Protest Against Egypt's Dictator in San Francisco

(2/5/11) Greg Lyons converted to Buddhism several years ago. He is in downtown San Francisco on a spring-like day to take part in the demonstration against Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. “Our intentions are important,” he says. “They are the seeds of reality.” He is optimistic that people power will prevail in Egypt after decades of dictatorship. “But change must come from within. If America tries to bring about the change that Egyptians are dying for, it will be a disaster. They must do it themselves.”

One reason why grassroots revolution is sweeping the Arab world is the enormous income gap between the rich and the poor. “Do you think that kind of class struggle can happen here in the U.S.?” I ask Greg.

“What do you mean can it happen here?” he asks back. “It’s already happening! Just look around you, a few blocks from here, and you can see how many Americans have become destitute. We have become one of the most unjust societies in the world.”

We chant slogans - 1,000 Americans strong - who have gathered at the United Nations Plaza. “Down, Down, Hosni Mubarak! Yasqut, Yasqut, Hosni Mubarak!”

Jack Kornfield also feels strongly that Egyptians must take control of their own destiny. The soft-spoken person becomes agitated when he talks about how the U.S. may undermine the aspirations of Egyptians. “U.S. has got to stay out. I am confident Egypt will find its own way. People on the streets of Cairo and other cities are smarter than the people in Washington.”

Hassan, an Egyptian, is a doctoral student in a California University. He is grateful to Tunisians for showing the way but believes that since Egypt is a bigger and more “critical country,” the revolution must succeed in his homeland for other Arab countries to emulate. He wants the new government to stop selling Egyptian land to foreign investors, as Mubarak’s government has been doing. “The king and his corrupt cronies fatten their pockets while the poor become poorer!”

“No justice, no peace,” exhorts an organizer from the makeshift dais, and we respond in unison.

Farida, a young Egyptian student, narrates how she tried to get her voter card in Cairo last November to vote in the parliamentary elections but was harassed and intimidated at every step of the way. An officer at the police station asked her, “Who are you going to vote for?” Emboldened by a friend who threatened to bring a lawyer, the officer quickly changed his tune and gave her the voting card. But many of her friends got the runaround for weeks until they gave up in frustration. (The election was, as usual, completely rigged by Mubarak and his minions.) These young people have never known anyone other than Mubarak as their ruler. They felt defeated, until they saw what happened in Tunisia. Everyone cheered when Farida said January 25 would be the most important day in the history of modern Egypt.

Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, women, men, babies in strollers and veterans in wheelchairs, the young, the old, Imams, Rabbis and Priests filled the Plaza. Colorful signs sprouted everywhere: “Stop U.S. Military Aid to Egypt,” “Buddhist, Jews in solidarity with the Muslim and Christian People of Egypt,” “Mubarak in De-Nile, Get Out!,” “Ali Baba is Gone. What about the Forty Thieves?” “DeNile Ain’t Just a River in Egypt,” “Dying for Something is Better than Living for Nothing,” and many more.

Maryam Bin Salah, a doctoral student from Tunisia asks in wonder: “Just two months ago, could you have dared to dream that two dictators would fall? Why are we ruled by trash in Arab countries? All our thinkers and scholars and engineers are either in exile or in prison. Why? Why are we treated so badly? We must rid our countries of dictators so our inventors and our best minds can return and rebuild our nations.”

Imam Abdul Aziz of Sacramento, an Egyptian, asks us to put pressure on the White House to make the right decision. “Just think,” he said, “the revolution is raging for the 12^th straight day. There is uncertainty, sure, but what is certain is that the brave people of Tunisia and Egypt have already prevailed. All supporters of democracy have prevailed. Even after Mubarak is forced to resign, people will remain in the streets until true democracy rules. We have a chance to become a developed country rather than remain frozen as a third world country.”

The Imam chokes with emotion but recovers: “I have a cousin, a young fellow, in Tahrir Square right now. He has never had an aim in life, frittering away his time in frivolous pursuits. I just spoke to him. He told me, ‘I will die for my country until we have democracy and rule of law.’ The revolution is changing hearts. Some are already swayed by the crocodile tears of Mubarak. ‘Give him a chance,’ they say. ‘The economy will be destroyed. Old people are not getting their pension. The sick are not getting their medicine.’ All I can say to them is: Shut up! We have been in prison for 30 years. The thugs have stolen $70 billion of our money that are now in the banks in Switzerland and France and England. Egyptians will stay on the streets until their demands are met!”

Tim Paulson, a labor union representative tells the gathering that Americans must learn from Egyptians “so we know how to secure our own rights here in America. We must remain vigilant until Egyptians can live their dreams. Mubarak is only four hours from Saudi Arabia. Enough is enough. Get out!”

A new slogan reverberates around the Plaza:
Ben Ali Yesterday, Mubarak Today, Qaddafi Tomorrow!

Mo, an activist with the Jewish Voice for Peace (http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/ - Israelis and Palestinians. Two people. One Future), told me: “It is not for presidents and kings to give people their freedom. Freedom is God’s gift to people. We must be united together.”

“Israel has expressed anxiety about democracy coming to Egypt. Why is that?” I ask. Mo sighs. “Because it is easy,” he says, “for Israel to engage in the politics of fear. Israel must act like a country in the Middle East and not as if it is a transplant of the West. It will be good for Israel if democracy comes to Arab countries.”

Mo wants the U.S. to do everything it can to let democracy bloom in the Middle East instead of promoting its candidates in the name of stability. “Jews and Muslims are not separate,” he said. “We are united by a common future.” He is sure that the last pharaoh will soon go. “Coddling dictators has been the U.S. policy. That has to change. All this talk about the Brotherhood coming to power is a tactic to create anxiety and undermine the revolution of the people.”

“O Mubarak can’t you see, Time to join Ben Ali.” The rhyming slogans are catchy and energizing and make us smile.

More people are pouring in. I realize with a shock that three hours have already passed. When stories and images of oppressed people breaking free from their oppressors grip us, time becomes inconsequential.

People sitting on the fences say that demonstrations, rallies and protest marches don’t change anything. What they don’t understand is that, at the very least, they change the participants in subtle and significant ways. Change without can come only from change within.

What Tunisians have achieved, and Egyptians are poised to achieve, is nothing short of miraculous. It’s still a long way to freedom and democracy but the first steps have been taken. The least we can do is show them, “We are with you, all the way!”

Mubarak Must Exit Now

Hosni Mubarak is living proof that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Like Saddam Hussein, this pharaoh has vowed not to go gently into the night. His fate is similarly sealed.

Professional provocateurs deployed by Mubarak attacked peaceful protesters in Cairo and Alexandria with knives, razors and guns, and the first casualties of this revolution are beginning to mount. Reports coming out of Egypt tell the same story: The goons materialized seemingly out of nowhere in an orchestrated show of strength on behalf of their patron-in-chief, bent on derailing the democratic demands of the masses.

Meanwhile, pundits in America and Europe are already issuing dire warnings about the imminent collapse of the Egyptian economy. They don't seem to realize that Egyptians fighting for their rights don't care where the economy is heading at this critical juncture in their nation's history. They want to live like normal human beings. No sacrifice is too big to attain that goal. For over thirty years, Mubarak led them down the path of stasis. They have had enough. The status quo has to change. And, by God, it will, not when Mubarak chooses to step down, but now.

Ahmed, an American-Egyptian businessman from Fremont, California, is convinced that for Egypt to move forward, it must wean itself from American aid. The common people never see any benefit from the billions Egypt receives from the U.S.. "America dictates how Egypt uses the aid, which results in great business for America's weapons manufacturers," says Ahmed. "We have to put an end to that."

All the speculations about who will take over once Mubarak goes, and whether or not Egypt will be better or worse off then, is moot. Yes, there will be chaos, and yes, things may get worse before they get better. But that's the price Egyptians are willing to pay to overcome thirty years of wandering in the wilderness of despair. Reconstructing a nation after decades of misrule will take time. But the first order of business is to give the pharaoh the boot. Once the evil presence has left the scene, people will figure out a way to lift themselves from the darkness of despair into the sunshine of hope.

The world must unite behind Egyptians fighting for their rights, tactical and strategic considerations be damned. But it is Egyptians who must liberate themselves. Freedom will reign only if it comes from within. Long live the common people of Egypt yearning to breathe free.

Young Arabs Cross the Rubicon

“I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

Those were the stirring words President Obama used at his Cairo speech in June of 2009. But eloquence and oratory cannot mask reality. As Egyptians rise is revolt against the kleptocracy of Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration is desperately trying to adjust its sails against the furious wind of change sweeping Egypt. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton initially praised Egypt’s “stability” under Mubarak but now that the Arabs have crossed Rubicon, she is using words like “restraint” and “reform” and urging “transition to a democratic regime.”

Why does the United States so often finds itself on the wrong side of history, at least initially? Why does it so easily settle for Faustian bargains with autocrats like Mubarak? For the Muslim world, in particular, America’s policy has been driven by an irrational combination of oil, Israel and Islamic terror. Mubarak used the bogeyman of “Islamic Jihadists” (Muslim brotherhood in his case) to convince America that keeping him in power was the only option, and so our government obliged him with $1.3b in military aid every year. Not just the tanks and the fighter planes, even the tear gas and the rubber bullets being used against Egyptians bear the label “Made in America.” Only the water in the water cannons presumably comes from the Nile. Is it any wonder that ordinary Egyptians do not quite look upon America as a beacon of freedom and democracy?

In his second State of the Union address on January 25, President Obama equated Tunisian revolution with freedom. “We saw,” he said, “that same desire to be free in Tunisia, where the will of the people proved more powerful that the writ of a dictator. And tonight, let us be clear: the United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.”

What a golden opportunity the President missed by not including Egypt in his address! Extolling the virtues of democracy, the President said, “… as contentious and frustrating and messy as our democracy can sometime be, I know there isn’t a person here who would trade places with any other nation on earth. We may have differences in policy, but we all believe in the rights enshrined in our Constitution. We may have different opinions but we believe in the same promise that says this is a place where you can make it if you try. We may have different backgrounds, but we believe in the same dream that says this is a country where anything’s possible, no matter who you are, no matter where you come from.”

As my Egyptian friend Mustafa asked: “Does this mean that the United States reserves the right to experiment with democracy to enjoy its fruits, while Muslim puppets deny democracy to their people to cater to misguided American interests? This is nothing but arrogance and hypocrisy.”

American-Muslims, meanwhile, have thrown their full support behind Egyptians fighting unarmed for their freedom. During the Friday Khutbah in the largest mosque in California’s Silicon Valley, for instance, the Imam urged us to pray for their success in throwing out the pharaoh and preventing dynastic decadence. In solidarity with the Egyptian anger revolution, American Muslims have already demonstrated in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston. More protest marches are planned.

During the Tunisian revolution, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his sycophants cut off Internet access, particularly access to Facebook. As reported by Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic, the Facebook security team at its headquarters in Silicon Valley discovered that Ammar, the nickname Tunisians have given to the authorities that censor the Internet, was trying to steal an entire country's worth of passwords. With the stolen passwords, Ammar was deleting Tunisians’ Facebook accounts!

After more than ten days of intensive investigation, Facebook's security team realized that Tunisia’s Internet service providers (ISP) were running a malicious piece of code that was recording users' login information when they went to sites like Facebook.

The security team coded a two-step response. First, all Tunisian requests for Facebook were routed to an https server. The https protocol encrypts the information sent across it (the “s” in “https” stands for “secure” or “secure sockets layer” (SSL), so it is not vulnerable to the keylogging strategy used by the Tunisian ISPs. The second technical solution was a "roadblock" for anyone who had logged out and then back in during the time when the Tunisian malicious code was running.

Facebook rolled out the new solutions to all of Tunisia five days after the company discovered what was happening, and access to the site was restored.

Hosni Mubarak also followed the path of his now-deposed fellow-dictator: He ordered the state-controlled ISPs to completely cut off Egypt’s Internet access. But Egyptians were not deterred. The air was charged with electricity and possibilities. The revolution had taken on a momentum of its own, and while Facebook and Twitter initially helped, Egyptians had already transcended the Internet.

Still, it is reasonable to expect that companies like Facebook will give special consideration to activists trying to overthrow repressive regimes. If the company wants to remain central to people's political aspirations, it has to come up with a powerful, long-term solution that can be activated at a moment’s notice when access to the site is denied by any country. From a hardware point of view, if dictators block Internet data pipes into their countries, perhaps multiple satellite connections as backups can be in place so that communication can continue uninterrupted in spite of latency issues.

However the technology evolves, the days of dictators who equate dissent with treason and oppress and torture their people are coming to an end. Muslim nations are beset by modern-day pharaohs. For the creativity of millions of Muslims to flower in freedom, the pharaohs will be overthrown, if not today, then certainly tomorrow. That is the lesson of Tunisia and Egypt.

In Solidarity with the Egyptian Anger Revolution

American-Egyptians in the San Francisco Bay Area, supported by all the local Islamic organizations, have planned a protest march in San Francisco on Saturday, 29^th January, at the corner of Market and Montgomery, at 12 noon.

“We are all united behind Egyptians defying curfews and protesting the oppressive and illegitimate regime of Hosni Mubarak,” said a Silicon Valley engineer who migrated to the U.S from Alexandria a decade ago. “The Pharaoh must go.”

“I am so proud to see my countrymen finally throwing away their fear and taking on this brutal police state. For 30 years, Mubarak has kept us hostage. The poor have no food. The middle class is not doing any better. There is no peace for anyone. This must end,” said an Egyptian businessman from San Jose, who wishes he were in Tahir Square, Cairo, right now.

Anwar, who has been in the U.S. for 25 years, is delirious with joy at what is taking place in Egypt. But he isn’t sure the military will desert Mubarak anytime soon, since he is one of them. “We haven’t reached the tipping point yet,” he said, “but this revolution will not fizzle. Egyptians have suffered for too long. Freedom will come soon, God willing.”

Egypt has taken a cue from Tunisia. Just as the Tunisian president Ben Ali was forced to flee Tunisia after Tunisian youth rose in revolt, they want the same fate for Mubarak.

Egyptians are calling on all freedom-loving people, including Americans from all walks of life, to join them in protesting the tyrannical government of Hosni Mubarak on Saturday in San Francisco. The Arabic words in the poster they are circulating for the Saturday March read, from the top, Ash Shabu (The People), Yuridu (Want), Isqatan Nizam (The Fall of the Government).