Question. What is the Egypt uprising a reaction to?

[Kablooie]

I'm not up on recent Egyptian politics.
I wasn't aware that Egyptian citizens were such extreme distress.

What are the problems in Egyptian life that have created this revolution?
Are they different or more intense than the economic disasters occurring everywhere else in the world?

[gateley]

Self delete - Dupe. Still just me. :-) nt

[gateley]

1. Somebody more knowledgeable than I will come along to express it better and

more completely, but from what I've learned it's the culmination of 30 years of Mubarak's rule under which the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and people are having difficulty providing for their families. Remind you of anywhere else?

[DesertDiamond]

39. How ironic, then, if it's true that our own CIA fomented this rebellion...

and when will they foment one for us here in the US?

[ananda]

43. The USA needs a revolt just as much!

nt

[EFerrari]

46. This is extremely convenient for our government.

It's hard to see how this could be a CIA project.

[grahamhgreen]

47. They did - 9/11. It was a revolution

for the other side.

[leftstreet]

2. Inflation, unemployment, corrupt govt, rich people hoarding all the wealth

[WCGreen]

9. Sounds familiar....

[woo me with science]

34. Much of Egypt's police force is plain clothes informants

mingling among the people. Any expressed dissent can get you whisked away for torture or worse.

The government is corrupt, siphoning money from the people. Huge numbers of young men are unemployed. The cost of food has skyrocketed. They cannot support their families.

Many more young people feel unable to get married because they see no way to support a family. Roadblocks to marriage in an Islamic state are a huge deal, as people really can't start a life or even have a sexual relationship without public disapproval if they are unmarried. The result is that you have many, many lives effectively on hold. They are furious at the government for doing this to them.

[upi402]

3. Muslim Brotherhood and poor people and people fed up

with corruption and the rich getting richer while the poor suffered too much.

I guess couples couldn't afford the marriage dowry, or food... what's left?

[stevedeshazer]

4. Poverty. The average Egyptian makes $51 a month.

That's part of it.

[grasswire]

5. 30 years under a police state

Apparently things got hotter recently when Mubarak said he planned to run again for president, and many people just could not take another five years of him. He's 82 years old.

[CreekDog]

6. here's what I don't get: with Wikipedia and tons of info easily at your fingertips

why are you asking here?

the wikipedia page gives you the basics of Egypt in about 1-2 pages. in fact by now, if you go to that page, there'll probably be a link to a page specifically on the riots.

i accept that not everybody knows everything going on in the world --i sure don't.

what i don't get is having a question and taking the time to post and not simply going to wikipedia or something to do a tiny bit of reading, tiny, tiny amount of reading about it.

i just don't get it.

and if you're reading it on the news, they are telling you the issues in those articles.

so my final question is...how do you not know unless not only haven't you been reading about Egypt over the years, but despite your interest in the subject tonight --you've read almost nothing about it even tonight.

now that's what i don't get about these kind of posts on DU.

sorry. :shrug:

[Kablooie]

10. Yes, of course there's lot's of info on Wikipedia.

More than most of us would care to know.
There is repression and human rights violations but there are many countries with similar descriptions.
There is, as of right now, nothing there that explains why suddenly there is an uprising.

I was wondering if someone here had more specific information and not generalities.

(And I know that I shouldn't use the possessive apostrophe in the title but it slips out sometimes and
for some reason I prefer explaining it down here rather than fix it in the title. )

[CreekDog]

15. for Pete's sake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_protests

[gateley]

21. Ask whatever you want, Kablooie - most people here don't mind helping out

a fellow DUer, and they're here to follow up if you have any questions. I guess that's evidenced by the preponderance of people responding to your question and the lack of any significant complaining or lecturing. :pals:

[Kablooie]

24. I know. But I get cranky sometimes and let it out here too so it's okay.

[txlibdem]

26. A question can also be the catalyst to start a discussion

Is that so bad?

[CreekDog]

36. true

and not bad, no.

[CreekDog]

35. thannks

:hi:

[gateley]

20. I always ask on DU first. The people here give concise, understandable answers

that I can easily comprehend and digest. Plus their take on things which is immeasurably helpful.

Why does it bother you that someone would ask knowledgeable friends on DU? They don't mind helping out with an answer. Most of them don't anyway.

[CreekDog]

22. it's not the asking that bothers me

it's when it's clear they aren't doing anything else to learn.

that person complained that the wikipedia entry for Egypt had too much information!

[gateley]

23. Really, CreekDog, you shouldn't let it bother you. Maybe s/he just wanted

the short, "headline" version. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not worth getting your blood pressure up and grinding your teeth over. Just be kind to yourself and move on.

[CreekDog]

44. it's not a big deal, nor was it last night...but in the time it takes to post here and wait

wait for answers to be posted, a person could read the wiki entry on Egyptian protests.

or read the multitude of stories about them.

and then read and with context, the myriad posts on Egypt already at DU and understand.

i guess i just think it's a heck of a lot more efficient to be active in learning about this news event rather than somewhat passive.

but i saw another post where someone was reading DU but hadn't read the news lately.

that's something i don't get. how do you make any use of DU without reading news, in fact, how do you read DU without reading the news --there are links and quotes of news all over.

just one of these things that i don't understand (but don't mistake that for anger or crankiness).

[whathehell]

28. Why the fuck shouldn't he ask here?

and yeah, you should be "sorry".

[CreekDog]

52. i said the poster shouldn't rely on this as the first source

that's the part i'm not changing my mind on.

[whathehell]

53. I disagree and I think you're attitude is wrong.

but do keep your mind the way it is.

[The Doctor.]

29. DU readers who like coming here for info appreciate it. Then there is the personal insight of DUers

that sometimes comes up. People who know where more interesting links and possible anecdotes are frequent DU.

It's sometimes a more interesting thorough way to become informed.

[CreekDog]

37. i do the same thing

but i was wondering how you can be on the net on Friday night and not seem to know anything.

that's what struck me.

or maybe it was the "why now" aspect that is mysterious.

[madinmaryland]

41. Maybe they were at work all day, and did not feel like sorting through

reams of paper work to find out what was going on.

Sheesh, lighten up, Francis!

[CreekDog]

42. i get it

:rofl:

[Darth_Kitten]

50. Yes, exactly!

:D

[AngryAmish]

31. DU is a message board for like minded people

One wants to know the "correct" opinion. It is easier to ask than slog through forty threads to determine the consensus around here to agree with.

And yes, it is like trying to find out the correct fashion trends in middle school.

[Occulus]

33. It's called crowdsourcing.

Yes, there's a name for it, and no, there's nothing at all wrong with it. It's the sort of thing you would expect to see in a world as connected as ours. It's also been occurring on discussion boards, forums, and yes, Usenet, since, well, forever. It's been going on for a long time, not just at DU, and is in fact one of the fundamental uses of the Internet itself.

[Joe the Revelator]

38. Someone ate their ass-flakes this morning

[Darth_Kitten]

49. We ask DU'ers because we'll get the real dirt.

:)

[Hissyspit]

7. Here's some:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x290575


"Torture and Police Brutality in Egypt are Endemic and Widespread"

http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/01/09CAIRO79.html

wikileaks: "The Egyptian 'people blame America' now for their plight under Mubarak." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10DOHA71.html

wikileaks: Cable: "10 Yemeni children were trafficked to Egypt for organ harvesting" http://wikileaks.ch/reldate/2011-01-28_0.html

wikileaks: Cable: "A new round of political arrests..." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO197.html

wikileaks: Cable: "Mubarak's terror against writers, bloggers and journalists" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1447.html

wikileaks: Cable: "Egypt's abuse of Emergency Laws" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/01/10CAIRO64.html

wikileaks: Egyption cable: "Military will ensure transfer of power..." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1468.html

wikileaks: Mubarak private briefing for senator Lieberman http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/02/09CAIRO326.html

wikileaks: Cable: "Rogue Egyptian priests feed US adoption racket" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO344.html

wikileaks: Cable: "Welcome to Egypt, FBI director...here's what's going on" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO179.html

[Kablooie]

11. Thanks. These kind of reports get so little attention here in the U.S. normally.

Though there is so much of this kind of crap going around the world that you just can't keep up with all of it.

[Hissyspit]

13. One initial catalyst was torture and killing by police for no known reason of

Khaled el Saaed. You can see him here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=547780&mesg_id=547780

Similar to what happened in Tunisia.

"Khaled Mohamed Saeed died under disputed circumstances in the Sidi Gaber area of Alexandria on 6 June 2010.<21> Multiple witnesses have testified that Saeed was beaten to death by the police.<22>

On June 25 Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, led a rally in Alexandria against alleged abuses by the police and visited Saeed's family to offer condolences.<23>"

No matter what VP Biden says, Mubarak is a dictator, and Egypt is an emergency-state dictatorship.

[cutlassmama]

19. Great cliff notes. Thanks.

[CoffeeCat]

8. Thank you for asking this question...

I haven't had time lately to read the news, and I appreciate it when people
ask questions like this. DUers always take the time to respond and explain
and give great insight and perspective.

One of the reasons that DU is such a great resource.

[Catherina]

12. I think time's answer to question number 2 is going to surprise a lot of politicians

who have been doing the elite's bidding for too long. People are squeezed to death all over the world with barely 2 nickels to rub together while their labor is stolen from them in this terrible globalized free market.


What we're witnessing here is a huge, informal, socialist uprising by people who refuse to be exploited any longer. Albert Einstein. among many, put his finger on this years ago. I just read these quotes in an Einstein article DUer White Wolf linked to today. They couldn't have come at a better time.

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor - not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production - that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods - may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals."

...

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an "army of unemployed" almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before."

...

Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?

[dkf]

16. Socialist uprising? I'd say they were just fed up with Mubarak.

What socialist influences could there possibly be in Egypt?

[Catherina]

18. Notice it's in lower case letters and specified as informal. Read up on Arab Socialism

Gamal Abdel Nasser, 14 year second President of Egypt, who "heralded a new period of modernization, and socialist reform in Egypt together with a profound advancement of pan-Arab nationalism" would be a good start.

[dkf]

32. This is interesting...

"Arab Socialism is different from the classical Marxism and Soviet Socialism and the term 'socialism' has been used as a regime consolidation in Arab Socialism. Rather than an ideological belief, ‘socialism’ was used to describe policies conducted out of nationalist and modernizing concerns in Arab Socialism.<3> However, because of its affiliation to socialist and modernist ideologies, Arab socialism had a modernist and equalitarian perspective on gender issues, at least in rhetoric."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_socialism

That makes sense.

[blindpig]

45. Tell me that old Al wasn't reading Marx.

That is a very Marxist analysis.

[Very_Boring_Name]

14. high unemployment and an authoritarian government

[dkf]

17. I don't know that we've figured out what the exact catalyst was.

There were so many things. Probably the dam just burst.

[Quantess]

25. I think it's good that you ask...

You are in a large percentage with other DUers who are wondering.

Another thing that made the Egyptians boiling mad was when a young man named Khaled was beaten to death by police after they tried to roll him for money, and he didn't have any. The police brutally beat him to death and then tried to plant drugs afterward. Khaled became a "poster child" for the injustices and brutality the Egyptians have had to live with for so long. That's just one of things that tipped the people to a boiling point.

[txlibdem]

27. Pres. Obama is taking notes on Egypt, how to subjugate a repressed population

People are having trouble making ends meet. There is great economic uncertainty. The rich have gotten far richer while the poor have steadily gotten poorer.

Am I describing Egypt, or the USA?

Pres. Obama is taking notes on how best to quell the demands of the "little people" for economic fairness and a government that has the interests of the people not the rich as its priority. He will need those skills in the coming years right here at home.

[pampango]

30. Check out this Global Post summary of the Middle East revolutions.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/110126/protests-riots-tunisia-egypt-lebanon-middle-east-north-africa

[barbiegeek]

40. No Food or Clean Water, no employment or homes

[grahamhgreen]

48. Globalization - the same thing that's happening here, but even more repressive.

[Hissyspit]

51. "How did we get to this point?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x548782