Watching the revolution in Egypt

There has probably no uprising in history that has been better covered by the press than the current crises in Egypt.  Not the American press, of course, which has demonstrated its typically moronic presence.  But the coverage on Aljazeera English has been superb.  This is their story and they seem to know hundreds of the main actors.

Unfortunately, it seems the Egyptian government doesn't like Aljazeera as much as I.

Egypt shuts down al-Jazeera operations

Ian Black, Middle East editor

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 January 2011 11.53 GMT

Egypt today shut down the operations of the Arabic satellite TV channel al-Jazeera, blaming it for encouraging the country's uprising - and demonstrating that the repressive powers of central government are still functioning.

The state-run Mena news agency reported that the information ministry had ordered "suspension of operations of al-Jazeera, cancelling of its licences and withdrawing accreditation to all its staff, as of today".

The Egyptian government has never made a secret of its dislike for the channel, but the final straw may have been an interview it broadcast yesterday with the popular cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who called on the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to leave the country immediately.

Al-Jazeera has faced interference with its communications from Egypt since Friday. The Qatar-based channel immediately denounced the closure, but insisted that it would carry on regardless. "Al-Jazeera sees this as an act designed to stifle and repress the freedom of reporting by the network and its journalists," a statement said. "In this time of deep turmoil and unrest in Egyptian society it is imperative that voices from all sides be heard. The closing of our bureau by the Egyptian government is aimed at censoring and silencing the voices of the Egyptian people." more

Egypt's president Mubarik has been a brutal and very corrupt dictator for over 30 years now.  Not surprisingly, he has inspired much opposition but because of his police-state repression, the opposition is disorganized.  Much is wholly unorganized.

Like as in much of the world, Egypt is young society.  The foot-soldiers of this uprising are mostly kids--brash, angry, frustrated, and astonishingly well informed and conversant with all the latest communications techniques.  We have been told by the Aljazeera reporters that many are protesting lack of jobs and high prices--especially for food.  Outside the fact that the young of almost any country on planet earth could be organizing around these issues, these problems are especially acute in places where there has been a population explosion.

This is important.  It means that while the people of Egypt may be able to overthrow the Mubarik regime, this by itself won't solve the problems of unemployment, high prices, and overpopulation.  Peak oil will not skip Egypt--nor will food shortages, joblessness, and the rest of the dilemmas facing the global economy.

On the other side, the most brutal dictatorships with militarized police forces cannot change the facts on the ground either.  Their world is crumbling because they face a hoard of angry youth with almost nothing to lose--kids who can communicate with each other using techniques that would have astonished most of the military commanders of history.  Interestingly, this reality has not been lost on Zbigniew Brzezinski--the house "smart guy" of the Rockefeller fortune.

Brzezinski’s Feared “Global Awakening” Has Arrived

Monumental worldwide rallying cry for freedom threatens to derail new world order agenda

Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet.com

Friday, January 28, 2011

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s much feared “global political awakening” is in full swing. Revolts in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and other countries represent a truly monumental worldwide rallying cry for freedom that threatens to immeasurably damage the agenda for one world government, but only if the successful revolutionaries can prevent themselves from being co-opted by a paranoid and desperate global elite.

During a Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal last year, co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission and regular Bilderberg attendee Zbigniew Brzezinski warned of a “global political awakening,” mainly comprising of younger people in developing states, that threatened to topple the existing international order.

Reading the full extent of Brzezinski’s words in light of the global revolts that we now see spreading like wildfire across the planet provides an astounding insight into how crucially important the outcome of this phase of modern history will be to the future geopolitical course of the world, and in turn the survival and growth of human freedom in general.

For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination… The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening… That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing… The nearly universal access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches…

The youth of the Third World are particularly restless and resentful. The demographic revolution they embody is thus a political time-bomb, as well… Their potential revolutionary spearhead is likely to emerge from among the scores of millions of students concentrated in the often intellectually dubious “tertiary level” educational institutions of developing countries. Depending on the definition of the tertiary educational level, there are currently worldwide between 80 and 130 million “college” students. Typically originating from the socially insecure lower middle class and inflamed by a sense of social outrage, these millions of students are revolutionaries-in-waiting, already semi-mobilized in large congregations, connected by the Internet and pre-positioned for a replay on a larger scale of what transpired years earlier in Mexico City or in Tiananmen Square. Their physical energy and emotional frustration is just waiting to be triggered by a cause, or a faith, or a hatred…

[The] major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

It is important to stress that Brzezinski was not lauding the onset of this “global political awakening,” he was decrying it. As one of the of the chief architects of the “existing global hierarchy” to which he makes reference, Brzezinski himself is under direct threat, as is the continuing ability of the global elite in general to control world affairs. more