{"id":58,"date":"2011-08-01T12:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T12:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/?p=58"},"modified":"2011-08-01T12:46:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T12:46:00","slug":"the-morally-right-and-the-politically-expedient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"The Morally Right and the Politically Expedient"},"content":{"rendered":"
The sit-in in Tahrir has been going on for over three weeks now. The key demand of putting on trial the murders of the\u00a0protesters has yet to be met. The supreme\u00a0council\u00a0of the armed forces (SCAF) has made a couple of concessions during the sit-in. Mubarak and El-Adly’s (the police chief who is\u00a0believed have given order to shoot the protests)\u00a0 \u00a0trail will be televised. There was also a\u00a0significant reshuffling of the ministerial cabinet. <\/p>\n

However, in the eyes of many who are now in Tahrir, those concessions did not go far enough and the key demand \u00a0has yet to be met. For more details on the background to the sit-in, check my earlier post<\/a>. The fact remains is that this\u00a0extended\u00a0sit-in is becoming more unpopular by the day. Many\u00a0Egyptians\u00a0fail to understand what it sit-in is all about and the SCAF\u00a0controlled\u00a0state media is constantly\u00a0describing\u00a0it as futile and counter productive and the prime cause of all economic woes.<\/p>\n

Many also argue that it is not time for direct\u00a0democracy, those who participated in the revolution should be getting ready for \u00a0parliamentary\u00a0elections that is coming up in a couple of months. They should be doing a better job of communicating with the\u00a0masses. It they miss that opportunity, the\u00a0Islamists<\/a> will win by a landslide and will be the authors of the post-revolutionary\u00a0constitution. These argument and some\u00a0remedial actions are suggested in this blog post<\/a> by Amr Bassiouny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many of the organized movements of the\u00a0revolution have suspended their sit-in and issued a\u00a0statement<\/a> to that effect. However, most of the independents\u00a0decided\u00a0to stay in Tahrir in solidarity with families of the martyrs. These families are likely to be subject to abuse and\u00a0harassment by the police if those responsible for the death of their loved ones are not put on trial first. So there is a moral imperative not to abandon them. However, such extended sit-in might eventually spell disaster. The relationship between the remaining\u00a0protesters\u00a0 and\u00a0shopkeepers in down town Cairo are becoming increasingly tense. The shopkeepers are loosing\u00a0significant\u00a0business\u00a0due the sit-in. There is some fear that they might take violent action against those at the sit-in.<\/p>\n

The more\u00a0sensible amongst\u00a0\u00a0the\u00a0protesters\u00a0called for a\u00a0scaling\u00a0back of the sit-in and opening the square for traffic. However, a great many of the\u00a0protesters\u00a0see that this will slacken the pressure and will not bring justice to the families of the martyrs. That is despite their dwindling numbers after their\u00a0diminishing\u00a0ability to secure the square. \u00a0 The sad fact remains that every passing day many average folks are heaping more scorn the revolutionaries with the square being closed for normal traffic.<\/p>\n

Collective decision making is becoming\u00a0increasingly hard to do. Yesterday, I ran into Gigi Ibrahim<\/a> and\u00a0\u00a0Rasha Azb<\/a>\u00a0in the square both showed signs of exhaustion. They have been trying hard all day talk sense into to the morally decent, but political naive to reach some sort compromise. The majority view in Tahrir at the moment is for continuing the sit-in while closing the square.<\/p>\n

In any case, the revolutionaries should be doing a better job of\u00a0communicating with the average Egyptians to counter the slandering\u00a0campaign\u00a0of state\u00a0sponsored\u00a0media. They should also find a way of helping those who are\u00a0adversely\u00a0affected by the sit-in to prevent further antagonism.<\/p>\n

These are very tricky times indeed. Some battles you can choose, others you can not walk away from. For the latter a good strategy and clear vision is needed. Those are very hard to do without some form of centralized leadership. What was once a key strength of the Egyptian revolution is now turning into a major weakness.<\/p>\n

Update<\/i>:\u00a0Catastrophe!!! As soon as I published this post, I learned that Tahrir is being attacked by police and army forces with the blessing and support of the residents. The sit-in is being\u00a0violently brought to an end.\u00a0This is the biggest set back to the revolution yet! I expect more curbs on the right to\u00a0protest\u00a0in the next few days. Please read this\u00a0testimony<\/a> to get a sense of what happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sit-in in Tahrir has been going on for over three weeks now. The key demand of putting on trial the murders of the\u00a0protesters has yet to be met. The supreme\u00a0council\u00a0of the armed forces (SCAF) has made a couple of concessions during the sit-in. Mubarak and El-Adly’s (the police chief who is\u00a0believed have given order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6,56,14,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-counter-revolution","category-egypt","category-jul8","category-revolution","category-tahrir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectionatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}