RANT OR RAVE? Egypt's D-Day

Today is Egypt's own 'D-Day' or 'Day of Departure' - day of departure, that is, for Hosni Mubarak, or Hosni the Hated as I like to call him. He's certainly hated by most of his people, whatever his so-called 'supporters' clashing with anti-Mubarak demonstrators might suggest otherwize.



Every regime has its supporters - it's the gross tragedy that is human nature. That doesn't make the regime any more credible, nor the opposition thereto any less so. 

So what am I to feel about this 'D-Day'? Am I to rave about it or rant about it?

It should be a day of epic proportions in which the Dictator on the Nile finally gets the message and slinks away into the eternal sunset. That is cause to rave, that is cause for celebration.

But it could get violent, very violent.

Hosni Mubarak is one of the most oppressive dictators still around. He has shown he wants to leave on his terms. If he succeeds in getting his way, what will those terms be?

The police and security forces are clearly his henchman. But what of the army? Their inactions in the first few days of the uprising were lauded by many for the 'restraint' and 'maturity' thereof.

Hmmmm....

I never trust armies, even when they are 'on the side of the people'. I'm funny that way.

My suspicions of the Egyptian army were confirmed when they allowed pro-Mubarak 'supporters' to run amok and create mayhem and cause death and injury in Tahrir Square two nights ago and again yesterday.

What is the Egyptian army playing at? It's hedging its bets, that's what.

If the Egyptian people believe they have a 'friend' in their powerful army, they better think again.

So my only hope is that the sheer force of the anti-Mubarak marches today will sweep all before them, and usher in the dramatic change the country so clearly needs.

May the Egyptian be able to kick that decrepit, desperate dictator all the way out of Egypt.

Godspeed, brave people of Egypt.

I may be an atheist, but that is my prayer for today.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Mubarak, Your Remaining Best Friend Is...Netanyahu

Hosni Mubarak has very few friends left. The events of yesterday in Cairo have left him with even fewer, as thousands of his 'supporters' went on a rampage against anti-government protesters in Cairo, particularly in and around what has become the revolution's symbolic epicentre, Tahrir Square.

Funny how after over a week of peaceful demonstrations and no visible Mubarak supporters there are suddenly thousands of them throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the anti-Mubarak throngs. And this just a day or so after Mubarak's 'promise' to leave by September was downright (and rightly) rejected by the demonstrators. Funny that.

He is even willing to see his own people descend into possible civil war just to save his sorry ass. Talk about a desperate, pathetic man.

The Arab world has been ominously quiet about events in Egypt. Hardly surprising when one considers how many Arab leaders must be freaking out that the Tunisia and Egypt contagion spreads into their own oppressed states. Iran has come out in vocal, public support of the demonstrators. Clever Iran. 

Even more telling is how Mubarak has lost what was the tepid, very cautious support of the United States since this broke last week. This from a nation who had propped him up all these years and who once saw him as a vital bulwark against heaven-knows-what in the region. That's gone. Today the US State Department was quoted as stating that there needed to be a 'peaceful transition of power in Egypt' and, more tellingly, that it needed to be 'now'. The key word is now, Mubarak. That's state-speak for 'get-the-hell-out-of-office-because-you-can-no-longer-count-on-us-for-support.' 

With friends like that, who the hell needs enemies, right? Oh, divine justice.  

So, who does Hosni the Hated have left now? Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that's who.




Netanyahu has been the only leader who has stated that Mubarak out of power will somehow mean the collapse of Egypt and great danger to the Middle East. What a pile of rubbish. No, Israel, all you are is poep scared that the cosy and compliant buffer you had in the dictator Mubarak will now be gone. Israel needs a divided, undemocratic and oppressed Arab world around it. It justifies how 'democratic' Tel Aviv claims it is and how 'necessary' Israel is as a bastion of 'Western values and democracy' in a sea of Muslim and anti-West fanaticism.  

Israel sure as hell doesn't need a bunch of more democratic Arab states surrounding it that no longer wish to kiss America's ass on the Israel-Palestine issue. How will it be able to justify being an apartheid state?

Yeah, when you're a dictator and the whole world is turning against you, including the imperial power itself, then all you have left is the support of an oppressive, schizophrenic little apartheid state. That figures.

Mubarak and Netanyahu make absolute sense as firm (and very scared) friends against a rising tide of change and nascent democracy in the Middle East.

You deserve one another, you bastards.

Do you get my point?

RANT & RAVE: Mubarak - You Speak, They Speak

Hosni Mubarak clings onto power in Egypt like a gigantic, decrepit leech. 



Courtesy of Kerry Waghorn - http://www.kerrywaghorn.com/

 After a week of protests unprecedented in Egyptian history, the man has the nerve to go on state TV last night and declare that he'll leave when it suits him, i.e. only in September. And he further insults the protesters by claiming that the protests have been manipulated by 'political forces' with their 'own agendas'.

No kidding, mister. The 'political forces' are people sick and tired of you, and their 'agenda' is kick you the hell out of power. It's really that simple.

Bloody bastard just won't let go - that's what you get when you have a ruthless dictator who's been in power for way too long, always with the support of the United States, Israel and other western countries. Talk about backing the wrong horse...

The people clearly want him gone, gone, gone.

There have been some placards with unequivocal messages (sic) for Mubarak during the protests, including:

Mubarak is a coward

and

Mubarak theres the door

One man even resorted to telling him in a host of languages where to go (see below):



And my personal favourite from a few days ago:

Mubarak you must leave
Then I go home
The end

Priceless.

RAVE: Egypt & the 'Tunisian Effect'

I knew it was going to happen. It was inevitable after the stupendous events in Tunisia over the last few weeks. The Jasmine Revolution, the 'Tunisian effect' as it has become known had to become a contagion. Another oppressed, depressed Arab country had to have its own uprising.

Others have had their own popular uprisings this past week - Yemen, Algeria, Jordan - but none on the scale and magnitude of this behemoth of the Arab world.

I knew it was going to be Egypt.



After all...

• The repression of the Tunisian people is the quintessential 'picnic in the park' compared to the repression that the Egyptian people have suffered for decades now.
• Hosni Mubarak is the dictator of all dictators in the Arab world. His secret police are not reviled as being amongst the most horrific torturers in the world for nothing.
• Few other countries in the world, let alone the highly volatile Middle East, are as much in the pocket of the United States' warped and surreal foreign policy as Egypt is - and has been for decades now.
• Egypt has one of the highest youth and overall unemployment rates in the Middle East - and that means millions of disaffected and hungry people.
• Egypt has supposedly had 'high growth rates' in recent years, yet the rich get even more stinking rich and the vast swathe of poor stay the same or even get poorer. Sound familiar of late?

An oppressed people, widespread allegations of state torture, rising unemployment, rising food costs, rising fuel costs, the gulf between rich and poor getting even wider - and yet the Mubarak regime is somehow 'caught by surprise'?

Who the hell are these leaders to be so out of touch with the needs, aspirations and frustrations of so many of their citizens?!

Mubarak is a dictator, and a brutal one at that. His time has come. The man must get the hell out. Just like Ben Ali of Tunisia, he must be run out of the country.

The people of Egypt must not give up. They owe it to themselves. They owe it to every repressed person in Yemen, Algeria, Syria, Libya - the list is endless. In fact, they owe it to every one of us.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Power to the People of Tunisia!

Yes, indeed - Power to the people of Tunisia!

I can only marvel at the extraordinary events that have taken place in Tunisia in just the last few days.

I marvel at:

- How demonstrations by the people forced a previously invincible dictatorial president to flee - a man who had been in corrupt and iron-clad power for 23 years

- How the people of Tunisia made that which was unthinkable just a few months ago reality - very stark reality - and all within a matter of weeks, even days

- How YET AGAIN the power of the Internet to serve as conduit for much-needed change and for good has been proven

- How a decidedly undemocratic and oppressed nation has been decidedly turned upside down

- How a relatively small nation of the Maghreb is going to make every other oppressive regime in the entire region scared - VERY scared - and that's only a good thing 

- How people who are sick of oppression and rising fuel and food costs really can bring down an entire government

- How revolutions really do occur on empty stomachs and with angry minds

- How I on the southern tip of the African continent can be so moved and energized by the actions of citizens on the northern tip of this continent

Goodbye, Ben Ali, you bastard...good riddance to bad rubbish, no doubt.

Now I can only hope that the Tunisian people will get the free and fair elections and open, unoppressive government that they deserve after what they have achieved.

And they no doubt deserve that...

Do you get my point?