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Egypt anti-government protests grow

Same old shit:

"We will not allow troublemakers to meddle in the elections," Tantawi said on Sunday.
He added: "Egypt is at a crossroads; either we succeed politically, economically and socially or the consequences will be extremely grave and we will not allow that. None of this would have happened if there were no foreign hands."
Apparently alluding to the protesters in Tahrir Square, Tantawi said: "We will not allow a small minority of people who don't understand to harm Egypt's stability."
Click to expand...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/201111285426716706.html
 
Well the election seemed to have had a pretty high turnout, and the main trouble on the day was numerous parties blatantly ignoring the law about not campaigning on polling day.

Meanwhile according to various twitter accounts it sounds like its all gone a bit pear-shaped for people that are still in Tahrir square, with some people fighting with square 'security' people, bit of an ugly disintegration going on. But its not very easy for me to form much of a picture from the tweets I've seen so far.
 
Oh dear, it sounds like orange-vested 'security' people who often man square checkpoints decided it was a good idea to smash up street-vendors stuff with big sticks. As usual a number of 'infiltration' theories emerge as a result, but without good evidence and with a variety of bias behind the theories. Take your pick, I doubt I'll be able to discover the truth at the heart of this one.

An example of someone who has tweeted a lot about this in the last hour or so:

https://twitter.com/#!/Beltrew
 
Still lacking time to comment properly so here is an article based on an AP interview with elBaradei instead. Someof the points are vaguely similar to points I would make, others are worthy of the mighty face palm.

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16026/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Bymcgele

The Salafis are of particular concern, whereas the MB need testing to see how moderate they actually turn out to be. And Imnot sure where the surprise about the results comes from, there was never much sign that the liberals or youth would do really well was there? And the illiteracy rate in Egypt was on full display during the elections because different parties had little symbols on their adverts that can be used by illiterate voters to identify them on the ballot.
 
A primary reason that the MB success didn't raise my eyebrows is the level of social safety net that such organisations provide in countries such as Egypt. A political side-effect of having no decent state welfare system, played up strongly by the MB's party in their tv adverts. Cameron should move there, its the big society!
 
Kaka Tim said:
Muslim Brotherhood out of step again, having turned up late to the revolution in feburary and now cosying up to the military whilst people are shot in the streets.
So takeovermuch for the 'Islamic '.
Click to expand...
It is you who is out of step, your prejudice seems to have blinded you to the facts.

The people of Egypt have spoken and they have chosen the Islamists, with the Muslim Brotherhood "set to dominate the new parliament".

It would seem that Islamic Sharia is the freedom the people have voted for.

It is hardly surprising really as anyone who knows anything about the region understand that the Muslim Brotherhood are the biggest group to offer "education, health services and social services" in the area.

I wonder how many people on this board who have been supporting the various uprisings in the region will continue to support the Islamist governments (freely chosen by the newly liberated working class of the region) in their efforts to remove the dictators from that part of the world?
 
I will continue to support the will of the people, and I won't be rushing to judge the details of various islamist parties either. Even the term Sharia law covers quite a spectrum of possibilities, and as the Muslim Brotherhood's political party have been painting themselves as moderate I am not willing to assume much about what they want n terms of constitutional detail.

In any case it seems that the Egyptian military have come out, rather unsurprisingly, and said that the new parliament is not fully representative, and so they will not let the islamic parties have a free hand to draw up whatever constitution suits them. I haven't had much time this week as Ive been distracted by the company I work for going bust, but I expect this will be an interesting test for the youth and liberal forces that were quite a part of the uprising, do they now decide to support the military interfering when its done in the name of not letting islamists dominate. Monitoring this may be complicated by the fact that some in the media are trying to paint the entire youth revolutionary movement as 'liberal'.
 
1%er said:
It is you who is out of step, your prejudice seems to have blinded you to the facts.

The people of Egypt have spoken and they have chosen the Islamists, with the Muslim Brotherhood "set to dominate the new parliament".

It would seem that Islamic Sharia is the freedom the people have voted for.

It is hardly surprising really as anyone who knows anything about the region understand that the Muslim Brotherhood are the biggest group to offer "education, health services and social services" in the area.

I wonder how many people on this board who have been supporting the various uprisings in the region will continue to support the Islamist governments (freely chosen by the newly liberated working class of the region) in their efforts to remove the dictators from that part of the world?
Click to expand...
Yes, there are many degrees of Sharia laws in various cultures and I would like to have your optimism however, I believe it naive. The whole point of such brave protests is the desire for a secular government. I previously stated--remember the Iranian revolution and look who they got.
 
The protests were about overthrowing the regime, a regime which was pretty secular. The Egyptians speaking English on twitter are mostly after something secular, but I can't stretch that to cover all protesters, especially as the MB were involved quite heavily in the original protests. I've no idea what the ultras wanted, apart from to fight state power on the streets. So regardless of my own personal feelings towards religions, I can't really transplant my beliefs onto my imagined version of what Egyptians want. They want many different things, and the uncertainty at this time is in part a consequence of having a headless revolution (not that the revolution was completed anyway).

Islamists could lead to undesirable outcomes in a variety of arab spring countries, but I'll lose sight of reality if I allow islamist bogeymen fears to dominate my thinking at this time. The regime, which at the moment largely means the military, remain the biggest obstacle on the road to freedom for Egyptians, and Im not about to start moaning about islamists gaining ground via the freedom that has been won so far. Especially as the Egyptian economy relies in part on tourism, which is likely to moderate some of the excesses of Sharia law if someone with a brain gets their hands on the levels of power.

Egypt isn't Iran, and whilst the Iranian revolution offers some lessons as to how secular movements can become marginalised and crushed post-revolution, the brand of Islam in Egypt is quite different. The military is unlikely to fade out or lose its secular nature in a hurry.
 
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One of my friends is tweeting from there, says that someone just got badly hurt by a paving slab falling from parliament. Bonkers when politicians are defended like in a medieval seige.
 
Completely surreal:

Egyptocracy
How could soldiers keep throwing rocks for hours without anyone in charge stopping them? #Egypt #OccupyCabinet #dec16 #SCAF #Egypolice
14:05:32 via: Twitter for iPhone
SultanAlQassemi
Journalist Mohammed Al Qassas tells Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr "SCAF statement" asks people to avoid area for "maintenance reasons"
Click to expand...

It's chaos there now, proper riot.

Just seen another in uniform on roof throwing rocks
 
The live footage in the last 5 mins was insane, shame the advert breaks on that channel seem to last forever.
 
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