Excellent post. Just remember that civil resistance is a (nonviolent) weapon that can be used against all power-holders, including an interim military junta. So long as the Egyptian democratic coalition retains the capacity to mobilize people for selective and widespread nonviolent disruption, particularly through strikes, it can insure its influence on the terms of transition. The same demand and drive for people's rights that was seen in Tahrir can be seen, again and again.
Don't overreact: The former ambassador's remark was his own, he doesn't have any continuing position in the administration, and it's been walked back. Obama wants Mubarak out now. This isn't a revolution, and it won't be upended in a day. Re-read Juan's list of accomplishments. That demonstrates the movement's power. Ups and downs lie ahead. The key is whether the existing new political space that's been created can be expanded, so that fair elections can be held. It's about the conditions and terms that are agreed upon for those elections. What happened in Poland and South Africa can happen in Egypt: a nonviolent transition to democracy.
There's an 11th, and I would argue, more important accomplishment of this muscular, spirited movement (which is what it is now): Creating new, defensible civic space in Egypt, in which the people can direct speech and take action that directs clear messages at all other Egyptians, at the regime, and at the international community. The dissidence and opposition that had been for years behind closed doors or on the internet is now out of the closet and in full public view. That space should now be expanded through the use of the full panoply of nonviolent tactics directed at residual supporters and institutions that undergird the regime, through boycotts, strikes, teach-ins, concerts -- and the demands must extend beyond Mubarak's resignation (now virtually a certainty within weeks if not days), and focus first on the release of all political prisoners from Egypt's jails, full freedom of the press (broadcast as well as print), and totally unlimited freedom of speech. The movement should use its existing space to demand the vast expansion of free political space -- and if it does so, the Obama Administration will have no choice except to support that demand, since that is what Obama himself has called for. And within that space, the movement can decisively influence the coming transition that will set the terms for presidential and parliamentary elections. This is not a revolution. It's real democratization by the people themselves.
"...they either win now or die trying." There is nothing in the history of civil resistance which supports this statement, and indeed the opposite has been demontrated in many successful nonviolent movements: Occupying a single central square is dramatic, and may either initiate or culminate a major civil struggle, but it is not sustainable for more than about two weeks because the people in the square except for students have to go back to their jobs and families at some point. The most important thing that this movement has to do now is to diversify its tactics and put pressure on vulnerable institutions and other supporters of this regime (other than the army), through boycotts, targeted strikes, flash demonstrations and actions that are geared to releasing all political prisoners and guaranteeing free speech rights. There is going to be a transition process, and this movement has to become more than a single demonstration order to fight nonviolently across a much broader front to be the decisive influence on that transition. No revolution happens in two or three weeks.
Excellent post. Just remember that civil resistance is a (nonviolent) weapon that can be used against all power-holders, including an interim military junta. So long as the Egyptian democratic coalition retains the capacity to mobilize people for selective and widespread nonviolent disruption, particularly through strikes, it can insure its influence on the terms of transition. The same demand and drive for people's rights that was seen in Tahrir can be seen, again and again.
Don't overreact: The former ambassador's remark was his own, he doesn't have any continuing position in the administration, and it's been walked back. Obama wants Mubarak out now. This isn't a revolution, and it won't be upended in a day. Re-read Juan's list of accomplishments. That demonstrates the movement's power. Ups and downs lie ahead. The key is whether the existing new political space that's been created can be expanded, so that fair elections can be held. It's about the conditions and terms that are agreed upon for those elections. What happened in Poland and South Africa can happen in Egypt: a nonviolent transition to democracy.
There's an 11th, and I would argue, more important accomplishment of this muscular, spirited movement (which is what it is now): Creating new, defensible civic space in Egypt, in which the people can direct speech and take action that directs clear messages at all other Egyptians, at the regime, and at the international community. The dissidence and opposition that had been for years behind closed doors or on the internet is now out of the closet and in full public view. That space should now be expanded through the use of the full panoply of nonviolent tactics directed at residual supporters and institutions that undergird the regime, through boycotts, strikes, teach-ins, concerts -- and the demands must extend beyond Mubarak's resignation (now virtually a certainty within weeks if not days), and focus first on the release of all political prisoners from Egypt's jails, full freedom of the press (broadcast as well as print), and totally unlimited freedom of speech. The movement should use its existing space to demand the vast expansion of free political space -- and if it does so, the Obama Administration will have no choice except to support that demand, since that is what Obama himself has called for. And within that space, the movement can decisively influence the coming transition that will set the terms for presidential and parliamentary elections. This is not a revolution. It's real democratization by the people themselves.
"...they either win now or die trying." There is nothing in the history of civil resistance which supports this statement, and indeed the opposite has been demontrated in many successful nonviolent movements: Occupying a single central square is dramatic, and may either initiate or culminate a major civil struggle, but it is not sustainable for more than about two weeks because the people in the square except for students have to go back to their jobs and families at some point. The most important thing that this movement has to do now is to diversify its tactics and put pressure on vulnerable institutions and other supporters of this regime (other than the army), through boycotts, targeted strikes, flash demonstrations and actions that are geared to releasing all political prisoners and guaranteeing free speech rights. There is going to be a transition process, and this movement has to become more than a single demonstration order to fight nonviolently across a much broader front to be the decisive influence on that transition. No revolution happens in two or three weeks.