Some of you might have been wondering about the three day silence on this blog. Actually I was busy with finally moving myself from the safety of my desk at home in Germany to my (so far similarly safe) new temporary home in Cairo. After going through 10 days of painful undecidedness I finally realized on Sunday eve that I simply HAD to go. Unfortunately that only left me with 24 hours to pack my stuff, get together all the necessary documents (stating my harmlessness...) from various university bodies, get cash in foreign currencies, vaccinations and German cheese for my flatmate in Cairo....So when I arrived in Cairo on Tuesday 8 Feb afternoon I was quite exhausted and this has been lasting on, mixing with the usual slight exhaustion the process of adjusting to weather, dust, noise, language, food, people and everything else in Cairo causes.
I might tell you more aboutmy personal experience since later on, but for now, lets turn to the political situation:
Egypt is at the peak of excitedness right now!!! Mubarak is supposed to appear on TV within 15 minutes time. There have been rumours that he will step down and hand over to vice-president Suleiman tonight. Some Egyptian official, a CIA representative, Barkawi (new head of NDP), minister of finance have expressed that they'd expect Mubarak to step down tonight. AlJazeera is speaking of a historic moment while state TV refers to the minister of media denying that Mubarak the president would hand over. MB warns of a military coup, commentators are weary as well that the military might now take over. I am not fully getting what exactly the feared „coup“ is supposed to be in this case? Does coup mean military personel being in power instead of elected representatives of the people? That's what we've got here in Egypt. Does a coup mean dis-abling the rule if law or the constitution, ruling by use of decrees within some kind of emergency law? That's what we've got in Egypt....So actually: what is it we are talking about when we warn of a coup in Egypt?
The situation has hardly become more transparent in these last days. Many Egyptians I spoke to are really undecided, „torn apart“, some even label it as „confused“. Partially this is due to the fact that in politics there rarely (if ever) are clear, clean, perfect solutions. Take this as an example: on the one hand the protests are to a large part driven by the demand to social justice, addressing the widespread poverty and the huge and ever widening gap between rich and poor. Yet: it is in particular the very poor, paid on a day by day basis which are suffering most from the economic impact of the protests. They simply don't know how to get their family through the month as they had not been or still are not able to work because of the protests. Many Eyptians were convinced that it was necessary to prevent these people from further economic harm by getting the economy up and running again. So they felt they should get back to work... at the same time with half (or more) of their heart they were with the protestors in Tahrir, and recognized how important it was to keep up pressure on the government. I have encountered more than one Egyptian who has „changed sides“ more than once in the course of the last two weeks.
Besides the contradictious arguments, pro and cons for the different positions and according ways of behaviour, various kinds of „stories“ are out there. In many cases it is impossible to judge which story is more „viable“ in the sense of functioning as a representation of reality. Misinformation is widespread, and has come to serve all sides in what has become a veritable media war. Even now there is one story saying: Mubarak is now talking to Suleiman in his palace (footage shown live on TV) and he will deliver a speech live soon. The other story goes: Mubarak has recorded a speech yesterday and has already left for a retreat to Sharm elSheikh.
One important aspect: state television is changing its tone of reporting. Also the content has changed from an agenda of complete misinformation to one that actually seems intent to show in how far protests start having effects. The issue of corruption, the amassing of wealth by the Egyptian political class (which had become a major focus of popular dissatisfaction in the recent days) has come to feature prominently in the current programme.
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