Compiled here is a collection of recommended reports and resources on current events unfolding in Egypt and across the region:
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Al Jazeera is an essential source for ongoing reports, breaking news, interviews and analysis. You can watch their coverage live, here. Democracy Now! has provided excellent on the ground coverage and insightful analysis. Sharif Kouddous, Egyptian reporter and senior producer at Democracy Now! continues updates via Twitter from Tahrir square. For Twitter users, searching in Twitter for Egypt will also give you ongoing reports, shared news, links and updates. Also see veteran Middle East report Robert Fisk’s dispatches from Cairo for the Independent. |
From Into Egypt’s Uncharted Territory, by Hesham Sallam, Joshua Stacher and Chris Toensing:
Egypt has entered uncharted political territory, where the opposition — and the untamed street-level opposition at that — holds significant initiative of its own. The regime has never encountered such a wily opponent. “History will judge me,” Mubarak intoned as he delivered the valediction for his presidential candidacy. Indeed it will, though his annals are already in their last chapter. The full history of Egypt’s 2011 uprising, however, has yet to be forged.
From Movements in Egypt: The US realigns, by Samir Amin:
The movement is that of urban youth, particularly holders of diplomas with no jobs, and supported by segments of the educated middle classes and democrats. The new regime could perhaps make some concessions – enlarge the recruitment in the state apparatus, for example – but hardly more.
Of course things could change if the working-class and peasants’ movement moves in. But this does not seem to be on the agenda. Of course as long as the economic system is managed in accordance with the rules of the ‘globalisation game’, none of the problems which resulted in the protest movement can really be solved.
From The Egyptian Uprising in the American Media, by Joshua Farouk Georgy:
When Egyptians have risen up and demanded their rights, they have done so as a people. This was the case during the revolution of 1952 as it was during resistance movements to British occupation in 1882 and 1919. Now we are witnessing a revolutionary moment in 2011, and the structure of Western mainstream discourse obscures the obvious.
A long time ago foreign powers, with the United States in the first place, cast their lot with the dictator. Now the Egyptian people are having their say.
From an interview with Noam Chomsky:
Well, this is the most remarkable regional uprising that I can remember. … Where it’s going to lead, nobody knows. I mean, the problems that the protesters are trying to address are extremely deep-seated, and they’re not going to be solved easily. There is a tremendous poverty, repression, a lack of not just democracy, but serious development. Egypt and other countries of the region have just been through a neoliberal period, which has led to growth on paper, but with the usual consequences: high concentration of extreme wealth and privilege, tremendous impoverishment and dismay for most of the population. And that’s not easily changed.
From Frank Wisner in Cairo: The Empire’s Bagman by Vijay Prashad:
Obama came to Cairo in 2009, and said, “America does not presume to know what is best for everyone.” Those words should have been cast in gold and placed in the portico of the White House. Instead, they drift like wisps in the wind, occasionally sighted for propaganda purposes, but in a time of crisis, hidden behind the clouds of imperial interests (or those of Tel Aviv). America presumes to know, and presumes to have a say equivalent to those of the millions who have thronged Egypt’s squares, streets and television sets (one forgets about the protests of the latter, too tired to get to the square, nursing sick children or adults, a bit fearful, but no less given over to anger at the regime).
From What Corruption and Force Have Wrought in Egypt by Chris Hedges:
What is happening in Egypt will damage and perhaps unravel the fragile peace treaty between Egypt and Jordan with Israel. It is likely to end Washington’s alliance with these Arab intelligence services, including the use of prisons to torture those we have disappeared into our vast network of black sites. The economic ties between Israel and these Arab countries will suffer. The current antagonism between Cairo and the Hamas government in Gaza will be replaced by more overt cooperation. The Egyptian government’s collaboration with Israel, which includes demolishing tunnels into Gaza, the sharing of intelligence and the passage of Israeli warship and submarines through the Suez Canal, will be in serious jeopardy. Any government—even a transition government that is headed by a pro-Western secularist such as Mohamed ElBaradei—will have to make these changes in the relationship with Israel and Washington if it wants to have any credibility and support. We are seeing the rise of a new Middle East, one that will not be as pliable to Washington or as cowed by Israel.
(Photo by Floris Van Cauwelaert)