The first round of voting in Egypt’s three-stage elections indicates that the new parliament will be dominated by Islamist parties. The areas that voted this week were more liberal than Egypt as a whole, and yet the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have upwards of 40% of the seats, or about what they were expected [...]
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My weekend was dominated by pre-Thanksgiving binge grading, and so I’m only now getting my mind around the details of the tumult taking place, not just in Cairo, but Alexandria, the Suez Canal cities, and elsewhere around Egypt. The direct chain of events leading to the current clashes came when Deputy Prime Minister Ali [...] Today, Egypt’s military government killed at least 19 Coptic demonstrators in Cairo: “Nineteen people were killed in Cairo Sunday when Christians, some carrying crosses and pictures of Jesus, clashed with military police, medical and security sources said, in the latest sectarian flare-up in a country in political turmoil. “Christians protesting against an attack on [...] Undemocratic regimes don’t consist of just one powerful person. They exist with the support of certain elements in society that profit from their continuation. Because of this revolutions aren’t just protests which depose rulers, but broader social movements by which different social groups try to improve their position, whether economically, politically, or even culturally. [...] As I’ve commented before, Yusuf al-Qaradawi matters, as a conservative Sunni Islamist who appeals to massive youth audiences through television even as the older generations remember his connection to Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. On Friday, he gave a sermon in Midan Tahrir. I can’t find a complete English text, but here is some [...] With the fall of long-time Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, many fear that Egypt will evolve into a theocracy under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood. In that light, this statement is significant: “Preserving the people’s freedom is more important than setting up a system of Sharia (Islamic law), even though freedom remains part and [...] What happened today in Egypt is a landmark, not only in Egyptian history, but that of the entire Arab world. Its relative wealth and high level of human development mean that Tunisia could be dismissed as an outlier. Its lesson, however, that the power of determined activists can undermine repressive regimes and even oust [...] |
Blake Hounshell (aka praktike), our co-founder and main man, is managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He's now reporting on the Egyptian Revolution from Cairo. 
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