There's a lot of excitement here around the Egyptian Revolution. As someone who has spent the majority of her adult (post-college) life either living in or working on the Middle East, it's a shocking honor to be here for the great democratic revolution. This is nothing more and no less than than a call for accountability from people who have spent years under leaders who act as if they rule empty lands. It also is how democracy happens, the mess and frenzy and fervor of it all. I never understood the idea of 'bringing democracy', a la Bush, to a country-- isn't the whole point that it's from the people, an organic, bottom-up movement? Yeah, it's sort of scary to watch what's going down in Egypt, but it's mostly scary because of the last gasps of the regime, these pro-Mubarak thugs being bussed in to rough people up. I bet if we saw somehow saw coverage of the US revolution on CNN.com we'd be flipping out!
We'll see how this all pans out in terms of Palestine-- the murmurs in reaction to Prime Minister Fayyad's statement that the PA would hold elections were cynical. People explained to me that he has to say that to stay ahead of the streets, but in reality the authorities have a very tight grip on the West Bank right now. In fact, the loud whine of repeated sirens just echoed through my (freezing, freezing, freezing) apartment as police went to break up the protest in Manara. There's been some shootings and Molotov cocktails at the checkpoints, though...nothing unusual, actually, but perhaps a bit more than typical as the Egyptian currents echo through the region.
This was sort of a serious post, I actually was mid-draft of another one that was about pub quiz, but watching Al-Jazeera and seeing what's happening called for a brief stop in the irreverence.
That being said, if I don't get my damn bag tomorrow I will be staging my own protest at Ben Gurion airport. A girl needs her face cream!!!
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