Blood streams from a man’s face as he is carried from Tahrir Square. Stones are hurled between antigovernment protesters and President Hosni Mubarak’s big-bellied provocateurs.
-- “Hosni Mubarak Agonistes”, Roger Cohen, New York Times, Feb 3. Here.
Whenever you see a story beginning “Blood streams from a man’s face….” Run for your life, for you’re about to be mugged by an agenda, dressed in the clothing of coffee-shop analysis.
A “coffee shop analysis” you’ll recognise when I describe it. You’ve been to Marrakesh, or Istanbul, or Islamabad, or the Moscow of the Soviet Union, and you’ve sat in the coffee shop in the square and you’ve had a conversation with locals, and found them open, friendly, courteous, generous. So you intuit: the society much be all of that. Islam must be open, friendly, tolerant; or communism, too.
That’s inductive reasoning. In the hard sciences it can lead to great intuitions: “an apple falls; aha! gravity!”. But in the soft social sciences, even in “hard news” reporting, it can be treacherous. The blood streaming could just as easily have been from one of Mubarak’s supporters, from blows rained on him by protestors. So you can choose the initial lede to make the point you want. Which is its danger. And also, of course, its allure.
I’m not shilling for Mubarak here. The man’s kept Egypt from realizing its full potential – not quite crushing it, but making it "The 40% nation". He’s salted away billions, by some reports. But the demonstrations are not an unalloyed positive expression of the will of the people, that the likes of Cohen would have you believe. Take this report from today’s South China Morning Post, by Benjamin Leung (though, to be fair to the likes of Cohen and Kristof they have gone TO Cairo, whereas I note that Leung “fled Cairo for London” on the weekend. Not something a “journalist” should do, surely?). Copied in full below, as the SCMP site requires registration. A quote:
Whoever you were, however you earned your money, the outgoings were far greater than money coming in.
That is the worst possible scenario for those subsistence individuals on very little income but with big families. A huge army of night-shift workers lost their livelihoods, and people resorted to IOUs when buying rice and pasta in the slum areas. Queues at government bread stations grew steadily longer - from 25 people waiting in line at any time before the protests to around 100 at any one time. People are now having to worry about survival on a daily basis.
Or perhaps we just put this down to Mao Tse-tung’s dictum, that to make an omelette you must break some eggs. The problem is, in China many, many “eggs” were broken, tens of millions died and many more suffered. The same scale of "egg-icide", surely, cannot be the case in Egypt, but there’s no painless change.
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References:
"The 40 Percent Nation", David Brooks, New York Times, Feb 5. PDF.
"We the Egyptian People", Roger Cohen, New York Times, Feb 4. PDF.
"Hosni Mubarak Agonistes", Roger Cohen, New York Times, Feb 3. PDF.
"The 40 Percent Nation", David Brooks, New York Times, Feb 5. PDF.
"We the Egyptian People", Roger Cohen, New York Times, Feb 4. PDF.
"Hosni Mubarak Agonistes", Roger Cohen, New York Times, Feb 3. PDF.
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Street anarchy leaves Cairo changed, but it might not necessarily be for the better |
Benjamin Leung Updated on Feb 07, 2011 |
In President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year grip on power, the scenes in Cairo over the past two weeks have been unprecedented. Parts of the city have been besieged by thugs, protesters, government supporters, riot police and the military - mostly at the same time. During the first days of the turmoil, Egyptians could count on getting news from pan-Arab news channels or independent newspapers. But after the regime blocked Al Jazeera, and shut down mobile phone and internet services, people in Cairo quickly found that word of mouth became more important than ever. Rumours swept neighbourhoods that Mubarak tried to escape with his family through Cairo International Airport's VIP Terminal, only to be stopped by state security. It gave the people hope. There seemed to be a real possibility that Egyptians could unseat Mubarak, simply by taking to the streets in great numbers. Considering that many Egyptians never saw street protests as a way to oust their hated leader after years of economic and social stagnation, as well as corruption and cronyism, this just shows how far the goal posts had moved in a matter of days. Sadly, such optimism was fleeting. Things took a turn for the worse on January 28 - the first truly violent day during this uprising, and Cairo has been gripped by a widespread climate of fear and mistrust ever since. That same night, the police disappeared and the military rolled into town. Many were very happy to see their much-feted military guarding the capital. But with gunshots ringing out around the city almost immediately, and news filtering out of jailbreaks and looters running amok, people began to fear for their lives. Locals and expats used to take pride in being able to walk around their city at any time of the day without ever feeling in danger. That is no longer the case. Many people realised early on that this may be a deliberate attempt on the government's part to scare its people into choosing between anarchy and Mubarak. But with many back streets now a virtual war zone between troublemakers and the local vigilantes, it was obvious to everybody that staying indoors was now their only option at night. During the day, however, lives continued as normal as the circumstances allowed for. With banks closed and a curfew till 8am every day, this truly 24-hour city was functional for only a third of that time and everybody had to squeeze in their shopping and business during those precious hours of daylight. It was safe enough to go out, and many did. In fact, it made for a nice change from the usual chaos of wall-to-wall traffic, and the air even felt cleaner. Supermarkets, street vendors, bakeries, take-away restaurants and pharmacies were besieged by shoppers. Shoeshine boys were working again, as were the ubiquitous shisha cafes. For all the talk about people making their way into Tahrir Square or marching down the Corniche, many simply could not afford to give up working. In a city where poverty is rampant, any time off spent at home or at the protests equated to no income. Next came panic-buying. ATM machines stopped working, and nobody got paid on January 31. Whoever you were, however you earned your money, the outgoings were far greater than money coming in. That is the worst possible scenario for those subsistence individuals on very little income but with big families. A huge army of night-shift workers lost their livelihoods, and people resorted to IOUs when buying rice and pasta in the slum areas. Queues at government bread stations grew steadily longer - from 25 people waiting in line at any time before the protests to around 100 at any one time. People are now having to worry about survival on a daily basis. The good-natured "Million Man March" on February 1 perked up the population slightly, but with an immediate return to violence later that evening - and the infamous cavalry charge on camel and horses the next day - Cairo's people were gradually becoming sick of this economic and social paralysis. Even young, anti-Mubarak supporters were calling for an end to the protest. The economy is collapsing, investors have fled, tourists are staying away, and foreigners are now being threatened with death or imprisonment. Many have evacuated the city. There is no other way of describing the current situation in Cairo other than dire. For sure, it was an exhilarating experience to be standing in Tahrir Square with thousands upon thousands of passionate Egyptians defending their cause against social injustice. But it is equally heartbreaking to witness so much suffering every day. For every protester determined to sleep in Tahrir Square until Mubarak resigns, there are others in the rest of the country that feel a sense powerlessness to put an end to this nightmare. Egyptians may have won admiration around the world for their unyielding stance and gutsy determination in the face of a brutal opponent, but cracks have been appearing now for some time in the Mubarak regime and some ordinary people even wish none of this had ever happened. Cairo has changed forever - and it may not necessarily be for the better. Hong Kong-born journalist Benjamin Leung fled Cairo for London at the weekend as the capital descended into chaos |
