Sunday, February 5, 2012

Can civil disobedience succeed in Egypt?

Joseph Mayton 5 February 2012
Bikya Masr

"CAIRO: Rocks and Molotov cocktails are not working in Egypt. The military and its police force respond with tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition against protesters. Now, Egyptians are calling for a massive civil disobedience movement to begin on February 11, the one-year anniversary of President Hosni Mubarak’s departure. The question is can it be successful?

It is certainly the right move. Right action. Right time. The concern has to be whether it will have the numbers necessary, and the discipline to make an impact. With all the deaths and violence meted out at the protesters in downtown Cairo over the past few days, in December, November and October, moving to an in-your-face protest movement that employs civil disobedience is a good start.

Historically, mass civil movements of this kind have been successful in creating the change desired by protesters.

Two successful protest movements can be a good starting point for the anti-military movement in Egypt to choose a different path.....



If it fails to achieve any amount of success, however, it will show the cracks in the protesters’ organization and the supremacy of the military junta in maintaining their stranglehold on power and media. Once again Egypt is at a turning point in its struggle to fulfill its revolutionary goals, but the military and its commanders stand in the way, just as Mubarak and his cronies did one year ago."

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