After the revolution is before the revolution

After the revolution is before the revolution — only better.

Egypt, this morning we all woke up to freedom. After a night of the greatest and possibly largest party on Earth, the hangover must be excruciating. But after seventeen days of sitting on streets, marching, chanting, organising and brooding, we deserve this, at the very least.

We can pat ourselves and each other on the back, collectively, and take a short moment to savour this victory of people over government. Take a breather, cure that hangover, meet family and friends, celebrate with them.

This is where things get tricky. The dictator has fallen, the people have gained their freedom, through mainly peaceful demonstration and unity against a crumbling regime. Those that were hurt or killed deserve our respect and condolences. But as death tolls go, this revolution can be called nearly bloodless. Maybe this is a template the world can adopt for popular uprisings? Or maybe this combination of patriotism and national friendship in hardship is particular to
the Egyptian people?

Time will tell.

We can get in with our lives. To a point. For now that one great big chunk of demands has been seen to, we get back to the original reason for this uprising: two weeks of revolution are great, but except for a great big party and those intelligent enough to create buisinesses on Tahrir, the gains from the downfall of the regime are minor, if not negative, beyond the satisfaction of success.

For now begins the process of building a new country. The system has fallen, the army has taken over, hopefully for the good of the people. But where does it go from here?

Comments

IGAF: Utopia- Les Jours Meilleurs

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this post, titled Dystopia , containing a dark version of the future, a look at the negative outcomes that might crawl out of the COVID-19 crisis. It has, by now been described as "9/11 in slow motion". Someone else broke a golden editorial rule to describe it as "2008 on crack". Media outlets, including Youtube, have warned of the long-term effects of this, on civil rights, labour and employment, surveillance and press freedom. And some, most notably Mr Orban of Hungary, have used this excellent opportunity to pass new, restrictive legislation that concentrates power in their hands. There have been calls for the elusive COVID cure not to be patented. And yet… And yet… It's easy to lose yourself in a media bubble, following the news and media 24/7, following, queuing in line to get into expensive shops, just walking into discount stores and the constant desire for many drinks (preferably with 10 friends or more, in a park

In Taheyya we Trust - How an Egyptian bellydancer found her posthumous stage in Berlin

“You should have winked at her,” Aida said dismissively, as if such a possibility had been imaginable for someone as timid as I was. Tahia Carioca was the most stunning and long-lived of the Arab world’s Eastern dancers (belly-dancers, as they are called today). Edward Said, Farewell to Taheyya My story with Taheyya begins in the summer of 2016, at Bulbuls Café in Görlitzer Str. in Berlin. It ends two blocks down on Wiener Str 17. Bulbuls is a café and art space around my corner that I have grown to like to sit in and drink smoothies (1). He had commissiond us- a crew of Syrian and Egyptian artists, as well as myself, to paint the walls inside the café. El Tenneen (the Dragon) is the one who ended up drawing Sheikh Imam, with the help of Salam Alhassan (known as Salahef/ Turtles) and Sulafa Hijazis (whom we call El Hayya/The Snake’s) beamers’ illumination. The Sheikh sits happily in the place to this day and Crew El-Zoo was born. Tenneen had the adv

Random Browsing gets me a new face.

Two o'clock in the morning is generally a good time to randomly surf the web and the blogs. This lovely lady, known to me only as Wow Legs, points the blogophere in general to this brilliant Manga face creator . Akin to the Simpsonize me Viral effort, this allows you to create a mangaesque face for yourself, using prefab elements that actually work. Hours of fun to be had here. I think this might be how some tv cartoons are made, right down to the script, except that they don't possess the power of a handsome jawline. Just to clarify: This is Wow Legs manga avatar. Generally, I try not to mangafy people I haven't seen in real life. The picture above is something I threw together as a test. UPDATE: I don't know what happened here, but my clarification seems to have caused more damage than good. As my editorial standards prevent me from knowingly misinforming you, I posted the clarification (above) to do exactly that and not mislead the reader. I also wanted to preserve

Caramblogage

Search This Blog