We are starting to see reporting on the behind-the-scenes maneuvers in Egypt during the run-up to Mubarak's exit. Here's a good article by the news staff of the Wall Street Journal on how the Egyptian opposition to the Mubarak regime managed to spark what is being called the "January 25" revolution (h/t Sam Seder):
On Jan. 25, the first day of protests, the organizers from the youth wings of Egypt's opposition movements created what appeared to be a spontaneous massing of residents of the slum of Bulaq al-Dakrour, on Cairo's western edge. These demonstrators weren't, as the popular narrative has held, educated youth who learned about protests on the Internet. They were instead poor residents who filled a maze of muddy, narrow alleyways, massed in front of a neighborhood candy store and caught security forces flatfooted.According to the article, a group of protesters, including Ziad al-Alimi, "a leading youth organizer for Mr. ElBaradei's campaign group", met daily for two weeks planning the protest that would eventually reach, and occupy, Tahrir Square.
That protest was anything but spontaneous. ... After his release from detention Sunday, Google Inc. executive Wael Ghonim recounted his meeting with Egypt's newly appointed interior minister. "No one understood how you did it," Mr. Ghonim said the minister told him. He said his interrogators concluded that outside forces had to have been involved. ... The plotters, who now form the leadership core of the Revolutionary Youth Movement, which has stepped to the fore as representatives of protesters in Tahrir Square, in interviews over recent days revealed how they did it.
In early January, this core of planners decided they would try to replicate the accomplishments of the protesters in Tunisia who ultimately ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Their immediate concern was how to foil the Ministry of Interior, whose legions of riot police had contained and quashed protests for years. The police were expert at preventing demonstrations from growing or moving through the streets, and at keeping ordinary Egyptians away.
"We had to find a way to prevent security from making their cordon and stopping us," said 41-year-old architect Basem Kamel, a member of Mohamed ElBaradei's youth wing and one of the dozen or so plotters.
Let's just say that subterfuge was involved. Twenty January 25 protests were announced via the Internet, but twenty-one were planned. The announced 20 were prevented from reaching Tahrir Square by riot police. The secret 21st protest succeeded:
The Bulaq al-Dakrour marchers, the only group to reach their objective, occupied Tahrir Square for several hours until after midnight, when police attacked demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets. ... On Jan. 28, they seized Tahrir Square again. They have stayed there since.By the way, January 25 was chosen because it is a national holiday celebrating ... the Egyptian police.
Days earlier, the Arabic administrator of the Facebook page commemorating Khaled Said, who was killed by police in Alexandria, asked his members what should Egyptians give to the police on their special day. The answer was universally, "Tunisia!"
Gift delivered.
GP
