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The Triumph of Hope – Open Thread: UPDATED

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The most stable regime in the Arab world topples under mass peaceable protests, and people like this

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Vox populi: Vox Dei

The Voice of Freedom has spoken across Egypt today

I can’t remember a moment like this since 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. My take…

People are dancing on the streets, praying on flags, dancing on flags with soldiers. Their biggest repeated statement

We are not afraid

After the tear gas, the truncheons, water cannons, bullets. After the internet closedowns and withdrawal of policing, and paid thugs looting…

And then the paid thugs stoning demonstrators, charging them with horses and camels, snipers on roofs…

For all this, the blackmail and threats, the pain and the blood, the loss of livelihoods and the loss of lives..

The people stayed the course, never fell for the provocations.

Compare this kind of regime change to that imposed from the outside (by Bush in Iraq).

This is a great moment for democrats everywhere. A great moment for religious tolerance and mutual understanding. A great day for communication and transparency, a free press, a free internet…

We are all victors here. We should all be celebrating

Over to you my Moose-lim Brothers


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 273 Comments

273 comments

  5. Stipes

    It’s gonna be fun watching a nascent democracy form over the next few months.

    King Abdullah II of Jordan is probably shitting his pants right now.

  8. jsfox

    Tanks outside prez palace turn their barrels away from crowd. Cheer goes up. One soldier climbs out of tank, hangs #Egypt flag on turret

  11. jsfox

    Rawya Regeh recalls the moment from outside the Presidential Palace, where an estimated 10,000 protesters had marched today, when the announcement of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation was made: “People were crying, some people fell to their knees, praying immediately on the floor. The tears are everywhere, the smiles, the dances.”

    Regen continues, “I’m 30 years old….I was born the week President Mubarak assumed power. All my years of life I have known only one President, and I can tell you, I have never seen this sentiment in Egypt.”

  12. Strummerson

    In these days of the evil presidentes

    Working for the Clampdown

    Lately one or two have fully paid their dues

    Working for the Clampdown

    Kick over the wall, ’cause governments will fall

    How can you refuse it?

    Let fury have the hour, anger can be power

    You know that you can use it!

    And use it they did, while maintaining solidarity with one another and without descending into savagery.

    They have schooled the world in democratic political possibilities.

    And there’s one more place in the world today where the US is no longer on the wrong side of history.

  15. Strummerson

    that Palestinian communities in the Galilee are setting off fireworks in celebration.

    And yet again, what’s that about Arabs and Muslims being inherently or culturally antagonistic to democracy?  

  16. creamer

    One of those things that gives me a little more hope for the world. In the Middle East one can truly chant “God is Great” today.

  20. Stipes

    will of the people.”

    “Martyrs have sacrificed for the freedom of the country.”

    WOW!

    WOW!

    He called them martyrs.

  22. Strummerson

    Bahrain’s foreign minister Khalid al Khalifa: Egypt takes the Arab world into a new era .. Let’s make it a better one

    My list of people having a very bad bad bad day includes Bashar al Assad and everyone in the Khamanei/Ahmadinejad regime.  Wouldn’t want to be named Qaddafi today either.  I think Abdullah II is more astute and will maneuver Jordan toward being a more constitutional constitutional monarchy.  We’ll see how this plays for FATAH and HAMAS.

  24. Strummerson

    From the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

    The Egyptian military can continue to play a constructive role in providing for security and stability during this transformational period. The U.S. and our allies must focus our efforts on helping to create the necessary conditions for such a transition to take place. We must also urge the unequivocal rejection of any involvement by the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists who may seek to exploit and hijack these events to gain power, oppress the Egyptian people, and do great harm to Egypt’s relationship with the United States, Israel, and other free nations.

    http://politics.blogs.foxnews….

    If she cannot directly implicate the MB in anti-democratic violence or intentions, where does she get off dictating to the Egyptian people who may or may not be involved int he transition?  The freaking arrogance of this astounds me.  What about the extremist Christian Brotherhood faction in her own freaking party?

  30. HappyinVT

    attendees at CPAC are getting ready for a “Reagan banquet” which includes a wax figure of the former president from Madame Tussauds.  Anyone else find that incredibly creepy?

  31. jsfox

    from Mark Lynch

    The Obama administration … deserves a great deal of credit, which it probably won’t receive.  It understood immediately and intuitively that it should not attempt to lead a protest movement which had mobilized itself without American guidance, and consistently deferred to the Egyptian people.   Despite the avalanche of criticism from protestors and pundits, in fact Obama and his key aides — including Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power and many others — backed the Egyptian protest movement far more quickly than anyone should have expected.

    Their steadily mounting pressure on the Mubarak regime took time to succeed, causing enormous heartburn along the way, but now can claim vindication.  By working carefully and closely with the Egyptian military, it helped restrain the worst violence and prevent Tiananmen on the Tahrir — which, it is easy to forget today, could very easily have happened.   No bombs, no shock and awe, no soaring declarations of American exceptionalism, and no taking credit for a tidal wave which was entirely of the making of the Egyptian people — just the steadily mounting public and private pressure on the top of the regime  which was necessary for the protestors to succeed.

    http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com…

  34. Shaun Appleby

    The tectonics of geopolitics are shifting:


    The Persian Gulf was meant to be immune to the types of social and economic pressures that have been thought to be the catalysts for recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. The oil-rich Gulf monarchies, from Kuwait to Oman to Bahrain, have so far remained largely untouched by the wave of political protests sweeping across the region. But in the past few days, that has begun to change. Now, the Arabian monarchs — historically protected from the need to democratize by their massive oil fortunes and close relations with the West — are confronting a serious and growing threat to their legitimacy from protesters empowered by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

    Jennifer Koons – Blow-Up in the Gulf Foreign Policy 11 Feb 11

    And Yemen is getting scary as we speak, apparently.


    @pakinamamer: We beat #Tunisia by a good margin — we’ve toppled our dictator in 18 days! Anyone in the Mideast want to break our record?

    We’ll see.

  35. Shaun Appleby

    Pretty typical stuff:


    “Hosni Mubarak agreed to the terms of resignation if he first was allowed to go to Sharm el-Sheikh (Sinai Peninsula, Egypt) and then on to the city of Al Ain (UAE),” the [Kuwaiti Al-Qabas] daily said, adding that the terms also stated that Egypt’s new government would not persecute the former president.

    According to Al-Qabas, the UAE foreign minister said his country could help Mubarak in three areas, including holding talks on organizing international safety in Mubarak and his security forces out of the country, guaranteeing he or his family members would not be legally persecuted, and his personal property would not be confiscated.

    Egypt’s Mubarak to receive refuge, non-persecution in UAE – newspaper RIA Novosti 11 Feb 11

    See ya’, wouldn’t want to be ya’.

  36. Stipes

    Amr Moussa has the inside track for the elections in Sept.

    At this point, only ElBaradei could challenge him.

    I’m hoping someone with more knowledge of the current situation in Egypt will correct me if I’m way off base.

  37. Stipes

    6:28am Tahrir Square still buzzing and so is online social media. One of the jokes being circulated:

    “Mubarak died and met the late presidents Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser in the afterlife.

    They asked him: Poisoned or assassinated?

    He replied: Neither, Facebook!”

  38. HappyinVT

    The constant drumbeat on Faux News that the crowds want a Muslim fundamentalist dictatorship is ridiculous. Egyptians are religious, but the keywords of the protests have been secular ones- elections, parliament, the people, the army, the nation (watan, the secular word for nation, not ummah, the religious community).

    He goes on to list the specific demands and to talk about the possible outcomes.

    http://www.juancole.com/

    Worth a read.

  39. Shaun Appleby

    Via Twitter:

    “Fixing the pavements we broke after using them as stones to protect ourselves! #jan25 #egypt”

    • spacemanspiff

      What’s the point of linking and mocking him here?

      psychodrew played a big part as a founding Moose.

      He’s respectful enough of this place to not bring that shit here.

      It’s probably why he left.

      Do what you like but don’t be surprised if some of us (me) don’t like it.

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