Be Excellent To Each Other

Tahrir Square a few minutes ago.

Wow. And this is when it hasn't even been confirmed. Imagine what it'll be like if he really is leaving, and taking Suleiman with him.

Hmm... do I go out or stay in...

Any minute now! Due at 8pm GMT. End of the dictator or his crazy last stand. COME ON YOU EGYYYYYPT.

He's talking noo, if you'd gave up waiting

Mad Dogs is on at 9 on Sky One.

God, he's a cock.

He just finished. He's made some pissant concessions he would undo in twenty minutes if he were allowed to stay, and then refused to leave.

The crowd are going fucking mental. I've never heard anything like it. Fifty thousand people probably went deaf in the last minute.

He's clearly determined to get the "Scarface ending" achievement.

That's a bit off-topic.

If you're wanting an update on this, get thee on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23jan25 . Far too much going on too quickly for me to keep up. It sounds like protestors in Alexandria have surrounded a military base and are demanding action. The main crowd in Tahrir are still there, although it's unclear if the people on the periphery have moved - it'd probably take half an hour for the people in the middle to even have anywhere to move to if they wanted to.

Something's got to give tonight. The military will have to step in, if they don't, it can't be long before a crowd charges a base or tries to take a tank for themselves or something. This is nuts. Mubarak is either completely insane or trying to break a rioting world record.

It's going to all kick off, the stubborn bastard will have more deaths on his name

clearly the naked text does not do Suleiman's amazing trick of making a speech with a cock in his mouth justice.

Just got back and caught the news. Pretty shocked to hear he's still there. Listening to AJ again - that's a hell of a difference in the crowd noise. The joyful cheers from earlier have been replaced by anger.

I'm now thinking of Brecht's famously cynical poem, 'The Solution':

'After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?'

EDITED to include the whole piece.

Guardian reported that Mubarak transferred all power to Suleiman.
Of course, this doesn't really mean much as the latter is still a shit tied to the regime and the crowd clearly aren't happy with it (my entry for BeeX Understatement of the Year 2011).

Waiting for other sources to confirm this interpretation of events.
Guardian also saying that the US are clearly pissed off with Mubarak now. Over here, William Hague 'reiterates his desire for a peaceful transition of power, adding: "The solution has to be owned by the Egyptian people themselves.' (BBC).
In Paris, President Sarkozy said: "I hope with all my heart for Egypt's nascent democracy that they take time to create the structures and principles that will help them find the path to democracy and not another form of dicatorship, religious dicatorship, like what happened in Iran." (BBC)

I might turn off the news now. It's very depressing, especially compared with the hope when the rumours started this afternoon.

The Saudis reportedly said that they will ship aid to Mubarak if the US stops. This may help explain his refusal to fuck off.

It also arguably removes the US from the equation - without rattling their sabre, there's nothing they can really do to influence him. And if they do that, they'll lose the Egyptian people altogether.

Which doesn't mean they're not going to do that, obv. But I doubt it'll come to that. Tomorrow, if not tonight, will prove very interesting.

Pro-tip: Put all your money into shares in Egyptian shoe-repair.

Disclaimer: I think Mubarak should go.

Question: Out of a population of 80m, a tiny percentile of people are protesting. Should he go? Do we believe that the countryside protests, a (possibly) higher percentage of the UK population, should have overthrown the Labour government?

Twitterfall is better at this sort of thing:
http://twitterfall.com/?trend=%23jan25!%231F3547

Interesting question.

I suppose over here, although we might hate Thatcher/Blair/Disraeli, there's a sense that our elections are open and fair (disregarding arguments about the voting system etc). So no matter how bad they might be, we know that at the end of the Parliament we can kick them out. In the meantime, to let off steam, we can mock our leaders as mercilessly as we want without fear of being led away by the secret police. In places like Egypt, ruled by fear, they've not had these outlets for their frustrations.

The army has made a statement, guaranteeing free and fair elections, constitutional changes, and has urged "the need to resume orderly work in the government installations and a return to normal life, preserve the interests and property of our great people".

(Abridged from BBC report)

For a second listening to that I thought they were going to make a real "We're taking charge. Right now." type statement, but they've stopped short of that.

Occurred to me last night that the military and Mubarak are being thwarted at every turn by the stubbornly peaceful nature of these protestors if they're scheming together. It would have been a good plan - the army makes an announcement, gets everyone excited for a few hours, so a million people march in the streets waiting for the good news. Then Mubarak thumbs his nose and insults them all. Riot breaks out; army has excuse to team up with Mubarak/whoever mubarak chooses and crush everyone.

But they're not having any of it, even if that's what went on. These people are amazing.

As for the question, well, millions of people have been protesting, and specifically demanding that he leaves, among other things. Nobody here knowingly risked kidnapping, torture and death of them and their families to get rid of Blair. About one in ten people in Egypt have, plus they have no alternative. And the people who've protested in support of the regime are the people who brought knives, horses and guns to attack unarmed demonstrators. And Mubarak himself has demonstrably been harming the country for weeks now, holding the economy to ransom just to get his way.

I've not heard from a single Egyptian who doesn't support these protests. Anecdotal, yes, but with any other event I can think of, there's always been at least some debate. Here, there's been no question about whether Mubarak should go, except from arsehole politicians like the US, Saudi and Israeli leadership.

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Well blow me... never thought it would happen!

Damnitt!

What's going on? I can't access that here, I'm in work. I'm blind! Help! People! Paste updates! My vision is impaired, I cannot see!

(And other tennuously connected Dimlies)

Egypt's Mubarak steps down!

1612: Full statement from Vice-President Suleiman: "In the name of God the merciful, the compassionate, citizens, during these very difficult circumstances Egypt is going through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from the office of president of the republic and has charged the high council of the armed forces to administer the affairs of the country. May God help everybody."
1611: It's taken 18 days of mass demonstrations. Mr Mubarak gave three televised statements in which he offered some concessions, but the protesters refused to be appeased.
1608: This is the moment the protesters have been waiting for. Mr Mubarak is stepping down after 30 years as Egypt's head of state.
1607: State TV says Mr Mubarak has handed over responsibility for running the nation's affairs to the higher military council.
1606: Tahrir Square has erupted - pictures show cheering crowds waving flags in the dark.
1604: The vice-president made a very brief televised statement. He said Mr Mubarak was stepping down for the benefit of the republic.

Everyone is going fucking mental (in a good way), much noisier than last night's anger

Wow!

The cunt! Why couldn't he wait 90 minutes?

Something tells me he got a call from the Whitehouse...

Good news though, undoubtedly.

Hmm, all they could really do is threaten to stop their "aid" payments & that bit of leverage was stripped from them last month.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/02/1 ... NC20110210

True, but Egypt relies a hell of a lot on tourism, and now we've all been made aware (or at least those of us - shamefully including me - who hadn't paid attention to rights abuses in Egypt before) not too many people are willing to go on holiday to Corrupt-Regime-Land. That's bound to cause concern amongst the ruling class. (Unless of course, you're talking about my Socialist Paradise in Tropico 3, visit me there for picturesque, photogenic poverty and cheap drinks!)

I'd say that pressure from the army became intolerable. Their families can't have been happy with the regime either and if the troops were giving the generals quiet grief and if there was a general atmosphere of resentment and hatred towards the police through the structure, that would mean great reluctance to ultimately back Murabak. Now it remains to be seen how reflective the army are of greater Egypt's desire for democracy, but I remain quietly hopeful.

I recommend watching Al Jazeera right now (although their coverage of the whole thing has been excellent). There are some amazing party scenes going down all over Egypt. Wish I was in Cairo.

Jon Snow agrees.
https://twitter.com/#!/jonsnowC4/status ... 1127502848

Nevermind, Rixondale. We can pretend with Mendricks in a week's time on the Pipes & Ales pub crawl, he can do some Egyptian chanting and we'll turn over some cars or something.

Mendrick has told me that his mission has been completed and Egypt will be rejoining the British Empire within 3 months. He makes me laugh.

I doubt that the US had much to do with this, to be honest. The Egyptian military is quite a force socially and, it seems, politically. Any leverage the US had seems to have taken a nosedive over the last month. It will be interesting indeed to see what Egypt does from here - the people will not forget the failure of the US to give the slightest support to the people, and Western Europe didn't fare much better either.

Going to be a very, very interesting year in the middle east. I think the days where anyone can claim that we have any right whatsoever to invade and bomb the fuck out of any country we don't like 'for democracy' are over - compare Egypt's regime change with Iraq's. Body count is about 0.3%, there's been minimal damage to the country's infrastructure, and we haven't given hundreds of thousands of people every motivation to resort to TRRRRRSM. And fuck me, if the Egyptian people aren't celebrated as among the most patient and noble in the world from now on, the rest of us don't deserve to share the planet with them.


So, beteo meet in Tahrir Square: Who's coming?

I suspect it took him this long to liquidate the bulk of his assets before scarpering. Hadn't he fleeced the country for somewhere in the region of $70bn?

Murbarek for next Man City manager anyone?

I know where I'm going on holiday next. Really, have no words. Even just watching long-range videos of all these happy, cheering people, even three hours later. All this through peaceful protest. Not a religious movement, not a racist or fascist or communist or nationalist one; just millions of people saying "enough!". And they've done it. Oh, the hard work of building a new government and the country at large is yet to come, sure, but regardless of what may come, what these people have achieved, and the way in which they've done it, is utterly astonishing. It's been a privilege to even read about and watch in tiny chunks, so I can't even imagine how the protestors are feeling right now.

And the Swiss have frozen Mubarak's assets after all - it wasn't just a rumour. Incredible. Simply incredible.

Sneaky photo edit: swoosh

The Swiss being stand-up dictator-fund freezing ethical dudes?

I think my world just got pleasantly readjusted to Universe B.

He's gawn. Army in charge.

Images of Egyptians cleaning up Tahrir Square.

Things seem to be picking up in Yemen now. About 1500 protestors occupied Al-Tahrir Square (really). Seems to be less extreme than in Egypt, however Egypt started that small, as well.

A quick picture

Reports of security forces showing up in force and dispersing the crowd.

I know nothing at all about Yemen, so I'ma try to keep an eye on this, but don't expect too much. Anyone know much about Yemen? Algeria is also seeing some protests, heard vague references to Iran, but not looked into those yet.

Edit: Actually, it looks like Algeria might have the edge in terms of scale. This could be quite interesting if it continues or escalates, as the French are more likely to be interested than the US.

Re-edit: I hope that all these uprising are succesful, and the governments they install will immediately arrest and execute anyone using those excruciating "uninstalling dictator..." 'jokes'.

Various protests and uprisings in the region at the moment, especially Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Iran, with different government reactions to them. I'm finding it very hard to keep on track of what's happening.

Interesting times.

The Guardian is still running a live blog and AJ is still excellent.

Interesting article in The Economist about who is next, according to some sums and things.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailycha ... rest_index

That's what I love about that crazy Gaddafi, he just keeps yer guessing!

Victory march in Tahrir Square marking a week since Mubarak left.

Protests continue in Libya, Algeria, Djibouti, Yemen, Bahrain, and more. Lots of "police shoot protestors" stories going on.

Video of police murdering peaceful protestors in Bahrain. May be disturbing, obviously.


Tangentially related, the US has blocked a UN resolution (backed by every other Security Council member) to condemn Israeli settlement building on Palestinian land as illegal. They seem to be determined to make America look as useless and indifferent to arabic nations as possible. If there is an even greater anti-US backlash in the region in coming years, they have no right to blame anything but themselves.

Interesting analysis by Mark LeVine:

Reports coming in from Benghazi that sections of the army are siding with the people now, they think it is only Gaddafi's private brigade who have been doing the shooting but the protestors are heading there now...apparently along with army vehicles and with army issue weapons being waved above their heads. Al Jazeera has been blocked in Libya.

Protests in Libya have now spread to Tripoli. Rumours that Gadaffi (sp?) has left the city.
Awful reports about use of live ammunition in various cities . Estimates of over 230 killed in Libya already.

More stable doors shutting:

Graunaid: 'UK revokes arms export licences as violence grows'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011 ... nces-libya