“At least nine people have been killed in Egypt and more than 350 injured in the past two days of clashes between protesters and security forces in Cairo. Soldiers have cleared Tahrir Square of protesters. And footage showed troops beating demonstrators and burning their tents. Protesters are calling for the country’s military rulers to step down. But the military blamed the protesters for the violence, and the country’s prime minister denied that excessive force was used.” —Al Jazeera
Here is an Al Jazeera video clip that captures the ferocity of military brutality against courageous young protesters. Also featured is Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal El Ganzouri’s bald-faced lies that the protests are “an attack against the revolution” and that military action is designed to “rescue the revolution.” My transcript follows the video.
Egypt clashes continue for second day, Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh reports from Cairo December 17, 2011
TRANSCRIPT
Force and fire. That’s how security forces responded minutes after the Egyptian prime minister promised no violence will be used. Protesters didn’t expect much from the man whose very choice of head of cabinet was the main reason behind their sit-in. Still what he had to say disappointed many.
Kamal El Ganzouri, Egyptian Prime Minister – “What we’re having today is not a revolution. It’s an attack against the revolution. I told the youths that I have met, more than 350 of you on 11 days. They are youth from this country. I’ve met them and I told them – This is a government to rescue the revolution of the 25 of January.”
But there was no rescue for these protesters who continued battling the military for the second day in a row. The violence spread from the cabinet and parliament buildings into Tahrir Square where the revolution began. Security forces stepped up their campaign after a government building, including a historic research centre, was set on fire in the melee.
They [state television] televised live footage of the violence. It gave the same line as military officials – that the protesters were simply carrying out acts of vandalism. No reference was made to security forces attacking other media. But whatever Egyptians were being told on state television, those on the ground, the ugliness they’ve witnessed first-hand is indisputable.
Indisputable, too, is the fact that the military council is gradually losing political ground. Already a new civilian advisory council that it had appointed, the new relations between the army and the protesters has suspended its work. The question now is whether the men in uniform will change their ways and if there’s even the will to do so.
RELATED STORY
Is Egypt’s Arab Spring in Danger of Being Hijacked? Huffington Post, November 7, 2011 – “Hilary Clinton’s statement of support for the military’s timetable has confirmed fears of interference and intervention despite US publicly stated support for Egypt’s revolution. This US position not only reinforces the hand of the Egyptian military but risks further undermining the Obama administration’s ability to rebuild its lost credibility and role in the Middle East.”
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing
“If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that’s something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organizations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time.” —Noam Chomsky
“When you know there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands behind you, you don’t stop. People fight for as long as they can. They die, they go to hospitals, they lose their eyes and there are others behind them. It’s a matter of—-it’s how, kind of, consensus expresses itself as a movement. And essentially, your heart takes over your body. It takes over your mind. We’re fighting for things far bigger than this.” —Khalid Abdalla, Egyptian actor and activist
Thanks once again to Amy Goodman and her Democracy Now! team of correspondents who reported today, November 29, from Tahrir Square, inspiring us with the words and deeds of courageous young Egyptian men and women who continue to put their lives on the line for true freedom and democracy.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous – Down with military rule. The clarion call of a new uprising in Egypt. The revolution that erupted 10 months ago and succeeded in ousting 30-year autocrat Hosni Mubarak has re-ignited into Tahrir Square and has spread across the country. This time, protesters are rising up against the Supreme Council of Armed Forces that came to power after Mubarak’s ouster in what is perhaps the biggest challenge to military rule in Egypt in 60 years.
Protester Sherief Gaber – We’ve had over 3000 wounded. We’ve had over 38 killed. We’ve held them off. People are not willing to move because what they want, they know now they want and end to military government. They want it now.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous — Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt’s Revolution, had turned into a massive hospital. The wounded, the majority of them overwhelmed by tear gas and barely conscious, were carried from the front lines to field hospitals set up in and around the square, on motorcycles. Protesters linked arms to create lanes for the bikes to speed through the crowds. Despite the near certainty of being injured or passing out from too much gas, protesters kept going forward to the front lines to confront police. The fighting centered on Mohammed Mahmoud, a street leading from Tahrir to the headquarters of the Interior Ministry. This is actor and activist, Khalid Abdalla –
Khalid Abdalla
Khalid Abdalla – There’s an essential thing to understand about Mohammed Mahmoud [street], is that it is the frontier between Tahrir and the Ministry of Interior. You’re always going to have, no matter where you define it, an area that is a no man’s land in which it’s not clear it; is this your territory or my territory? As they hit you, you are not going to give up. The more they kill us, the more we multiply. And that has always been the story of this revolution. So, obviously, the front lines have been—-I mean it’s funny, tear gas, it’s almost like it has a natural kind of—-what’s the word? You kind of develop immunity to it. Not immunity in terms of your lung, but you develop immunity of spirit. It’s made to break you. But what it does is gradually make you more furious to the point that there is nothing that will stop you. This revolution has always been about having it having body. When you know there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands behind you, you don’t stop. People fight for as long as they can. They die, they go to hospitals, they lose their eyes and there are others behind them. It’s a matter of—-it’s how, kind of, consensus expresses itself as a movement. And essentially, your heart takes over your body. It takes over your mind. We’re fighting for things far bigger than this.
The Muslim Brotherhood clearly are interested in the elections. They have a political interest, which they’re declaring now above the demands of this revolution to get rid of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. I feel very strongly that it is — that I say, shame on them. Shame on their history. They are after all are a movement that has been tortured and abused and beaten and killed for 60 years at the hands of this regime, this army regime that is still in power today, and at the last moment, they take an opportunistic decision to choose sham elections over the people of this country.
Rania Mohamed Fawzi –We are ordinary Egyptians, the ones they say just stay at home. We are not staying at home. We’re right here saying we want our rights, which are very simply [a] civilian presidential council that is formed from people that represent us, and that is agreed upon, but they must have full authority, not just someone like before, like Essam Sharaf’s government, just a secretary that just carries out with the staff wants. No, we’ve been silent for a long time. This time, we are not silent, and we will get all our rights. And this won’t be like the first time. They said Mubarak left and we all went home. No, this time, we won’t go home until we get our rights.
Khalid Abdalla –This country is in a moment of absolute clarity and awareness about where it stands, about the front lines of what it has to fight for, what it has to bring down in order to build itself. I’m not saying that in one swift move everything will be great. But, right now, we have a crucial — right now you have millions of people pitted against the biggest institution in the country, and they are not afraid, and they are willing to die for it and they are willing to fight for it. It may take some people more time to get to a point where they’re willing to stand in front of a tank and say, run over me, and that’s extraordinary moment for anyone to come to. But, we saw that on the 25th of February when the army first came down to kick us out of this square. And the number that was there was very small, but, right then they said it is the people or the army and people will win because they always do. You cannot enforce stability. If you try and enforce stability, the cracks will be volcanic and they will melt your way.
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“This is creativity. It is inspired and stimulated by our living our own lives, and not by copying theories of struggle from books. Every struggle has its own unique theory inseparable from action. Creativity means uniqueness, innovation, discovering a new way of thinking and acting. Of creating a system based on more and more justice, freedom, love, and compassion. If you are creative you must be dissident. You discover what others have not yet discovered.”Nawal El Saadawi, acclaimed Egyptian feminist, writer, activist, physician, and psychiatrist.
NOTE: This week’s Something Understood broadcast of On the Edge will continue to be available for listening herebut only until this Saturday, June 4.
Here, again, then, is Mark Tully to introduce Nawal El Saadawi.
Those who choose to take an active stand against a regime they regard as immoral in some way or another, to be active dissidents, have to be prepared to face the consequences. They may be nothing more than ostracism. But they can be as dire as execution. In her book,Dissidents and Creativity (sic), Nawal El Saadawi describes how she was put on the Egyptian government’s blacklist, thrown out of her job, imprisoned and forbidden to publish magazines. She believes dissidents should look behind the veneer of words which are generally considered positive, or at least harmless, to detect the deceit that they often hide.Egy Many of them are words that governments use to justify themselves. And even a word like “peace” can be deceitful.
The following words of Nawal El Saadawi were delivered by a BBC reader –
Our struggles are becoming more and more difficult. They need more and more creativity. There are always new words emerging that we have to demystify. Words such as “peace”, “democracy”, “human rights”, “privatization”, “globalization”, “multiculturalism”, “diversity”, “civil society”, “non-governmental organizations”, “cultural difference”, liberation theology”, “religious fundamentalism”, “post-modernism”, and others.
We need to discover new ways of exposing the paradoxes or double meanings in the many new and old words that are endlessly repeated. We cannot acquire this knowledge through books, through formal education or the mass media. All of them are controlled by the global powers of domination and exploitation. And they help to veil our brains with one myth after another. We have to acquire this knowledge by ourselves from our own experience in the daily struggle against those powers globally, locally and in the family.
This is creativity. It is inspired and stimulated by our living our own lives, and not by copying theories of struggle from books. Every struggle has its own unique theory inseparable from action. Creativity means uniqueness, innovation, discovering a new way of thinking and acting. Of creating a system based on more and more justice, freedom, love, and compassion. If you are creative you must be dissident. You discover what others have not yet discovered.
END OF On The Edge SELECTION
El Saadawi: Revolution Transforms Us (video)
To supplement the above reading, here is a 5:43-minute video of El Saadawi, talking to a New York City audience about her experience in the Tahrir Square revolution. Uploaded by Women in the World: Stories + Solutions, March 12, 2011 A Transcript follows the video..
Interviewer: Let loose with stories about Tahrir Square.
Well, I’m very happy to be here with you in New York and to have my friend — even, I think, 40 years we’ve been in contact — and to speak about something that [is] almost my childhood dream. When I was 10 years of age, a child, I was dreaming of a revolution. I didn’t know what a revolution, but I was so dissatisfied with everything around me. I was dissident. I was a feminist when I was a child because what’s feminism? You don’t need to read books to be a feminist. When you are born female in a poor family then you become feminist because you are oppressed by class, by patriarchy – by everything – in school, in the street, at home.
So I was rebelling since I was 10 and dreaming of a revolution, of a new world – that there was justice, freedom, dignity, and love for all, regardless of gender, religion, anything. But this never came into my life until in January. So the revolution in Egypt was delayed 70 years. And that’s why I was in the streets, in the Tahrir Square. The Tahrir Square became my home. And all the men, young men, young women, old men, Christians, Muslims, poor, rich, from all classes, families, from Aswan in the south to Alexandria – 20 million people in the streets – 5 [million] of them in Tahrir Square, and they were living there under tents. So it became my family.
And I was happy to get rid of my biological family, the nuclear, very narrow, tiny nuclear family within four walls. And now I am in the street. That was my dream, to get out of my room and be in the street. And we lived like that for more than two weeks.
And what happened was a miracle. That all the discrimination between – that we inherited from slavery, from patriarchy, differences between Christians and Muslims, conflicts between men and women – dissolved. I saw young sleeping under the same tent with young men whom they don’t know, and not a single harassment. I saw Christians and Muslims praying at the same time and protecting each other. We distributed food, we lived together as one family. So I was so happy, as if I was reborn, as if I am living my childhood again.
And I’ll tell you some little things because time is short, about how people cooperated and helped each other. On the Wednesday, 2nd of February, Mubarak [inaudible] the gangs invade Tahrir Square on horses and camels. Some were killed by live bullets. Some were knocked by horses. I was about to be knocked by a horse and I felt around me 20 men who carried me away and they protected me and there was a sense, a feeling that we protect each other. And to help each other
On that night, I went until midnight and there was curfew, and there were no taxis, nothing to go from Tahrir Square to my home in Shubra. So one of the young men had a motorcycle, so . . .
Interviewer: You didn’t? [audience laughter]
I did it. But you see I am 80, 80 and the day was so tiring to us with these horses. So the young men carried me on the motorcycle. And the driver – I was hugging the driver like that so I will not fall – and another young man volunteered to sit behind hugging me so I will not fall. [laughter]. So I was a sandwich between two young men who I don’t know. They were like from my blood, from my body. They were my son, my daughter. We forgot our gender. I didn’t know I am a woman, they are men. We were hugging each other. I forgot my age. And they took me on this motorcycle to my home in Shubra with the bumps on the street and al that. And you know I have a collapsed disc {inaudible] writer’s disease. So I went home, I was dead. But next morning at 6 o’clock I was again in Tahrir Square.
I’m just describing [for] you, I think the revolution transforms us. The revolution gives us new life. The revolution is giving Egypt new life. But it gives us women and men, individuals, new life.
END OF TRANSCRIPTION
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