What is the Power of Unity and Nonviolent Resistance?

[Ivan Seeking]

Either we accept that a democracy is a better thing than a dictatorship, no matter how pretty or unsavory the results turn out, or we stop all the BS about spreading freedom and democracy around the world.

No doubt. Either you believe in freedom and democracy, or you don't.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If the country allowed guns, I'll bet this would have failed and maybe 20,000-50,000 civilians dead and wounded. The reason it worked is because they don't have guns, so a massacre didn't occur. If the civilians had guns, they would have fired on the military and they military would have had to fire back.

Guns are a lose/lose scenario.

This proves that no guns is the best way.

Please don't derail this into a gun thread, which you will then lock

 

[Evo]

Please don't derail this into a gun thread, which you will then lock

Just making my point with a real life scenario.

 

[JaredJames]

Just making my point with a real life scenario.

A damn good point.

The mere presence would mean security forces are going to be more on edge.

One shot, accidental or otherwise could spark a massacre.

Personally, I think the best way to protest is as peacefully as possible. That way it's difficult to justify any action taken against you.

Just because they have firearms and you don't, I'd say gives you an advantage. For them to fire on an unarmed crowd - for something insignificant - would mean devastating press the world over.

Think Ghandi and his peaceful protests. The British attacked and they looked like right pr*cks - eventually losing. (There's another example for you evo.)

 

[Proton Soup]

Just making my point with a real life scenario.

no, he makes a point. it has been a pattern.

 

[rootX]

It would seem that MB was either unwilling, or in my view far more likely, unable to compel his troops to fire on the crowds while the demonstrations remained peaceful. The bond between the Egyptian military, and the people, is a strong one. This is why MB kept trying to provoke the crowds into violence. Last night when he failed to resign after leaking information that he would, he took his last shot. He probably hoped to anger the crowds to the point of attacking the palace, at which time it would have been a massacre, but the protesters stood firm in their dedication to a peaceful protest.

It is clear that such relatively bloodless revolutions [relatively bloodless so far, and with all due respect to those Egyptians who did give their lives] are rare in history. As of today, this may be the most bloodless revolution in history. While it would be wonderful to think that the world is so changed by the age of information that all future revolutions will be similarly bloodless, as we saw in Iran recently, that assumption would be incredibly naive. Remember also Tiananmen Square.

As Paul Wolfowitz said tonight on Piers Morgan’s show: “If a regime is sufficiently brutal, this sort of People’s power isn’t possible.”

Then this might not be a revolution. People decided to blame government for their problems (like in any other country) and it just happened that the president decided to step down and passed authority to someone similar. I think Egypt received bit high media attention.

 

[lisab]

A damn good point.

The mere presence would mean security forces are going to be more on edge.

One shot, accidental or otherwise could spark a massacre.

Personally, I think the best way to protest is as peacefully as possible. That way it's difficult to justify any action taken against you.

Just because they have firearms and you don't, I'd say gives you an advantage. For them to fire on an unarmed crowd - for something insignificant - would mean devastating press the world over.

Think Ghandi and his peaceful protests. The British attacked and they looked like right pr*cks - eventually losing. (There's another example for you evo.)

Ghandi's tactics worked because the Brits are basically decent, IMO.

 

[JaredJames]

Ghandi's tactics worked because the Brits are basically decent, IMO.

Didn't stop us beating seven shades of sh*t out of them at first though!

 

[Evo]

no, he makes a point. it has been a pattern.

Only when guns were widely used.

My point is proven, when guns aren't used, things can be accomplished without violence and large tolls of dead and wounded.

A peaceful revolution can only be accomplished in a society that has no guns, such as Egypt.

 

[Proton Soup]

Only when guns were widely used.

My point is proven, when guns aren't used, things can be accomplished without violence and large tolls of dead and wounded.

A peaceful revolution can only be accomplished in a society that has no guns, such as Egypt.

there were plenty of guns. the army kept things from getting out of hand.

your point is unproven.


p.s. - anyone know what this means?:

You have selected 1 post that is not part of this thread. Quote this post as well, or deselect this post.

 

[JaredJames]

there were plenty of guns. the army kept things from getting out of hand.

your point is unproven.

Guns are illegal in Egypt. Carrying them would have meant you'd get arrested - especially during such a heightened time. Someone earlier mentioned the president was looking for any reason to get the military to fight back, well this would have been perfect.

 

[Evo]

there were plenty of guns. the army kept things from getting out of hand.

I haven't heard of civilians carrying large numbers of guns, can you post the article? Gun ownership is somewhat rare in Egypt.

Non-violent revolutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-violent_revolution#List_of_nonviolent_revolutions_by_era

 

[Proton Soup]

I haven't heard of civilians carrying large numbers of guns, can you post the article?

Non-violent revolutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-violent_revolution#List_of_nonviolent_revolutions_by_era

they had an armed guard that protected them from being mowed down by Mubarak.

 

[Evo]

they had an armed guard that protected them from being mowed down by Mubarak.

So, like I said, the populace wasn't armed, which prevented mass killings and allowed a peaceful movement to depose their president.

 

[mathwonk]

Evo, have you seen the movie Gandhi, or read the history of the Indian independence movement? The British massacred peaceful Indians in at least one infamous instance. I agree they seem very decent now, at least compared to the US and many others, but history is long and they were not always so. The "tower" was not a vacation spot, and the American revolution had some provocation. It is overly simplistic to attribute the success of Gandhi's movement to the gentleness of the British army. Even the famous Winston Churchill was not a great fan of the near saint Gandhi.

Google Amritsar, or Jallianwala Bagh, or look here:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/om_sweet_om/india-2003/1064852340/india-2003_322.jpg/tpod.html

 

[Proton Soup]

So, like I said, the populace wasn't armed, which prevented mass killings and allowed a peaceful movement to depose their president.

only because they were fortunate to have the army on their side and not against them. if, on the other hand, they decide for some reason that they wish to assume power for themselves (which i think you were worried about just recently), then any attempt to reassert themselves might not turn out so well.

do you really think civilians killing with guns even holds a candle to governments killing with guns?

 

[Evo]

only because they were fortunate to have the army on their side and not against them.

The Egyptian army wouldn't fire on an unarmed populace, that's the difference between Egypt where the army feels they are part of the civilian populace and the US. If the Army had been fired on, that would have forced the Army to retaliate.

do you really think civilians killing with guns even holds a candle to governments killing with guns?

In a crowded square, armed civilians attacking an armed military, probably casualties of 20,000 to 50,000, easily. And most likely the people would have not been able to unseat Mubarek. If it had become a massacre by an armed populace, all hell would have broken out, IMO.

 

[Proton Soup]

The Egyptian army wouldn't fire on an unarmed populace, that's the difference between Egypt where the army feels they are part of the civilian populace and the US.

not a comforting thought.

 

[TheodoreLogan]

Maybe we should pool our money together and hand out a whole bunch of copies of 'Braveheart'. That ending really gets me going...
"FFFRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMmmmmmm..." All he had to do was kiss the ring...but he wouldn't do it...

 

[JaredJames]

Maybe we should pool our money together and hand out a whole bunch of copies of 'Braveheart'. That ending really gets me going...
"FFFRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMmmmmmm..." All he had to do was kiss the ring...but he wouldn't do it...

If I remember correctly, didn't that film end with an two armies fighting to the death?

Yes, that's exactly what we want here...

 

[Proton Soup]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8

 

[Char. Limit]

You people are talking about guns too much. Let's look forward to what will hopefully be a bright future in Egyptian democracy!

 

[arildno]

Pakistan, until a couple years ago, was under a military dictatorship for about a decade. And another one before that in the 80s, and still another one back in the 60s. It's not clear to me how you see Pakistan as an Ochlocracy. There have probably been about as many Presidents that came to power via military coups as there weren't.

And Bangladeshi politics is an strange beast (I wouldn't call it typical of most anything really): how many people would imagine that the country that you say is characterized by harsh repression of women has been politically dominated by two parties, both of which are led by women? Bangladesh hasn't had a male head of state since the new Constitution was implemented twenty years ago. That's hardly typical of any state with a dominant (90%) Muslim population.

Irrelevant.
NOW they have elections, and those are followed.
Thus, all there is to be said about "democracy" has been said, right?
We could also add wonderful Indonesia, which is also one of these new-fangled "democracies", with a merely regrettably upsurge in sectarian violence against religious minorities (last week, to the frenzied screams of "Allahu Akbar", three Ahmadis were brutally murdered..).
Not to mention the hopeless position of post-Saddam Assyrian Christians..

We have no reason to expect anything different to evolve in Egypt, if given "democracy".

 

[Char. Limit]

We have a whole thread for the politics of Egypt. Can't we leave the politics out of this one?

 

[turbo]

We have a whole thread for the politics of Egypt. Can't we leave the politics out of this one?

Thank you.

 

[BobG]

The Egyptian army wouldn't fire on an unarmed populace, that's the difference between Egypt where the army feels they are part of the civilian populace and the US.

That might be more of a similarity than a difference.

Yes, I can think of one exception - Kent State. But that is a bit ironic in itself. That was a young National Guard unit during a time that the National Guard tended to be a way to legally avoid being sent to Viet Nam. I think many of the members of that unit had a lot in common with the demonstrators, but were in a stressful situation that they weren't adequately trained for.

I don't think most in the US military would be very motivated about firing on American demonstrators.

 

[OmCheeto]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8

Don't know if this is really the translation of the song or not:

http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2011/02/sout-al-horeya-sound-of-freedom-in.html"

I went down and I said I am not coming back, and I wrote on every street wall that I am not coming back.

All barriers have been broken down, our weapon was our dream, and the future is crystal clear to us, we have been waiting for a long time, we are still searching for our place, we keep searching for a place we belong too, in every corner in our country.

The sound of freedom is calling, in every street corner in our country, the sound of freedom is calling..

We will re-write history, if you are one of us, join us and don't stop us from fulfilling our dream.

But if we are all Egyptians today, it sounds like we've been given an invitation.

Road Trip!



On a peculiar side note, I was trying to translate "I am an Egyptian" into Arabic with an online translator and came up with "Da na al Misri". So I looked up misri in google and the first link was about jelly doughnuts. Coincidence? or Colbert nation hack job?

 

[lisab]

Don't know if this is really the translation of the song or not:


But if we are all Egyptians today, it sounds like we've been given an invitation.

Road Trip!



On a peculiar side note, I was trying to translate "I am an Egyptian" into Arabic with an online translator and came up with "Da na al Misri". So I looked up misri in google and the first link was about jelly doughnuts. Coincidence? or Colbert nation hack job?

Lol...! I'm a jelly doughnut too!

 

[mathwonk]

The thing that interests me is what the army will do now. Their behavior seems to me entirely consistent with what an intelligent group of people would do here to completely quell this protest peacefully. I.e. that would first be to remove Mubarak, and then to let the people celebrate peacefully, until they are tired enough to go home. At that point, it is not clear to me that they have any strong pressure upon them to implement elections. If they chose to remain in power, they could perhaps disable any such future protests by removing internet access. So the next step is to see whether the celebration remains peaceful, without looting, and then whether most of the people go home. For now it seems it is still time to celebrate the dream.

 

[mathwonk]

Bob G., I hope you are right, but I lived through those days, and saw how easily armed forces, perhaps poorly trained guardsmen as you say, were led to believe the demonstrators were dangerous radicals that would attack them if they did not attack first. I looked into their eyes and saw fear of the demonstrators, when they were the ones holding the guns. People like Nixon, or Rush Limbaugh can stir up a lot of ill informed hatred. I was not shot but was beaten and sent to the hospital by plain clothes police, while participating in a peaceful demonstration in Boston. As in Cairo, there were really three groups, peaceful demonstrators, responsible uniformed armed men, and vicious non uniformed attack squads. It is possible that in Cairo the military leaders decided not to allow the attack squads free rein, but they may have killed several hundred people first.

Actually in the US there were two more tiny groups: a very small number of nutty and maybe potentially violent radicals who were favorites of the media photographers, and an unknown (but positive) number of government paid spies and stooges who pretended to be sympathetic to the demonstrators but who continually urged violence hoping to create a pretext for police retaliation.

My question is: what will motivate the army in Egypt to hold free elections, considering how much harder that seems to be than just to rule by force, after the people go home?

 

[AlephZero]

My question is: what will motivate the army in Egypt to hold free elections, considering how much harder that seems to be than just to rule by force, after the people go home?

The BBC News security correspondent Frank Gardner made the comment on Friday that the top military ranks realized the game was over once the middle ranking officers were siding with the people rather than their commanders. Hence, possibly, a nudge in the direction of Mubarak's unexpected U-turn.

Something that might look rather like a military coup is one thing, but an army in open mutiny on the streets would have been something else altogether.

The Egyptian army consists mainly of conscripts, not volunteers. Even the most oxymoronic "military intelligence" could probably figure out that ordering conscripts to shoot their own parents might not be the smartest way to end a protest.

The worms are out of the can now. The only way to re-can them would be to use a much bigger and stronger can than the previous one. I doubt that exists, or that anybody (except possibly an invasion by Iran to re-educate the Egyptian people in proper Islamic attitudes, or something similar) would be dumb enough to try it, at least in a time scale of a few years.

 

[mathwonk]

I hope you are right aleph zero. it just seems to me that holding elections, even if the military is well intentioned, takes a long time. in that time, things can be misdirected so that the elections do not actually turn out quite fair.

then there is the problem in russia now. We had a similar euphoric moment with Yeltsin, but the economy did not rebound soon enough, and eventually Putin got back in as a strongman. people talk about wanting freedom, but most people would rather have bread, and many long for "law and order" even if it is repressive.

In the Phillipines also we had a wonderful, peaceful overthrow of Marcos, but the subsequent governments are said to have had trouble establishing a good economy.

indeed an analogous thing may be happening in the US. Obama was hailed as a hero by many people after 8 years of W, but he is having trouble wresting the profits of the economic turnaround out of the hands of wall street and into the hands of workers. Thus in the Fall the voters put a lot of power back into the hands of the people who support wall street.

Fortunately our democracy seems solid enough to withstand years of political mismanagement and even fraud by our leaders. The difference between the profiteering by Halliburton and that by the Mubarak family through government connections, may be that we are so rich here that there was still a lot to go around for others. But it did catch up to us.

We are justly proud of our democratic history, and definitely should be. Still I wonder if our success did not have a lot also to do with the almost endless opportunity in a "new" country with huge untapped resources, and chances for general wealth. I wonder how we will do as things get tighter in the future. We are already squabbling over whether to pay the debts we owe the older generation in social security bills coming due. This year, as the soc sec fund is argued to be in trouble, we reduced the share of soc sec taxes paid by wage earners, including very wealthy ones, from 6% to 4%, while raising shared medical costs to seniors..

 

[Proton Soup]

Lol...! I'm a jelly doughnut too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner"

 

[lisab]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner"

Yup

 

[Evo]

Yeah, I'd say I'm a jelly doughnut before I'd pretend to know what Egyptians are experiencing.