Here are the headlines from Mondoweiss for 02/01/2011:
On the eve of the 'march of a million people'
Jan 31, 2011 11:37 pm | Adam Horowitz Here are two videos: The demands: And the fear barrier is broken: And this is just a personal favorite from the past amazing week: 
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Yousry is now Omar: 'Tell Mubarak we don't need his damn Internet for the Peoples Revolution'
Jan 31, 2011 09:00 pm | Parvez Sharma "Please use my real name Omar from now on—we have nothing left to hide anymore"
That is how the man I was calling Yousry started his remarkable intervie with me a few hours ago. At a point in our conversation he also said "Please tell Mubarak we do not need his damn internet for the peoples revolution."
Yousry is Omar. A dear friend. An extremely articulate Egyptian and in my haze filled 140 character days, a steady voice of reason and immense perspective. Every conversation I have had with him expresses the nuance, the complexity and the immensity of the day's events like no news broadcast can. At 30 he is as old as the Mubarak regime. He is married. His wife will join him tomorrow for what should really be called the Million man and woman march. He was born in Cairo and studied in the US briefly before moving back and working for an oil company. He comes from a rich family as does his wife.
Omar is the most articulate ordinary Egyptian I know because he does not know how to talk in soundbites and because he like millions of others is in danger of losing the country he loves so much and the only home he has ever really known.
I spoke to Omar at 9:30 pm Cairo time. A few hours later a nation of 80 million people has been successfully wiped off the worldwide web. 80 million people are being held hostage by a ruthless and desperate dictator. Have they been silenced? I don't think so. Omar does not think so either.
This interview with him is probably one of the only long interviews with an Egyptian protester and citizen, before the nation went even darker on the eve of the planned marches to Heliopolis, the presidential palace, really the last frontier.
Me: I hope you all are ok. Just describe your day—I know tomorrow is very important so I will try not to interrupt.
O: Today was a continuation of other days—We went to Midan Tahrir—It was much larger today—and there were way more women today, amazing—the military followed the same procedure—checked our ID's and very cordial but I think that there was way more people today---people from all different groups of society from Zamalek to Masriyat Naser, from Mohandessin to Giza…Today for the first time it felt like the people had secured their homes well and could confidently come out—other days many other family members especially housewives had stayed back to guard—but today they were all there—everyone spoke about how the looting was a design by Mubarak to keep us in our homes…Parvez, there were also so many much older people today, you know 60 and above, who had stayed away because of the violence. But today any fear seemed to have disappeared. Really it felt like we knew exactly what we want…
Me: So tomorrow is huge—you must sleep tonight—both of you—all of you—who knows what will happen?
O: We are meeting at Tahrir at 9 am and marching to Helioplos—this is very important Parvez—After 7 days this government comfortable with us spending time in Tahrir and they are even spinning it and saying: See we are allowing protesters in Tahrir, so we are so democratic—It was so clear today that we needed to go tomorrow to Heliopolis, to the presidential palace where Mubarak is hiding…All of the organizing I have seen since Friday really has been through fliers, through pamphlets…today they said—we are marching to Heliopolis tomorrow—if you cant come to Tahrir in the morning then join us on the way…this I a huge turning point in this revolution…huge….It is also very important Parvez to know that people are saying they request the fall of the regime, not government—its an important distinction…
Me: Have you been watching Al Jazeera?
O: Are you kidding me? I can either be there or stay at home and watch the damn TV and try and get on the fucking internet which is not working and try and do these damn tweets you keep on telling me about…I mean yes, some people watch it when they go home at night and today the word on the street was that the Egyptian media finally caught up with the international media—people were saying that for the first time now they are starting to report—they are showing that there are people, looting, violence—Even State TV…Nile TV is reporting…and you know we also have this state public radio channel…its at 88.7 fm and even they are being more balanced than before, people were saying…. You know till yesterday the assholes were showing streets of Cairo are calm
Me: Today I did have an Al-Jazeera free day—I did not watch the live stream at all—but on twitter I did see their updates…while I was constantly calling…
O: I have no time to watch…you know this new VP of ours, Soliman now with Mubarak wants to show see they are all in Tahrir, penned it—see how good we are that we are allowing people to voice their grievances…maybe for any other revolution we could have stayed downtown…maybe it will be one day ok and safe to protest in Tahrir which now the whole world knows what it is…but for now we have to go to him to make sure that he goes….
Me: It will be so hard to be at Heliopolis and it is not really walking distance if you know what I mean…
O: (Laughs) Well our weapon is not Jazira or Facebook or all that—our main weapon is the change we want, our focus, our peacefulness and the shoes on our feet man…the shoes still on our feet…so much talk in Tahrir today also about this new scam thing of new cabinet…you know Mohamed Rashid was asked to be Minister of Industry…he declined…this is important in the past you know he had supported Mubarak…but please Parvez get this out—its really important…for 30 years of this dictatorship many Egyptians, good men and women joined the Mubarak government not because they hated the people but because they felt that it was best to change the system from inside, from working within the government and Egyptians realize this…Egypt also was never a Ba'athist kind of cult regime like Syria or Iraq…so different…
Me: I am so glad you are saying this…
O: And this is really important…this is not a vendetta revolution…not some Baathist kind of revolution…it is an educated revolution…its looking at institutions…it has brought together educated middle class and upper class with everybody else… Egyptian people have come to the square with ideas…many have listened through television to what the world is saying also…but they have taken all of that in an amazing collective way come together with a very focused set of demands…its unbelievable…I never thought this could happen in Egypt…and because it is truly the peoples revolution is the ONLY REASON why it has not died down…why it continues…We want a transitional government…not a military government…and there can be all kinds of people involved in that…even people like Baradei who is definitely expected to play a role in post revolution Egypt….what that role is going to be, he needs to decide—but most importantly the people will decide…I told you he lost a valuable opportunity yesterday…but lets see…today people were even talking about Ahmed Hassan Zewail—you know he got the Nobel Prize for Chemistry…so there is no dearth of good people in Egypt to lead a transition…
And once again Parvez—it is NOT a vendetta revolution…I mean there are people who are now chanting for Mubarak to be tried or die…but that's not what we want…we want our basic rights that my generation never even had…you know…Mubarak has been the President of Egypt for my entire life!
Me: True man…
O: I mean some people need to be punished and tried…like the Interior minister who has committed so many atrocities…Oh and this is important Parvez…you know people saw the images of that scam swearing in…you know even Omar Soliman after the oath saluted Mubarak and shook his hand…that image takes people back to the chant of Civilian government not a military government…
Me: Explain?
O: That is because only military men salute military men…if Soliman salutes Mubarak then he is saying my allegiance is to you…but guess what neither of the two is even military anymore! Every single person has noticed that…I mean look at it this way…Does Hillary salute Obama? This means that they have created a military government…and it's a fucking farce man…I mean he creates a new Ministry of Antiquities taking it out of the Ministry of Culture? What kind of government takes a frivolous step like that in the middle of its biggest existential threat…a revolution of the people…This is a government in denial…utter disregard for the people…every single protester, rich and poor knows this…
Me: That's a lot of insight we are not usually hearing man! Not even from these stupid pundits running around between studios here in NY or in DC!! It's so funny, they even tweet their movements!
O: (Laughs) Fucking idiots man! Well guess what me and most of the other people in Tahrir are not watching even our own channels…forget what the American cable idiots are saying…but do record some of this shit for me…one day when its all over I need to see it…
Me: Yalla! I will save the tweets for you for sure…you have no idea…what they are saying!! But there are also some amazing ones coming from a few activists in Cairo…
O: I wish you guys sitting there had any idea…this really is a real revolution…I don't even like the word uprising…I hate it yaani—it diminishes it…revolution is better…This is a civilian revolution and it is civil…it has an agenda…it has requests…it has a timeframe…and expectations…there is a decency about this and we are organized…you know when it comes to choosing between peaceful dissent and violence…the people in Tahrir where I am everyday have always made the sober choice…it shows seriousness and determination…this is not a backlash or a vendetta movement…
Me: Yes…and there is no fucking way on earth what you just said could we tweeted in 140 characters or less Omar!
O: You bet! Our goal is so clear now—we want a change of this government (since he now claims he made a government) and want a provisional government to come in its place…and with all of our good energy…the beating heart of millions of Egyptians we will draft a new Constitution…the peoples Constitution and then Inshaallah hope for the best…The people who are on the streets Parvez are angry yes…but they are very pragmatic…this whole revolution is pragmatic…
M: Hey Omar…you know that there many tweets coming in saying he is going to shut down everything tonight…whatever little internet was left and mobiles and landlines even?
O: Fuck the internet! I have not seen it since Thursday and I am not missing it. I don't need it. No one in Tahrir Square needs it. No one in Suez needs it or in Alex…Go tell Mubarak that the peoples revolution does not his damn internet!
M: Ha ha! You just gave me a possible title for the piece my friend…
O: Tayyib good. But honestly I mean 40 % of this country is living below the poverty line and a large chunk above that is barely surviving and then you have middle class doctors and lawyers etc and then you have you know rich people like me yaani…I mean it is true that cell phone penetration has improved very much…you know they even say that maybe 60 million have cellphones…you know…but its like those basic yaani really basic mobiles…nothing fancy…no internet bullshit for example…I can tell you that the majority of Egyptians have no idea what Facebook is or what Twitter is! I mean you ask me this everyday—but its true yaani…and look at this… a very basic mobile is from 180 Egyptian pounds…a fancy internet capable phone like an Iphone and that Droid thing or the blackberry cost around 3000 pounds…and I will just talk about the so called middle class for a second…before revolution they said they would increase the minimum wage to 1200 pounds a month…right now it is about 800 pounds…800 pounds to feed a family of 4 maybe more? And then you go and buy an internet enabled phone which costs more than 3 months of your salary?.
Me: So how and why is this whole narrative evolving?
O: You mean all this internet stuff…well before he shut us out on Thursday…there was vibrant communication between a certain and very small class of society in terms of relative numbers…this is the class of people who have ALWAYS been absent and apathetic from the suffering of the Egyptian majority…the poor people…you know that was good…so maybe a little bit through twitter and all the apathetic students and professional class started communicating for the first time…
Me: True..I have been saying that---someone in Zamalek is not tweeting at a Zabaleen you know…they tweet to each other…in their nice apartments with AC and stuff…
O: yes true…but I know it played a good role for maybe the first day and half of Thursday…but if you are saying that it is pivotal to the revolution or the lifeline of the revolution then you are not doing justice to Egyptian people, man or even to the functionality of this specific tool…its like calling a hammer a screwdriver and this is a huge danger for the future…because in other Arab countries for example…you will misinform people about this twitter/Facebook tool—you will overstate its importance…and misguide people who want change in other places and its biggest weakness is that it can be cut off—and you are saying Mubarak is doing that even more tonight, right…so there you have it…if anything dictators like Mubarak use all the publicity about this twitter nonsense to say OK lets cut off the internet…Talking about tweeting all the fucking time gives him the perfect excuse for shutting off the internet even though the majority of Egyptians would not be online even if there was a f-ing internet…
Me: I know I have been saying that…some of the greatest revolutions in history happened before the internet…and 4 days now after he cut you guys all off…well 99% of you all off anyway…it grew bigger…more people…and they were not tweeted to come there…
O: Yes…listen…its not about all this at all. It is one tool…some people can use it and they should and its great! But our bigger tools are posters, fliers, pamphlets, the shoes on our fucking feet man! If someone wakes up in Cairo tomorrow after having slept through the last 6 days…and don't know where to go…they just need to walk on the street Parvez…and follow everyone else…But let me say this…for educated kids like me atleast…we can communicate faster and more effectively than our parents ever could right? Our parents generation was more apathetic I feel…so yes we can communicate…but WE HAVE SOMETHING TO COMMUNICATE ABOUT…the peoples revolution! And in any case this concern of people sending messages to the outside world is secondary…we don't think it is our function to report this to the world…as an Egyptian citizen protesting everyday…that's not my job…reporters can do that…you can do it who talks to me everyday…we need to stay focused on what we need to do inside the country…our weapon is not social networking and email…our weapon is our focus on what we know needs to be changed…
Me: Must end soon my friend…my hands hurt…my laptop will catch fire…its been used like nobodys business…and I haven't even eaten or showered today…my fucking mind feels like a tweetmachine…
O: (Laughs) Are you getting paid for this? I mean I know why you are doing this…because so much of your work has been here and the film title and everything and that guy who was arrested and raped and tortured and all your book research and all of us…you know, your friends…but you should get paid man!
Me: Nopes not getting paid—which is why I think after tomorrow I will really slow down…I have to…just like you walk to Tahrir everyday…I walk to the laptop every morning and then just sit typing…in 140 fucking characters or less
O: Parvez…this is amazing…u are doing so much…anyway so tmrw we all go…today remember the Alfa supermarket in Zamalek…we went a few times…well that was open and some groceries and tomorrow we head out with our backpacks which is a mini fucking pharmacy in there…I mean betadine, gauze, bandages, vinegar, a small first aid kit, lots of water…my camera…my bloody useless blackberry which is usually not working 9 times out of 10…but I am confident…everyone is confident that the army will not attack us…
Me: Sorry Omar…explain quickly?
O: Well there are two armies in Egypt-the conscript army and the volunteer army…the volunteer army is the standing army and the officer core come from middle and upper middle class…same class you get our professionals from…But the conscript army is drafted…illiterate men have to serve for 3 years and educated men have to serve for only 1 year…wages in the conscript army are basically minimum wage…no one would want that job unless you were really desperate…so really poor people will join that…and then there will the educated draft types who are basically forced right? I got out of it because I am the only son and my father died—but its very hard to get out of that one year service…anyway the majority of the army on the streets right now is NOT happy to be in the army anyway…and they just have too much respect for us…they have suffered this as long as we all have…
Me: Please be safe…Fi Amanallah and all that good stuff man…hey before u go there is all these tweets and websites up with ideas on how to get online! Want?
O: Ha ha! Right! As I said before go tell Mubarak to take his fucking internet and shove it! We don't need it…Who do these idiots who are making these lists think they are making them for? The millions on the streets? Well guess what we cannot read or hear anything you are saying about us or to us! Because we are out on the streets and yes we have also been cut off, successfully!
  
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Brooklyn College reinstates teacher fired for scholarship on Palestine
Jan 31, 2011 08:59 pm | Zoe Zenowich Brooklyn College's decision today to reinstate Kristofer Petersen-Overton's teaching position is being hailed as a victory for academic freedom. Petersen-Overton, a PhD student at CUNY's Graduate Center, was let go just 24-hours after state assemblyman Dov Hikind allegedly contacted CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein to complain of Petersen-Overton's supposed sympathy for suicide bombers. Hikind, a former Brooklyn College alumnus, previously made his mark in the smear campaign that led to the removal of educator Debbie Almontaser. The Brooklyn College Political Science Department called an emergency meeting today during which faculty voted unanimously to recommend that Petersen-Overton be hired to teach a course titled "Politics of the Middle East." This was followed with a unanimous vote by the Political Science Appointments Committee to officially hire him. A meeting between the Chair of the Political Science Department, Provost William Tramontano, President Karen Gould and others then ensued. An official statement released by President Gould reads: Over the past several days, as a result of a provostial decision about an adjunct appointment, Brooklyn College has been thrust into a debate about academic freedom. This debate has been fueled at times by inflammatory rhetoric and mischaracterization of the facts. It is unfortunate that matters of utmost importance to our college community can be so rapidly co-opted by those with a political agenda and distorted by the media. I stand united with you: We must never allow decisions about our students' education to be swayed by outside influence. In the matter at hand, this certainly has not been the case. On behalf of every member of this institution, I reaffirm our steadfast commitment to the principles of academic freedom, faculty governance, and standards of excellence. Today, the Department of Political Science and its appointments committee voted unanimously to recommend Kristofer Petersen-Overton to teach a graduate course on the Middle East. Based on information that has come to light, they are confident he has sufficient depth of knowledge and the intellectual capacity to successfully lead a graduate seminar. The provost now supports their recommendation, and I am in full agreement. Provost Tramontano refused to comment on the allegations of political motivation behind his original decision to deny Petersen-Overton's appointment, but Political Science Chair Sally Bermanzohn said, "I'm very happy. This is a young scholar who has very interesting scholarship and has something to teach students." While this battle has been won, many have not. The fact that this is the second time in 6 months that academic freedom has come under attack at Brooklyn College only further emphasizes the opposition faced by those who dedicate their studies to deconstructing the complex, and controversial, politics of the Middle East. Zoe Zenowich is a Senior in the Scholars Program at Brooklyn College, where she is the managing editor of the Excelsior, a student newspaper. 
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'Huffpo' gives Dershowitz a platform to say tyranny is just fine for 'the average Egyptian'
Jan 31, 2011 07:38 pm | Philip Weiss The Israel lobby has got its talking points down and they are: RADICAL ISLAM#$@! I think this strategy is bound to fail. The American Jewish community has to like what it's seeing in Egypt. First, Caroline Glick smears the protesters if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak's military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US's greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Then Alan Dershowitz, positioning himself in the Marty Peretz spot, as human cannonball. Look at the sickening last lines. He calls himself a liberal? Oh my god. And this is at Huffington Post? ElBaradei is their perfect stalking horse -- well respected, moderate and compliant. He will put together a government in which the Brotherhood begins as kingmaker and ends up as king. ...The second casualty will be religious freedom for Egyptians, particularly Christians, but also secularists. I have visited Egypt on several occasions, most recently a few months ago. Compared to other repressive dictatorships I have visited over the years, it was a 5 or 6 on a scale of 10 for the average Egyptian. 
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'Welcome to the lions of Almaza': Neighborhood patrols defend a Cairo in flux
Jan 31, 2011 07:26 pm | Waleed Almusharaf Before British Airways flight 155 landed at 3:05 in the afternoon at Cairo international Airport I had thought the problem was that the road to Tahrir was too long. It was a long way from that small flat with the quiet garden in London, and the fox who occasionally visited, and the pear tree bearing no pears because it is winter, to that square at the centre of Cairo. Planes circled endlessly between London and Tahrir, but never seemed to reach their destination. People have been trying to cover that distance since last Friday. But walking finally through my home neighbourhood, through Almaza in Cairo, the distance to Tahrir seemed only to lengthen the closer I got. I began to suspect that perhaps it was not the distance between me and Tahrir but something else. This had happened once before when returning to Egypt some years ago; I was unable to find my way home to my father's house, because the government had, during my brief vacation abroad, so transformed the topography of the neighbourhood – extending roads, building bridges, cutting off other roads, building car parks and redirecting traffic – that I didn't know which of the roads led home. Later, I found out that Gamal Mubarak was going to be our neighbour. This time too, Almaza was the same and not the same; at every corner a barricade had been built, using the neighbourhood itself for raw material: bricks stacked four high and two lines deep from the construction site of new buildings, which now looked like the ruins of an aerial bombardment. The branches that fell from the trees due to the cold, the steel barricades of a police force which had disappeared, dissolved mysteriously into the society they were protecting; the sign of a kiosk that sold cigarettes and soda was linked to the cartons the soda came in and the tires of the car parked in front of it, to block the main road leading into the neighbourhood from downtown and Tahrir. Mobinil, the mobile phone network, sent a message to my phone: "The enforcement of the curfew extends from 3 o' clock this afternoon until 8 o'clock. The Armed Forces warned breakers of the curfew with the direst of consequences." The night before, the 29th of January, as I later found out from the young men of the neighbourhood, the news had reached them that there was a horde coming from the shanty towns and the popular quarters surrounding Almaza. All over the city, television reports told them, neighbourhoods were being overrun by the insane, the criminal and the violent: women were raped, homes were broken into, cars were smashed and set on fire. Pimps, drug dealers and those who were violent for money or pleasure. All that was held back by the Security Forces since the 7th of October 1981 has, they were told, been let loose upon the respectable citizens of the small middle-class neighbourhood of Almaza. And it seemed that something else had happened, and I thought perhaps it wasn't distance that made Tahrir seem far away, but the fact that Almaza had changed. At the centre of the road, this twilight after I arrived, the old men of the neighbourhood had finished the prayer and were sitting in the middle of the road on couches they had brought down from their comfortable middle class apartments. Leather couches, bamboo couches with colourful cushions, cotton couches with flower motifs, which they placed in the middle of the road. They drank tea. Their faces were lit by something that I had never seen before and which I did not understand until later when we were walking towards those two armed forces tanks parked up the road at the junction on Tivoli square. Around the old men in all four directions, the young men of the neighbourhood were patrolling the area. They were armed too with what they could gather from the houses, kitchens, sides of buildings, parked vehicles. They carried staffs – the shouma, that most old-fashioned and lower-class of weapons – with meat cleavers, bicycle chains. Old man Mahmoud who guards our building and won't let his undergraduate son do manual labour, shoved a sawed-off lead pipe in my hand with a smile, instead of saying hello. One little boy held a staff in my face and asked me for the password, and then showed me his shouma which was studded with thumb tacks. "Do you know why I have those arms there?" he asked me wanting to share an epiphany. "Why?" I said, enjoying the game. "Because," said the little boy, "it hurts more". Occasionally, some fellow, aware of his privilege, carried a rifle, long and elegant from the belle epoch, which hadn't been used since his father was a young man practising at the shooting club. Like everything else, I knew these boys and I didn't know them. They used the same words they used before, and in this neighbourhood were sometimes unaware – as was I – when they were speaking English and when they were speaking Arabic. They talked about politics too, as always. But they walked differently. There was something different about the way they walked, and I didn't quite know what that was. At two of the intersections, women were carrying staffs and standing guard. The old men on the floral couches with the expressions I couldn't understand were sipping their tea, with neat little rows of molotov cocktails under the teapots. We hear that on Horreya street they had shooters on the roofs. Nobody was allowed to enter Almaza who was not from Almaza. It took on that atmosphere that came upon it once during a partial eclipse, and once, years ago, after the earthquake. The street felt like the corridor between rooms; an elaborate scheme was devised: identity cards were checked, a white band was worn by the residents on their arms, cars were stopped at checkpoints – manned by the kids who usually stand and smoke joints, harass women, bully lone boys at those same blocked corners – and were allowed to pass or were turned back, messages relayed back and forth. In Madinet Nasr, I was told they whistled when they saw something they feared, and clapped when they felt that all was safe. The residents were torn between sleep and wakefulness, between the whistling and clapping, until dawn. Yesterday, there was the sound of gunfire coming closer and drifting away, getting louder and softer all night. The Nozha police station had been sacked and looted and set on fire, and guns began to appear, selling for 700 Egyptian pounds a piece. Nobody knew exactly who these people were that were coming. It was clear when the first wave came, after they fought them off and caught some of them and checked their identity cards, that the first wave worked for the security forces themselves. Nobody was surprised, though they were disgusted. When the next wave came they were clearly not the same. Then the third came and again it had a character of its own. The police had opened the doors of the prison before they disappeared, that accounted for some, the residents of surrounding shanty towns accounts for others. A friend told me about a conversation he had with the maid. She told him her relative had just died, after he and his friends went out on a looting rampage: "They stole so much stuff, some of them died fighting over it when they got home". That was the strangest thing – in 20 years of living here I have never felt safer in Almaza. There wasn't less violence, or the threat of it, than before. In fact, stories were reaching us from the nearby areas, that our neighbours had killed people who came to rob or hurt them and had taken the bodies and any prisoners they took and tidily deposited them at the base of tanks for the armed forces soldiers at strategic areas all over the city. I went home to see if anyone on TV had understood what had changed about Almaza, hoping to see why it felt so far away at the moment. A retired Major Bassyouni was saying, he was amazed at the almost formal military understanding and organisation of the Egyptian citizens, especially the youth. He sounded impressed at what he saw in the neighbourhoods. He talked about how they understood communication relays, the importance of intelligence gathering and tactical positioning. He thought that was the change we were seeing. He sounded like a nightmare. But I don't know why he thought that was strange. For 30 years at least, children have grown up hearing, among their first words, the word amn, security, li'asbab amniya, for security reasons. That was the reason for being stopped on the road, for being made to write something, for not writing something, for the way we speak to each other; a generation which felt warm and comfortable in the paranoiac fantasies of the security apparatus and understood masculinity only in the tactical advantage provided by the threat of violence: numbers, rank, or the violence of always being the one who asks the questions around here or of simply being a man. They brought the psychiatrist, Ahmed Okasha, on Egypt's Channel One and he explained that "people's neuroses are temporarily resolved in a situation of crisis". I do not understand that. The politicisation of an entire population's psychology after 30 years of the language of emergency law seemed to me like a crisis, or at least like it had produced many small crises: the number of people beaten half to death, sometimes for picking pockets, and only some of them were beaten in police stations; the number of Sudanese killed at sit-ins in public squares, in front of Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque that New Year's day, which was watched by us Egyptians and approved of with clapping; the number of middle- and upper-class teenagers fighting in front of sporting clubs with knives, chains, belts, because that is the only language of strength they understand. These things are difficult to explain if you haven't lived here, but there are two things everyone knows: that this is the psychological state for which the security forces are responsible by their very existence, and that it is a crisis. Cab driver on television: "We have closed down the area. Anyone who doesn't belong here, we take him, or send him on his way. We search him for contraband, check his ID card, make sure he never comes back or we hold him prisoner." We deal with each other the way that security forces have dealt with us; we have never known anything else. There is nothing strange in that. I took my 15-year old brother, and went down to see what was happening in other streets connected to ours. He was carrying a knife and my grandfather's old walking stick, propped over his shoulder, and in his bag an aerosol can and a lighter. We walked past the checkpoints with the usual greetings. My brother looks even younger than he is and the men raise their voices occasionally in encouragement: "Welcome to the lions of Almaza". I glance at him. He was looking around with his usual curiosity. I don't think he realised they were talking to him. He was asking what the bottles with the rags were that the old men had ready while they played cards. "What's that bottle there", he asked. "That's a molotov cocktail", I responded. Then he asked me how they were made and I told him. "That sounds easy", he said. I laughed and nodded. We kept walking, and passed groups of men around fires wearing leather jackets over their galabiyyas and carving spears. Next to 'Ammu Muhammed's kiosk a group of young men were getting rowdy and a man barked a command at them. Vodafone sent a message to my little brother's mobile: "The Armed Forces calls out to the loyal men of Egypt to face off the traitors and criminals and to protect our families and our honour and our precious Egypt." We thought of the two tanks parked at a strategic position in Tivoli Square in front of Burger King. It was the middle of the night and as walked some men we didn't know from the neighbourhood, trailed along with us, carrying their arms. As we approached the square, one of the soldiers – a young man, stiffened. He called out: "You! Where are you going?!" Everyone smiled calmly and kept walking that walk which was not the way they usually walked and the old men looked on with that expression I had not seen before, but with the same good humour they had always shown. When we were close enough to talk without yelling I said to the solider, "We came to hang out with you". He relaxed visibly and spoke to me with a rebuke like you hear sometimes between lovers: "Why are you guys doing this? You are really tiring us out" he said. And I answered him with that mock concern with which lovers always answer rebukes, "Why are you saying these things?," I said "we came to see if you needed anything". His friend looked at me and adjusted his machine gun on his shoulder. He was a quiet young man and said thoughtfully, "We are afraid you see, because you are all gathered in one place: we don't know who belongs here and who doesn't." I understood something then that I had been feeling about this perhaps momentarily new Almaza as we walked up the road to the tanks. It wasn't a strong passionate feeling, it didn't well up, it didn't blaze, and it did not come on suddenly like inspiration; it settled, and settled slowly like something very old, or the recollection of something very old, or maybe as though something very old were finally decaying and falling off us like a second skin. All that was left was something akin to that feeling that people have sometimes when they are offering food to guests who are in their home on quiet afternoons. And then it became clear that I should find a way to get to Tahrir tomorrow or the day after. It is only half an hour away by taxi I thought. We will just have to leave before the curfew. The one standing next to me laughed at the solider with genuine good humour as though he were appreciating a good joke and waved his hand in a circle that was very, very wide. "We all belong here", he said. This post was dictated over the phone from Cairo. 
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Interview with Ahmed Moor from Cairo: 'This is a society-wide program for change'
Jan 31, 2011 07:25 pm | Adam Horowitz 
A mother with child watches protesters gather in Tahrir Square yesterday. (Photo: MSNBC)
This morning I had an opportunity to conduct an impromptu interview with Ahmed Moor in Cairo by Skype. He was just returning from Tahrir Square and offers his take on the day's events, and where things seem to be headed in Eqypt. I hope to conduct similar interviews in coming days. Listen here (you might need Quicktime, and it might take a bit to load, sorry for the technical difficulties): Here is a rush transcript of Moor's comments: Q. Is ElBaradei mentioned on the street? There is a unity of purpose [of ousting Mubarak], in every protest and gathering I've been to. Just today I've been hearing that ElBaradei is a viable alternative, but that's from just a few people on the street… One man said to me, Now is not the time for us to be thinking who's next. Q. A vision of what the day after looks like? What I've been hearing is that people expect the army to step in and quiet things down before elections take place. There is an expectation that elections will take place. That's the next step. Q. The scene? Today, noon. 10-15,000 people at Tahrir Square. A celebratory sense. People are still very angry. They feel, Really there is no going back. There are no gains to consolidate yet, but there's a feeling that things are going to change. The army has created a safe space. You see lots of small children. This is a space where we can gather to vent our frustrations. The city is quiet everywhere, but large gatherings in Tahrir Square. Q. The call for a million-person protest tomorrow? It's definitely possible. Walking around Tahrir Square it was something that people are talking about. There is now security around the city… Large groups of vigilantes roaming the streets, setting up checkpoints. I passed thru 20 vigilante checkpoints just walking from Tahrir Square to Zamalek after curfew the other night. Even 100,000 people is only half a percent of the city's 17 million population. So 1 million is credible to me. Q. The looting? The looting I saw was minimal in the city. I saw street battles with police late into the city Friday night, which made it impossible to cross the bridges or get around the city. Burning tires. Neighborhoods shut down. The looting is largely rumored. I did hear some of the reports that looters were affiliated with the muhabarat. I wouldn't be surprised. They [the government] were creating a sense of chaos… Q. Does the US come up as an issue? What's been surprising about this is the intense focus on one issue, Mubarak ouster. 99 percent of the flyers, the chants, the placards are all about that theme. I've seen a handful related to the U.S. They're more sarcastic, where's Obama and his democracy agenda. This is an Egyptian revolution, people are talking about Egypt and what to do next. Maybe part of that is that we don't have access to outside media now… There's not a lot of attention being paid to what's happening in America. This is an Egyptian revolution. The takeaway-- I want to emphasize.. you haven't seen anti-Americanism in the streets. As for the message to communicate, this is a society wide program for change. This is not the Muslim brotherhood, this isn't a group of intellectuals or even youth. I know this has been branded a youth movement. …It's true that it started with the youth, but coming from Tahrir Square now I can tell you that every segment of society is represented and represented in force. This isn't a movement that's being dominated by any one group of society. And I think you can see that by how the Muslim Brotherhood has thrown itself behind Mohammed ElBaradei who does appear to be a kind of figure who's acceptable to the international community and domestic Egyptians. 
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The widening double standard
Jan 31, 2011 06:42 pm | Philip Weiss My new theme is the cleavage between the American Jewish community and the Israel lobby over political values in Egypt. Howard Berman is the ranking Democrat on House Foreign Affairs. He says, "If a stable democracy is to emerge, there must be wide participation by all secular forces in the country." But Israel has a couple/few religious parties. Some are included in the governing coalition; Arab parties are not included in those coalitions. What would Berman's standard mean for Israel? 
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A democratic Egypt may save Palestinian and Lebanese lives
Jan 31, 2011 06:17 pm | Alex Kane When Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979, one of the big dividends for Israel was the removal of a major military threat on their doorstep. Egypt had participated in wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. But since the Camp David peace treaty, Israel has been able to wage war on the Palestinians and other Arab states like Lebanon without having to worry about Egypt's military stepping in. That may change once again if a democratic Egypt emerges from the uprising shaking the Mubarak regime. Israel has been watching the unrest in Egypt closely and has begun to publicly air their support for the Mubarak dictatatorship. The potential for a radical change in the regional status quo–one where Israel has shored up peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, making it the preeminent military power in the region with no contest–has Israel's military worried. Ethan Bronner's latest report in the New York Times quotes Giora Eiland, "a former national security adviser and a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University," as saying: During the last 30 years, when we had any military confrontation, whether in the first or second Lebanon wars, the intifadas, in all those events we could be confident that Egypt would not try to intervene militarily A democratic Egypt may make Israel more reticent about waging a reprise of the devastating assaults on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-09, which has been openly talked about in the Israeli press and among Israeli officials. A democratic Egypt that would reflect popular opinion in the country would also strike a blow against the Israeli/Egyptian siege of Gaza, as Eli Lake points out. And the importance of this, measured in human lives, cannot be underestimated: An Israel that is afraid of an Egyptian response to their assaults could save Palestinian and Lebanese lives. Alex Kane blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia at alexbkane.wordpress.com, where this post originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane. 
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Brooklyn College does right thing and rehires Kristofer Petersen-Overton
Jan 31, 2011 05:52 pm | Philip Weiss K. Petersen-Overton (@neonmeatte)
1/31/11 5:18 PM
Brooklyn College has decided to rehire me unconditionally! This is a victory for academic freedom in the United States. More later. Congratulations to Brooklyn College and Kristof Petersen-Overton! Salon's Justin Elliott has the story here. 
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Twilight of the gods– neocon puts aid to Israel on the table
Jan 31, 2011 05:17 pm | Philip Weiss What hath Egypt wrought! Danielle Pletka of American Enterprise Institute, George W Bush's neoconservative braintrust, says that the U.S. should cut aid to Israel. Neoconservatism is imploding... And there are some lessons in what has happened in Egypt for our nation's legislators: • Rubber-stamping billion dollar aid programs year in and year out is irresponsible (yes, this also means Israel aid). 
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