I learned from Issandr that Jonathan Wright, former long-time Reuters newsman now living and working in Cairo as a translator (hey, we former Reuters people end up doing the darnedest things!), has now gotten a return of the journo-adrenalin itch and has started a blog.
Excellent, well-informed stuff.
This, today, on the role of the MB in the protests so far:
- From my own experience on the streets (see my earlier reports passim), I believe people are underestimating the level of participation by members of the Brotherhood, though I will readily concede that they have not taken part at full strength and at a level which reflects their demographic weight. There are several possible and obvious reasons for this…
I’m not going to venture a guess at the level of Muslim Brotherhood participation but, judging from my chance encounters with protesters, any assertion that the movement is absent or very thinly represented is probably wishful thinking. By the way, many Brothers are clean-shaven, wear suits and ties and are physically indistinguishable from other Egyptians of the same class.
This, yesterday, from the near-in Cairo slum of Boulaq Aboul Ela:
- I ended up in the lanes because riot police were firing tear gas canisters and other unidentified projectiles along 26th July Street, apparently in response to a small group of protesters who were throwing rocks at them. The lanes gave some shelter from the gas. The group of protesters, who numbered no more than 200 (there were other groups elsewhere in the city), were clearly outsiders, wealthier and better educated than the local inhabitants. Their main chants were political – “Al-sha3b yuriid isqaat an-nizaam” (The people … want .. the overthrow … of the regime – an echo of the similar chant now current in Tunisia). But what struck me most was the evident solidarity of the local people with the protesters and the possibility that at some point the local people too might might come out on the streets. If that happened, the government would be hard-pressed to disperse them by their current methods. The riot police would be overwhelmed and many of the police conscripts (they come largely from among the poorest of the rural poor) would defect or disperse. Without seeing these slum areas at first hand, it’s hard to imagine how many tens of thousands of people live there. The population density is comparable to that in Gamalia on the northeast edge of the old city, where there are up to 80,000 people to the square kilometre. The lanes were teeming like an ants’ nest and the mood was electric. I asked a random selection of about 15 people where their sympathies lay – with the government (as they called the riot police) or the shabab (youth, as they called the protesters)? With one exception (a man who said he was neutral), everyone said they wanted President Hosni Mubarak to go. This time only handfuls of them did appear to join in, but I judged they were fairly close to the tipping point.
In that post, Wright also warned of the danger posed by the baltagiya, the groups of plain-clothes thugs whom the government often sends in to break up demostrations. he wrote,
- For the first time ever I noticed some of [the baltagiya] trying on new helmets they had just been issued, and a separate group elsewhere even had riot police shields, though still in plain clothes. The government habitually uses these baltagiya to beat up individually targetted protesters. The logic, I assume, is that if anyone publishes photographs of them in action, then the authorities can dismiss the incident as a brawl between civilians.
Not so easy to do, I would imagine, if they’ve all been issued government-issue helmets and riot shields?
Anyway, Jonathan, welcome to the blogosphere!
Update: More Wright, from Tuesday:
- The Muslim Brotherhood, which did not fully endorse the protest but allowed young member to go, was in fact very much in evidence and I saw several Brotherhood members acting as ‘stewards’. When stone-throwing broke out, a group of Muslim Brothers started chanting ‘Silmiya, silmiya” (Keep it peaceful).