(Please consider the following as the superficial musings and impressions of an interested observer who openly admits that he does not know Egypt and does not pretend to understand what is happening there - me. The Saker)
Wow! The folks at Tahrir square have been there for two weeks, and yet judging by live shots from al-Jazeera the square is still full of people, and that is at night. I have to say that the people at Tahrir square are showing immense resilience. I cannot recall the last time when anti-government demonstrators showed such standing power.
The other thing amazing me is that there is exactly zero evidence so far that the revolt in Egypt is anything but totally spontaneous. Yeah, I know, some folks (Webster Tarpley) see the hand of the CIA in all that, but the problem with their theories is that they have exactly zero evidence supporting them. They also make little logical sense, IMHO.
Not only that, but 2 weeks after the beginning of the Egyptian revolt, there is absolutely nobody out there capable of truly explaining what is going on, much less so predicting where all this will end. In fact, the most knowledgeable folks openly admit that they have no idea where all this is heading.
The events in Egypt seem to be specially made to illustrate the old proverb that "those who speak don't know, and those who know, don't speak".
In a world in which 99.999% of "spontaneous" events are carefully staged and manufactured it is quite amazing to look the developments in Egypt.
The so-called 'negotiations' between the regime and the opposition are, so far, totally empty window-dressing - on this the entire opposition agrees.
Another thing which I saw on al-Jazeera is that Copts were clearly present on Tahrir square. Unlike other, I am not so surprised. Not only has the MB declared many times that is supports democracy and condemns violence, but this is the country where Muslims surrounded Christians churches as human shields to make it possible for Christians to safely celebrate Christmas according to the Orthodox Church calendar. Add to this the way the Mubarak regime systematically discriminated against Copts in a lame attempt to bolster its "Islamic" credentials and it is no surprise that Copts were standing side by side with Muslims on Tahrir square. Egyptian Christians have excellent reasons to fear the al-Qaeda type and equally good reasons to fear the Mubarak regime, but I see no evidence that they have any reasons to fear the mainstream MB.
