February 22, 2005
OH, THAT ARAB STREET?:
Protests held in Cairo against fifth term for Mubarak (AFP, 2/21/05)
More than 500 people rallied in Cairo to protest against a new term in office for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and against moves to enable his son Gamal to succeed him afterwards."That's enough" and "Down with Hosni Mubarak" shouted protestors who gathered in front of Cairo University, while around 50 trucks packed with police were deployed nearby. [...]
Organised by the Egyptian Movement for Change, the demonstrators also included Marxists, Nasserites, liberals and Islamic dissidents from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Leaflets handed out at the rally called for a constitutional amendment which would limit the president to two, four-year terms in power, instead of an indeterminate number of six-year terms.
They condemned the decision of some opposition parties to postpone demands for constitutional reform until after Mubarak's re-election vote.
You don't read much anymore about how the Domino Theory can't work... Posted by Orrin Judd at February 22, 2005 5:54 PM
But wait, there's hope! What if the Arabs (Persians, Kurds, etc.) are not authentic, and their current street is merely false conciousness run amok? OK then, problem solved - they are just dirty lumpens, and its fine for us to switch from sympathy to sneering. Quick, get Jennings the new story line.
Posted by: Luciferous at February 22, 2005 6:00 PM"Marxists, Nasserites, liberals"
Ah.. was this part of the plan? Can we go back to the drawing board and perhaps come up with something that might actually bring the Arabs into the 21st century.
Of all the things I was hoping for, a resurgence of Communists and Nasserites wasn't at the top of the list.
At this nascent stage, these groups are the only ones organized enough to protest. And Nasserites protesting Mubarak? Isn't that like germs protesting disease?
Keep in mind that the article was from the fantasy world of Agence France Presse.
Posted by: Bart at February 22, 2005 7:50 PMexcept for the liberals,(classical or otherwise known as neo-liberals, almost as evil as noe-cons doesn't that comprise, protests all over the world
Posted by: narciso at February 22, 2005 8:15 PMi am waiting to hear from the arab boulevard, or maybe even the muslim cul-de-sac.
Posted by: cjm at February 22, 2005 9:45 PM