Odds and Ends on Egypt

-The strategy of the Mubarak regime is now clear: "they are betting on the exhaustion of the movement."

On the contrary, as one protester remarked, "the more delayed or the more late his [Mubarak's] decision to go away is, the more creative, more beautiful is the revolution. So, I want him to give us some more time to do or to make a more beautiful revolution, a more historical revolution, a more creative one, a more distinguished one."

This is indeed precisely what is happening right now, with waves of strikes sweeping the country and new groups of protesters joining the fray.

But the government is also using other methods to try to stifle the momentum of the protests, resorting to tactics of outright intimidation and torture that will only amplify its desperation and illegitimacy.

-Slavoj Zizek has weighed in again, and cuts right to the chase:

"When President Obama welcomed the uprising as a legitimate expression of opinion that needs to be acknowledged by the government, the confusion was total: the crowds in Cairo and Alexandria did not want their demands to be acknowledged by the government, they denied the very legitimacy of the government. They didn't want the Mubarak regime as a partner in a dialogue, they wanted Mubarak to go. They didn't simply want a new government that would listen to their opinion, they wanted to reshape the entire state. They don't have an opinion, they are the truth of the situation in Egypt. Mubarak understands this much better than Obama: there is no room for compromise here, as there was none when the Communist regimes were challenged in the late 1980s. Either the entire Mubarak power edifice falls down, or the uprising is co-opted and betrayed."

And again:

"One of the cruellest ironies of the current situation is the west's concern that the transition should proceed in a "lawful" way – as if Egypt had the rule of law until now. Are we already forgetting that, for many long years, Egypt was in a permanent state of emergency? Mubarak suspended the rule of law, keeping the entire country in a state of political immobility, stifling genuine political life. It makes sense that so many people on the streets of Cairo claim that they now feel alive for the first time in their lives. Whatever happens next, what is crucial is that this sense of "feeling alive" is not buried by cynical realpolitik."

-Finally, there will be another solidarity rally today (February 11) in San Diego in front of the Federal Building. I encourage any San Diegan who feels at all concerned with what Zizek calls "the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity" to be there.