Feb 1, 2011

Too early to judge Egyptian uprising

Of course everyone is in a state of bewilderment, especially those who follow the news on Egypt's upheavals. For the last hours I have been reading some confusing opinion which were saying that Egypt will meet the same fate that Iran did. It is simply an assumption that doesn't necessarily represent or relate to the major theme but it can be counted as a concern.

We should not be confused or naively believe in what we hear from news channels. They are still struggling to realize what to do, how to frame their news, what their narratives should be regarding to Egypt upheavals. But one thing is clear to us that all these news channels are trying their best to cover the uprising.

One thing has been vexing me for the last few hours that the Western media are trying to portray the Egyptian uprising as a pro-democracy movement. Of course it's up to them what kind of narrative or interpretation they give out to their audience but if we carefully look at those placards and slogans that are expressed and shown for the last days, non of them represent democracy neither Islamic fundamentalism belief that the U.S and other Western countries scared of.

One thing is pretty much obvious that the Egyptian protesters are out there mostly because of their daily concerns that they are angry about. The participants are from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, they mainly focused on a number of issues which are important in their daily life, such as legal and political issues, police brutality, state of emergency laws, lack of free elections and free speech, widespread corruption, economic issues including high unemployment rate, food price inflation and low minimum wages.

Now, it is too early to call it Islamic movement or pro-democracy movement. The protesters will is to simply say good bye with a period of widespread corruption, inequality, oppressive and authoritarian regime which ruled by Hosni Mubarak for 30 years after Gamal Abdel Nasser assassinated in 1970.

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