Again: Al Jazeera English Streaming Feed

I won't be up this early and I'll be in and out today (Sunday) so I'm setting up a pre-scheduled post once again linking to Al Jazeera English's streaming video. If like me you don't get Al Jazeera English on cable I want to make available this running commentary, despite Egypt's crackdown on them. I'll check in through the day as I can. A long scheduled gathering today associated with my wife's birthday last week may mean I won't be able to post instantly, but I should still be able to check in.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera English:

Was it Something I Said?

Traffic in January, not counting RSS feeds:
Thank you. Please tell your friends. Or better still, link, Tweet, or Facebook.

Army Protects Protesters from Police

I heard several reports about this but just found the video. Riot police are moving towards demonstrators. Three Army APCs move in front of the protesters. As the protesters surge around them, the soldiers escort them behind the line of APCs. The Army protects the protesters from the police.



I'm pretty sure those are US provided M-113s. With all the publicity given to the "Made in USA" teargas canisters, this makes me a little happier about my tax dollars at work.

Remembering Egypt's Revolution of 1919

A little while ago on CNN Shibley Telhami noted that this uprising in Egypt is much more of a revolution than the so-called "Revolution of 1952," essentially a military coup by the Free Officers. The rioting on "Black Saturday" that year was more revolutionary, and — has anyone noted this? — Black Saturday was on January 26, while the current uprising started January 25!

But that's not my point here. A much better model for what we are seeing now is what Egyptians have always called the "Revolution of 1919" (thawra 1919), though many English histories follow the British colonial usage and call it an uprising. Like 2011, 1919 had no clear leadership and was largely a genuine popular uprising. It had its own flag, with the crescent and the cross to show both Muslims and Copts supported it, a symbol which the Wafd continued to use and which I've seen a variant of in at least one crowd scene in the past few days.

Saad (Sa‘d) Zaghloul, right, whose return to Egypt from exile in 1923 was the subject of my first Weekend Historical Video post, was the indirect cause; when the British exiled him and the Wafd Party leadership to Malta to prevent their participation in the Paris Peace Conference, Egyptians (and Sudanese) rose against British rule. Students, workers, religious figures and others rose in protest, and in the countryside there were bloody attacks against British facilities, troop trains, and individuals.

The British responded to the bloodshed, which lasted for months, by replacing High Commissioner Reginald Wingate with a military hero, Field Marshal Viscount Allenby, and sending an investigating commission under Lord Milner to study the situation. Though British accounts tend to see the rising as having eventually been put down, Egyptians note that the Milner Commission recommended an end to the Protectorate and thus the revolt led directly to the British declaring Egypt independent in 1922.

It was a limited independence; Britain retained troops in the Canal Zone and the right to deploy them elsewhere in wartime (as they did in World War II during the North African campaign). Sudan was made an Anglo-Egyptian condominium. But Zaghloul returned from exile and the Wafd swept to power.

The 1919 Revolution is little remembered today outside of Egypt, but it is probably a much better analog of the current uprising than the military coups of Ahmad ‘Orabi in 1881 or the Free Officers of 1952.

Note too that in both the pictures shown here (other than Zaghloul and the flag), women, though veiled, are highly visible.

Qifa Nabki Explains What Mubarak is Thinking

Qifa Nabki discusses Mubarak's strategy.

If you came in late, he's referring to how this picture:


became this picture in Al-Ahram last year:

Rearranging Deck Chairs or Preparing a Transition?

I can think of two possible readings of the ‘Omar Suleiman appointment as Vice President of Egypt, the first Mubarak has named. The obvious one is that he sought to reassure about the succession (and deep six the Gamal Mubarak idea), but in the present context that seems like the proverbial rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The more optimistic reading is that Mubarak named Suleiman to give himself time to get out the door; to arrange a smooth transition to someone the Army knows and trusts, but who in turn could preside over the transition to some sort of coalition government to prepare for new elections.

I said it was an optimistic reading. So far, Mubarak doesn't seem to get what's happening. Someone tweeted yesterday, citing Ben Ali's "I have understood you" speech, that Mubarak's speech was more, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you? Could you say it again?"

Tomorrow may see the naming of the new Cabinet, which could give us a clue as to whether Mubarak might move towards a transition, or whether he still doesn't get it.

Quick Takes

A couple of quick thoughts, with more to come later:

• ‘Omar Suleiman as Vice President (sorry, Gamal) and Ahmad Shafiq as Prime Minister would have been daring moves if made, say, on Monday. It finally offers a vision of potential successors who aren't named Mubarak.
  

• But Suleiman's role as head of General Intelligence may make him too suspect after all that has happened. (Though General Intelligence has never been as intrusive in the life of the average citizen as the dreaded State Security.)His age and his health are also issues as far as succession goes.

• Ahmad Shafiq is a respected former head of the Air Force (and more recently Civil Aviation Minister). But the Air Force is Mubarak's old service. Again, these moves made sooner might have forestalled the revolt. But made now, they may be too little, too late.

• Crowds tried to storm the Interior Ministry in the Lazoghly neighborhood. Home base of State Security, "Lazoghly," as it's sometimes known, is the Bastille of this revolt.

I'll have more comments later.

Al Jazeera English Streaming Live

Al Jazeera English is Streaming Live and making the code available:



This, I think, is your Weekend Historical Video this weekend. Let's watch it in the rough.

Misr Umm al-Dunya

Perhaps the most reassuring story of a hectic day: when the burning NDP building fire threatened to spread to the nearby Egyptian Museum, and suspected looters were also reported in the area, the protesters themselves protected the museum with its irreplaceable riches, until the Army could secure it. Egyptians are proud of their heritage, just not their government. King Tut is secure for now; it's the more recent pharaoh who's in hot water.

Who Won the Battle of Cairo? Some Scenarios

Who won today's running confrontations? Clearly, the demonstrators believe they did. Clearly too, the police and Central Security Forces lost. The Army had to enter Cairo for the first time since 1986, and downtown for the first time since 1977. Exactly what the current dynamic is isn't clear, because no one knows if the Army will be used against the demonstrators. It apparently did little to protect the NDP headquarters, taking up positions at the Foreign Ministry and the Radio/TV building, both close by. Mubarak's decision to hang tough means we need to watch a bit more.

At this point I can think of several scenarios by which this could play out:

Scenario One: Confrontations Ease, but Continue. Saturday is a work day. People may be unwilling to confront the Army, as opposed to the hated police. Mubarak hangs tough, demonstrations persist. This has often been the Egyptian model in the past. But the simmering pot has boiled over, and it's going to be hard to take it off a boil.

Scenario Two: The Tunisian Model: The Confrontations Escalate, the Army Won't Fire on Demonstrators; Mubarak Goes. The Tunisian scenario, in other words. Should this happen, then the Middle East may be repeating Eastern Europe in 1989. Tunisia was Poland, but Egypt would be the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Scenario Three: The Tienanmen Model: The Confrontations Escalate; The Army and/or the Police Do a Tienanmen. Blood in the streets; an uncertain future. A poke in the eye for Obama. The opposition could radicalize.

Scenario Four: The Russian (1917 or 1991) Model: The Conscript Army Refuses to Shoot Their Contemporaries. A variant of number two. The rank and file of the Army, the regime's last line of defense, changes sides rather than shoot their brothers and sisters down.

Scenario Five: The Officer Corps Says No, It's Time for You to Go. Another variant of Number Two. The Egyptian bargain, established by Sadat and continued by Mubarak, gave the Army huge economic perks (including manufacturing of appliances, not just weapons, and control over certain imports) in exchange for staying out of politics while backing up the regime. As Mubarak seems less and less viable, the Army Officer Corps might calculate that the only way to maintain the system is to put the Captain over the side.

Scenario Six: Mubarak Recognizes Reality. This is the Only if You're on Drugs Model: Mubarak goes on TV, says, "Hey, I'm 83 and ailing and after 30 years you need a change. Nobody wants my boring son, so we'll just let you figure out what comes next." I wish.

Hanging Tough: Mubarak Holds On

So it was Mubarak rather than Fathi Sorour. He's hanging tough, brazening it out, talking about the rule of law and promising a better future. He's dismissed the government (the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, mostly technocrats, though presumably including the hated Interior Minister), and will name a new one tomorrow.

I think the situation is so volatile that I fear this is not going to stop the demonstrators. Unless he names a really broad government. They've routed the police and felt the taste of victory. The Army's role is still ambiguous. At the very least he can't reappoint Habib al-Adly as Interior Minister, but even ditching him may not be enough.

There's so much of this dynamic we don't know. Where did the police disappear to? Did they just go home, or are they waiting in the wings for a final sweep if the Army doesn't do it? Where was Mubarak all day? For that matter, where is he now? Sharm al-Sheikh or Cairo?

I'll stay on this through the weekend, but with some family breaks.

A Sense of Something About to Happen

Fathi Sorour, the Speaker of the Egyptian People's Assembly, is reportedly about to make an address.

Fathi Sorour would be Acting President if the Presidency Became Vacant. Something is about to happen.

A Moment for Caution

Right now I'm trying, like everyone else, to figure out what's going on. Where is Mubarak? What is the Army doing? Who's in charge here? Where is Field Marshal Tantawi? (Some are claiming he's in Washington. [It was the Chief of Staff instead.]) There are wild rumors (the Israeli embassy has been evacuated, the Egyptian Museum is being looted) which suggest wild speculation. I've told several reporters who've called that I hesitate to shoot at a moving target. I know the 24/7 news game requires constant commentary, but I'm tired of CNN saying the demonstrators are "defying the curfew." Heck, the whole demonstration violates the Interior Ministry ban on gatherings. Also too much attention to where ElBaradei is. And I've long since given up on TV figuring out the difference between an APC and a tank, or between a police van and an APC. I'll give you a fuller take when more information is available. Meanwhile any brief thoughts will go directly to the MEI Twitter account, @MiddleEastInst.

What Will the Army Do?

I've been watching a live CNN feed from the corniche, where an Army APC (something in the Russian BRDM family I think) is being surrounded by demonstrators who seem to be cheering the Army. The traditional respect Egyptians accord the Army seems to be in evidence. But whereas the Central Security Forces were cracking down hard, the Army seems to be fraternizing. The Army high command is docile, but the Army has always been the ultimate guarantor of the regime, and if the senior officer corps ever feels that the only way to save the system is to change the leadership, they have the ability to do it.

Is the Army in Cairo?

UPDATED: Demonstrators said to be welcoming the Army.

CNN is showing what clearly are Army trucks on the Nile corniche. If the Army is brought into Cairo, that will be a game changer. Good continuing coverage here. I'll offer more when things clarify a bit.

The Night the Internet Died in Egypt

It's past midnight here but I'm still watching Egypt, where the day of the big demonstration has already dawned. Time to go to bed. But first:

Read this article and look at this graphic.
Times are GMT. Egypt is GMT +2. Egypt's Internet started to go dark just after midnight local time, and flatlined by 12:30. The night the Internet died in the cradle of civilization.

Details from the link:

Confirming what a few have reported this evening: in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet. Critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected for now. But every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air.

At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet's global routing table. Approximately 3,500 individual BGP routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic with Egypt's service providers. Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.

Indeed, I can't raise any .eg sites, not even official ones like Al-Ahram. Also see here.

You can shut down the Internet for a while, but how do you conduct normal commerce? Ben Wedeman of CNN tweeted tonight (well, last night now) that he couldn't check into a hotel since Reservations couldn't access the Internet.

Iran shut it down pretty hard in 2009 to break the demonstrations and Egypt seems to be doing the same tonight. Though in Iran if I recall correctly you could still access government sites from abroad. But Egypt depends on tourism, international trade, the Suez Canal, international remissions, all things that need connectivity. How long can they keep it shut down before they go from acting like North Korea to having North Korea's economy? Not long I suspect.

It's a reminder that the Internet is not the universal democratizing engine some expect as long as governments still control where the plug goes into the wall, or where the ISPs talk to the world. But it also says you're desperate, if you unplug the world for the day. Friday is not a major day for business in Egypt, of course, but can you keep it down Saturday and beyond?

I'll have more tomorrow. Am up too late as it is. But look at that graph.

A Note About MEI's Twitter Feed

It looks like a wild day tomorrow in Cairo. I wanted to remind everyone that while I don't tweet independently of this blog (too talkative to keep to 140 characters), every post to this blog has its headline posted to the Middle East Institute feed, @MiddleEastInst. Following can save you having to check this page. And of course there's the RSS Feed. I may be posting at odd times and through the weekend, and if you aren't already following the MEI tweets, you ought to be since they also let you now about upcoming events and all.

Other resources for tomorrow (I'll omit the Egyptian media as they may be blocked):

The British-based blog Enduring America has been doing a fabulous job of aggregating video, still pics, and liveblogging of events in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere.

On Facebook, for English sites, the We Are All Khaled Said site is very active, though there are many.

On Twitter, #Jan25, #Egypt, @Alshaheeed, @Dima-Khatib, @bencnn, @arabist, are good places to start. Many activists have lost access or may be detained.

Is Egypt Shutting Out the World Before Tomorrow?

UPDATE II: Several activists and two of the senior Brotherhood figures have been arrested in the small hours of the morning apparently. Tomorrow is going to be serious business, I fear.

UDPATE: If this story is true, it could be a bad augury for tomorrow. Why would security forces burn cars unless they're acting as provocateurs to justify a hard crackdown?

Egyptian bloggers and tweeters have been reporting major problems accessing the Internet altogether — not just Twitter and Facebook, which have reportedly been sporadically down for the last couple of days. Yesterday Suez was cut off — mobile service, landlines, SMS, even in some neighborhoods electrical power. If they shut down all Internet access, the outside world is going to have problems reporting tomorrow's demonstration. Many foreign media have already been arrested but later released.

It worked in Iran in 2009. Can it work in Egypt? It's generally even more connected, but we'll see. (Shades of when I first lived in Egypt in 1972, when the phone system was undependable and getting a phone line took years, as opposed to now, when everyone's mobile.)

Most Old Guard Leave Tunisian Cabinet

Earlier today Tunisian Foreign Minister Kamel Morjane announced his resignation, and subsequently the Interim Cabinet announced a reshuffle replacing 12 members from the Ben Ali era, including the Defense, Interior, and Finance Ministries. Prime Minister Ghannouchi, however, a pillar of the old regime, still keeps his job.

The demands to replace the RCD entirely had been building for days, and this was not unexpected. On the other hand, I hope Ghannouchi realized he has just focused all the anger on his own person.

Assessing Egypt After Day Three

Day three of the Cairo demonstrations seems to have been relatively quiet in Cairo, as people take a breather before the big protests tomorrow after Friday prayers. But more troubles in the Canal Cities, with Ismailia now as well as Suez.

With everyone wondering when the government would speak, the NDP Party boss Safwat al-Sharif, who's been around throughout the Sadat and Mubarak eras and possibly since the Pharaohs, gave a press conference and explained how important the NDP considers youth and how reforms will continue etc. Someone tweeted that the press conference appeared to be from an alternate universe.

Oh, and Mohamed ElBaradei, remember him?, returned to Cairo from Vienna. Yes, he's been out of the country while all this has been happening. He's saying he'll take part in the big demo tomorrow. I think Mr. ElBaradei may be trying to join a bandwagon that he's already missed.

I do think tomorrow will be an interesting test. Can the demonstrators keep the numbers coming, or will the arrests and beatings finally demoralize them, and show the regime's durability?

The NDP leadership were described by some of the reporters present as seeming nervous, even as they denied they were worried. But the Party hacks aren't what keeps the government in power; the harder men behind the scenes do.

While Tuesday was enormously impressive and yesterday in Suez looked like it was spinning out of control, the regime still has a lot of weapons in its arsenal (and I don't mean that metaphorically). And that's even without turning to the Army, as they did in 1977 and 1986. I can't foresee the future, and Tunisia surprised everyone, but the Egyptian nut will be harder to crack. This won't be over in 29 days. (Always with the proviso that the Army could be a wild card, but probably won't be.)