The Egyptian revolution has been plastic-wrapped as victorious and peaceful – but there have been disturbing developments
A VERY GOOD COMMENT
Jack Shenker
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 March 2011
".....But Ragy's torture was carried out after Mubarak's departure, a stone's throw from the square where Egyptians came together to reimagine something different and dream up a new society. His torturers were the footsoldiers of those tasked with overseeing the country's "transition" to democracy; they took the chants of the revolution and twisted them into words of abuse, leaving lattice-webs of bloody welts on Egyptian backsides before holding 10-minute kangaroo court hearings in secret to find their captives guilty.
As the international media shifted its attention to Libya, Egypt's ongoing revolution faded into the background and found itself incorporated into fresh, unthreatening narratives deployed by western politicians to enable them to talk admiringly of "people struggling for universal rights" while giving a green light for those same universal rights to be scythed down in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.....
Decapitating the regime was merely the first step, but as long as Egyptians' fantasies for the future go beyond the narrow, claustrophobic delineations of formal politics and encompass far-reaching social and economic changes as well, then that energy and ability to mobilise will resist the permanently lapping waves of counter-revolution, however much the tide ebbs and flows.
A revolution isn't an insta-event, it's a permanent struggle to unleash the creativity of people's minds and translate that into a new reality. As the arguments over this weekend's referendum show, that struggle is alive and well in Egypt and will continue to be so – whether the world is watching or not."
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