such a minimal concession

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 19:37 utc | 22

Thanks Noirette – very interesting history.

Posted by: b | Feb 1 2011 19:51 utc | 24

Example of JPost FUD (or just lousy journalism):
Israeli critics open up on US ‘abandonment’ of Mubarak:

According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists.

The poll actually puts that number to around 16% of Egyptians (if 90% of Egyptians are Muslims and my math is correct). See here – 59% of the 31% of Egyptians who are Muslims (~90%) and say that there is a struggle between Fundamentalists and modernizers in their country identify with fundamentalists.

Posted by: Lex | Feb 1 2011 20:19 utc | 26

sorry, wrong article link above… that is the one with the quote:
Our World: Clueless in Washington

Posted by: Lex | Feb 1 2011 20:38 utc | 28

mubarak is fucking mad

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 21:00 utc | 30

it is in essence a declaration of war

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 21:04 utc | 32

My comments are a response to this comment from remembereringgiap. My comments are not meant to disparage ummmmm….how should we refer to “them,” Alexno? Is there no “them.” If there is no “them” then the comment below has no meaning. Do you deny that the Middle East was comprised of a significant faction of Bedouins for thousands of years? Do you deny that this history doesn’t in some way shape who they are today?
those who demonize the arab people do so degrading their own humanity – it was once sd that anti semitism was the socialism of the stupid – the hatred of the arab & persian people & their project – is a vulgarity worthy only of swine

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Feb 1 2011 21:28 utc | 34

i hope you are right b but i feel a foreboding – & it seems marwan bishar speaks of an increasingly tense coming days

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 21:42 utc | 36

“be resolute, fear no sacrifice, surmount every difficulty to win victory” – mao tse tung
“there is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent.” – mao tse tung

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 21:47 utc | 38

Mubarak’s intransigence leads to revolution, or to his expulsion from the country, or to his arrest and trial. His refusal to face political facts is a reason to consider him unfit to continue as president.

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 1 2011 22:12 utc | 40

are those people forming a chain try to seperate both parties?

Posted by: Lex | Feb 1 2011 22:41 utc | 42

but it seems small groups – possibly security forces/goons

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 22:52 utc | 44

Goons or security forces they are I’m quite sure – emerging out of nowhere, simultaneously in different cities, at night, confrontantional, right after the “chaos or stability” speach.

Posted by: Lex | Feb 1 2011 23:09 utc | 46

If Mubarak manages to hang on till September, then once the protesters go home and the police are back on the streets, his mukhabarat will track down each and every protest leader and torture them till they die. This is now life or death for many of the organizers. They need to get rid of Mubarak to stay alive.

Posted by: Lysander | Feb 1 2011 23:17 utc | 48

What about that moment in Mubarak’s speech where the translator seemed to stumble a bit? Something about “..the Homeland goes on but the people do not..” (?) It struck me as fairly ominous.

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 1 2011 23:22 utc | 50

copeland, me too

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2011 23:23 utc | 52

obama impresses with the glorious vacuity of his statement – he doesn’t fool the al jazeera reporter, however

Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. | Feb 1 2011 23:51 utc | 54

It’s vitally important that the people of Egypt take this through to the very end. I know that’s a lot to expect, but if they don’t, and they let down their guard, I’m afraid what will await them will be the fate of the political protesters in Iran. Allegedly, 80 people were executed in Iran this past month….many of them political prisoners. The Egyptian people should not let this uprising vanquish in vain. It is imperative that they remove all elements of the old Regime, and that includes the high ranking officers in the Army. Justice must be served and the IMF, World Bank, the U.S. and all other international meddlers must be asked to leave.
I’m not conflating the protests in Egypt with the protests in Iran, as NPR was doing this afternoon. I believe they are distinct for many reasons. What’s disheartening is that some of the naive people caught in the crosshairs in that “fabricated” protest in Iran are now paying the ultimate price and the provocateurs who inculcated those protests escape into the night. I don’t want to see people in Egypt pay the ultimate price for something that bears no fruit.
There should be no going back, and there should be no capitulating. I know that is easier said than done, but if you leave remnants of the old regime in place, including the brutal and sadistic security and intelligence services, then vengeance will swiftly come thereafter, and that would be a tragedy.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Feb 2 2011 1:10 utc | 56

“There should be no going back, and there should be no capitulating. I know that is easier said than done, but if you leave remnants of the old regime in place, including the brutal and sadistic security and intelligence services, then vengeance will swiftly come thereafter, and that would be a tragedy.”
MB i agree this is the greatest danger & therein lies darkness

Posted by: noiseannoys | Feb 2 2011 2:11 utc | 58

Race can be a useful categoriser of societies, however it must be remembered that to use race one must be accurate and one must also except that racial characteristics are by their essence statistical lowest common denominator definition. That is one can’t say an Arab definitely will or won’t behave in a certain way, one can only say that under certain circumtsnces an Arab is more likely to to behave in a certain way, because Arab custom usually causes them to. Humans – the only thing we are constant about is our inconstancy!
As for the racist diatribe about what values “all bedouins” have; even if that were true the notion that all Arabs are/were Bedoiun or even were all nomadic is about as accurrate as describing all of America’s aborigines as having all been Arapaho.
A quick example based on the assumption that rabid zionists are thin on the ground around here:
Does anyone seriously believe that all the farmers of the Jordan Valley packed their bags and headed south when moses convinced the Jerusalem ruling elite to follow him south?
In all likelihold the former Arab landowners of Palestine are descended from those self same agrarians of three millennia ago. They would have had occassional contact with Bedouin of Palestine, now largely confined to the Negev, and suffering the special fate reserved for those truly at the bottom of society, but most likely any common ancestry (of the Adam & Eve style, dating right back, probably to the time humans tracked food out of Africa north into what we now call The Mid East) preceded the emergence of a distinct grouping of humans known as the Bedouin, or the jews or the .
I would be reluctant to call all nomads bedouin let alone all Arabs. Unless you’re an aparthied ME loving jew who seems to think all those brown-skinned nomadic types are the same. Only fit for cleaning floors.
These Bedouin from which ‘Morocco Bama’ claims all Arabs are descended from – were they from the Phoenicians of the eastern Mediterranean ( Lebanon & Palestine) of the Sumerians of mesopotamia, now known as Iraq. Tow quite distinct culture with completely different pre Islam beliefs languages and customs.
I realise it is popular in the US to subscribe to some belief that all Arabs are the same and therefore they can all be chucked into any other Arabic speaking society that isn’t near the Jordan valley, but this is a complete misperception.
It is no coincidence, that the zionists have tried to take complete control over the written history of Jordan Valley, a history that is richly diverse and which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that most of the communities weren’t judaic, but why would anyone who isn’t a zionist willingly subscribe to such nonsense?
As for Hussein, a thug from a wealthy Saudi family who the British installed on a throne far far from home, he wouldn’t have any real idea of who his father really was, much less the true history of the people he oppressed just for kicks.

Posted by: Paradise Mislaid | Feb 2 2011 3:19 utc | 60

from a wiki article on Hussein’s grandfather Abdullah

Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, King of Jordan [‘Abd Allah ibn al-Husayn] (February 1882 – 20 July 1951) (Arabic) عبد الله الأول بن الحسين born in Mecca, Ottoman Empire, (in modern-day Saudi Arabia) was the second of three sons of Sherif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca and his first wife Abdiyya bint Abdullah (d. 1886). He was educated in Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey and Hijaz. From 1909 to 1914, Abdullah sat in the Ottoman legislature, as deputy for Mecca, but allied with Britain during World War I. Between 1916 to 1918, working with the British guerrilla leader T. E. Lawrence, he played a key role as architect and planner of the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, leading guerrilla raids on garrisons.[1] He was the ruler of Transjordan and its successor state, Jordan, from 1921 to 1951[2]—first as Emir under a British Mandate from 1921 to 1946, then as King of an independent nation from 1946 until his assassination.

Let us hope that Israa’ Abd el-Fattah and her friends remember that old saw:
“Whomsoever draws their sword against their prince, should throw away the scabbard”. In other words there can be no going back once a revolt has begun one is bound to continue to the end whatever that may be. They must press on and demand the ouster of Murabek. To do otherwise, such as allowing him to stay on until the elections, would be certain suicide.

Posted by: Paradise Mislaid | Feb 2 2011 4:13 utc | 62

re 57
Not that it means much, and using him as a reference is highly ironic considering, but King Hussein of Jordan appears to agree with me about the influence of the Bedouin on Arab culture.
I think you’ll find that Jordan is very much the exception in its self-identification. It was done because it is true of (Trans) Jordan, but also because it separated Jordan from Palestine in the Mandate period.
We’re not hearing very much about bedouin in this Egyptian crisis, although they exist.

Posted by: alexno | Feb 2 2011 7:39 utc | 64

@Hannah K. O’Luthon, comment 65,
Sure the Western Powers have been investigating alternatives, from what I can see, their first and second lime of attack (or is it defense ?) is the military. They’ve been building ties for years through exchange programs and the like and making sure everyone at or near the top toes the line. I doubt El Baradei is high on their list of alternatives though. They’ll take him only as a plan C – at best.
—
His majesty absolute creepiness, aka toni ‘bambi’ blair speaks:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/tony-blair-mubarak-courageous-force-for-good-egypt
(is he a paid spokesman for the Israel gov now ? yeah, yeah I know he’s always been extremely partisan, but he never put it that clearly)

Posted by: Philippe | Feb 2 2011 9:16 utc | 66

The army is now calling for a return to ‘normality’. The western powers back an orderly ‘transition’. Israel and their supporters are completely freaked, full panic mode, and won’t allow any opening. It’s time for the crackdown. The army leadership will back the ‘transition’. They have restored Internet to give the impression that ‘change’ has been achieved with this ridiculous concession from Mubarak and now it’s the time of ‘normality’.
This will become bloody unless the army, not their leadership, decides to back the protesters. Depending what happens with the army this will range from a very bloody civil war (army splits), a slaughter of protesters (army backs the regime) or a small massacre of regime hardliners (army gets fed up with US, Israel and Mubarak).
I mostly agree with AngryArab analysis. This will end as a people’s revolt similar to Iran (but Egypt is not Iran, like France or Germany aren’t Italy or Poland) or as a bloody counter-revolution.
I expect two days of calm and then if by Friday the opposition has not disbanded one way or another (MB and El Baradei are too soft on their opposition and may come to a compromise with the regime) and they keep their decision of moving on the regime symbols all hell will break loose. That’s the reason the western countries are moving all their citizens out of Egypt as fast as they can.
The doors for a peaceful end for this crisis have been likely closed.

Posted by: ThePaper | Feb 2 2011 11:16 utc | 68

Let’s cut out the race talk, please. I’m not claiming race, I’m pointing to commonly perpetuated behaviors that form what we know as “culture” due to similar living conditions and proximity. It has nothing to do with “race.” I personally don’t believe in the validity of “race,” scientifically speaking, although it is still very real in the sense that duplicitous assholes will use the concept to fracture and subjugate.
That being said, there is certainly an argument to be made that Egypt, more than any other country in the “Middle East,” is less affected by Bedouin culture, but it’s not a strong argument to claim that the people who are commonly referred to as “Arabs” are not affected by Bedouin culture, overall. I never claimed all Arabs are descended from only Bedouin.
I respect the “Arab” so condescendingly described by T.E. Lawrence. The sense of freedom and true “liberation” that must come from an involuntary renunciation and shunning of the material must be rewarding, although it probably was so much a part of their disposition, they took it for granted….it was an involuntary reflex.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Feb 2 2011 12:47 utc | 70

Lysander 61, i think he’s trying to get on the right side of history.

Posted by: annie | Feb 2 2011 16:27 utc | 72