Hundreds march on State Security building in Egypt

[P F Tinmore]

CAIRO – Hundreds of Egyptian protesters attempted to storm a building belonging to the internal security service in Alexandria on Friday in an outpouring of anger at the agency blamed for some of the worst human rights violations during ousted President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

Officers inside the building opened fire on the crowd, injuring three demonstrators, according to a medic and one of the protesters.

Tensions remain high even as Egypt's military, which took control of the country after Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, takes steps to meet the protesters' demands before a promised return to civilian rule. One of the protesters' key remaining demands is for the dismantling of Egypt's State Security Agency.

Hundreds march on State Security building in Egypt - Yahoo! News

 

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Downside/upside to Jasmine Revolution...

How Egypt's protesters will change US ties
March 4, 2011 - The new Egypt is likely to emerge as more independent, diverging from US wishes in certain areas – such as reaching out to Iran. But the allies still have long-term common interests.

Egypt’s popular uprising toppled the leader of the nation that is a cornerstone of US policy in the Middle East, raising concerns that America could lose its leverage with a key ally. The strength of protests in Tahrir Square today, nearly six weeks after the revolution began, demonstrates that popular pressure is likely to play a key role in shaping the post-Mubarak era.

But while the new Egypt is likely to emerge as more independent and willing to diverge from US wishes in certain areas, it will simultaneously seek to maintain good ties with its American ally, say analysts. Charting a more independent course could help Egypt regain some of the regional clout it has lost over the past decades as it stagnated, partly as a result of its support for US policies.

“The nature of the relationship is going to change, but we're not talking about a fundamental realignment in bilateral US-Egypt relations,” says Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center. “The focus is going to be on rebuilding Egypt, and US support and assistance is going to be essential in that process. But it will take on a different flavor.… It's not going to be a patron-client relationship anymore.”

Popular pressure for harder line on Israel

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An upside of Arab revolts: Islamists talk democracy
March 4, 2011 - Egypt opened the way for new dialogue between Islamists and secularists. That could foster Muslim democracies.

Egypt's Tahrir Square revolution is leapfrogging across the Arab world, opening a landscape of new possibilities in the Middle East. One of the most important may be the opportunity for a badly needed dialogue between secularists and Islamists.

For decades, authoritarian Arab regimes restricted free speech and public debate, especially when it came to religion and politics. In the ensuing intellectual stagnation, a deep rift developed between those active in Islamist organizations, or political Islam, and those who saw this trend as dangerous for democracy.

The common cause that they might have struck against repressive governments never came to pass because of their mutual distrust and dislike – often expressed in pithy epithets. "Secularist!" Islamists would cry at their political rivals who wanted religion-free politics. The label, commonly regarded as a code word for "Western," implied that one was an apostate in Islam. "Fanatics!" secularists would retort. This polarized, ossifying divide is now being left behind.

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Uncle Ferd says, "Yea - men been fightin' the revolution an' now the womens wants the credit for it...

On International Women's Day, Egyptian women demand revolutionary role
March 8, 2011 - Egyptian women are staging a 'Million Woman March' today after the new prime minister appointed only one woman to his cabinet, raising fears that women will be shut out of building a new Egypt.

On the day when Egypt’s revolution began, when huge crowds came out to protest former president Hosni Mubarak’s government, women came. When protests turned into battles with police, women faced the tear gas with the men. And when protesters settled in for the long haul and occupied Tahrir Square, women were among those who pitched their tents and slept in the cold. But though they fought for their nation’s freedom, some women now fear they are being sidelined in the process of building the new Egypt. Today, on International Women’s Day, they are returning to Tahrir, where the revolution began, for a “Million Woman March” aimed at reminding the nation that they should have a voice in its future.

“When the prime minister came to Tahrir to speak to the people, was he blind? Did he not see that half of the people filling the square were women?” asks Nehad Abu El Komsan, head of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, referring to the fact that the new prime minister’s cabinet includes only one woman. “If we're not involved in building the constitutional and legislative future of this country now, then when? Why do we see women, who were almost 50 percent of the protesters in Tahrir, not represented in decision-making rooms?”

Ms. Komsan lists the ways women have been excluded from the political process since Mubarak’s fall: The military council ruling the country until new elections are held failed to appoint a single woman to the committee tasked with drafting constitutional amendments. One of the proposed constitutional amendments implies that the office of presidency is limited to men by saying that a president cannot be married to a non-Egyptian woman. And the only woman in Prime Minister Essam Sharaf’s new government is from Mubarak’s government.

Women seek a voice in new constitution

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Arab women: this time, the revolution won't leave us behind
March 8, 2011 -
Arab women were integral players in the post-colonial revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, but soon lost ground. They are vowing not to be marginalized in the wake of this year's Arab spring.

Arab women have been crucial midwives in the revolutions that have shattered the status quo in the Middle East. A first voice of the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia was the sister of Mohamed Bouazizi, the young man who immolated himself and set off the protests. In Mr. Bouazizi’s town of Sidi Bouzid, “Of all those who spoke to the media, the most forceful was his sister [Leila], who strongly advocated political equality,” says Khadija Cherif, former president of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Woman, speaking from Tunis.

Yet the extent of Arab female participation may be less important than the question: Were democracy revolutions possible without the women?

Women’s networks, courage, voices, and activity so directly influenced the Arab spring that any new democracy failing to include them has some explaining to do. Men and women marched side by side in January and February. After 50 years of work, as senior Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi put it, “In [Tahrir Square] I felt for the first time that women are equal to men.”

Stereotypes of Arab women

 

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Still a long row to hoe...

The Middle East Crisis Has Just Begun
MARCH 26, 2011 - For the U.S., democracy's fate in the region matters much less than the struggle between the Saudis and Iran

Despite the military drama unfolding in Libya, the Middle East is only beginning to unravel. American policy-makers have been spoiled by events in Tunisia and Egypt, both of which boast relatively sturdy institutions, civil society associations and middle classes, as well as being age-old clusters of civilization where states of one form or another have existed since antiquity. Darker terrain awaits us elsewhere in the region, where states will substantially weaken once the carapace of tyranny crumbles. The crucial tests lie ahead, beyond the distraction of Libya.

The United States may be a democracy, but it is also a status quo power, whose position in the world depends on the world staying as it is. In the Middle East, the status quo is unsustainable because populations are no longer afraid of their rulers. Every country is now in play. Even in Syria, with its grisly security services, widespread demonstrations have been reported and protesters killed. There will be no way to appease the region's rival sects, ethnicities and other interest groups except through some form of democratic representation, but anarchic quasi-democracy will satisfy no one. Other groups will emerge, and they may be distinctly illiberal.

Whatever happens in Libya, it is not necessarily a bellwether for the Middle East. The Iranian green movement knows that Western air forces and navies are not about to bomb Iran in the event of a popular uprising, so it is unclear what lesson we are providing to the region. Because outside of Iran, and with the arguable exceptions of Syria and Libya itself, there is no short-term benefit for the U.S. in democratic revolts in the region. In fact, they could be quite destructive to our interests, even as they prove to be unstoppable.

Yemen, strategically located on the Gulf of Aden, as well as the demographic core of the Arabian Peninsula and a haunt of al Qaeda, is more important to American interests than Libya. In Yemen, too, a longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has shot protesters in the street to keep order. Yemen constitutes the most armed populace in the world, with almost four times as many firearms as people. It is fast running out of ground water, and the median age of the population is 17. This is to say nothing of the geographical, political and sectarian divisions in the sprawling, mountainous country. However badly Mr. Saleh has ruled Yemen, more chaos may follow him. Coverage by Al Jazeera can help to overthrow a government like his, but it can't help to organize new governments.

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