From the Arab Street: A Report on the Egyptian Protests from the Ground

This is an extraordinary first-hand account of the events unfolding in Egypt, placed in the broader context of recent Egyptian history, politics and culture. A truly extraordinary perspective that likely you won't find on the coverage by CNN or other such network or cable news outlets.

If you are trying, as many of us are, to sort out events and make sense of the coverage we are witnessing, then read this. Read it all. Major food for thought.

A sampling from the closing paragraphs.

You seem to wonder after all of this where El Baradei and the Egyptian opposition are. CNN's anointed leader of the Egyptian Revolution must be important to the future of Egypt. Hardly! Outside of Western media hype, El Baradei is nothing. A man that has spent less than 30 days in the past year in Egypt and hardly any time in the past 20 years is a nobody. It is entirely insulting to Egyptians to suggest otherwise. The opposition you wonder? Outside of the Muslim Brotherhood we are discussing groups that can each claim less than 5,000 actual members. With no organization, no ideas, and no leaders they are entirely irrelevant to the discussion. It is the apolitical young generation that has suddenly been transformed that is the real question here.


[...]

On the long run the Egyptian question remains the same. Nothing has changed in that regard. It is quite remarkable for people to be talking about the prospect for a democratic transition at this moment. A population that was convinced just two months ago that sharks in the Red Sea were implanted by the Israeli Intelligence Services is hardly at a stage of creating a liberal democracy in Egypt. But the status quo cannot be maintained.

h/t Jay Currie