Why are they going to Tahrir (and other squares) now?
Because something is wrong:
When there is no security after 9 months .... despite billions being spent on the police, something wrong.
When they say the chaos will continue until a president is elected in 2013, something is wrong.
When until today, not a single pound of the money stolen by the regime has been returned, Something is wrong.
The impact of social media on revolutionary movements like Egypt’s has been hashed out to the precipice of cliché, with scholars still puzzling over how networks online and off contributed to the ousting of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. As Egypt’s transitional period drags on, staggering obstacles lay ahead for the architects of the post-Mubarak Egypt, with Twitter laying bare divisions both within the activists’ ranks and between the relatively small number of activists using the Internet to organize and the “silent majority” on the street. Some of Egypt’s young revolutionaries are still trying to find a way to merge their online presences with street level politics and outreach in time for the approaching parliamentary elections.
The people who were violently clashing were regular citizens, Egyptian vs. Egyptian, with no army or police forces in sight. Needless to say one couldn’t tell the Muslims from the Christians (because we all look alike), and neither could the people fighting each other. After engaging in a street brawl where not a single person could tell who is with who or against who, they stopped and started chanting. One team started chanting “The People and the Army are one hand” and the others started chanting “Muslims and Christians are one hand”, thus providing us with the choices that we as Egyptians were told to make yesterday. And then, strangely, both sides at the same time changed their chants to “One hand”, and both sides started chanting that fiercely, stopped fighting each other, and joined each other into one big march chanting “One hand, One hand”, and thus showing us that they made the right choice.
They were presented with the choice between the Army and National Unity, and they refused to make that choice and collectively and organically made the only correct choice: Each Other. Egypt. In the midst of the battle, they realized on a very basic level that they can’t chose one over the other, and that , even if they have prejudices, they really do not want to fight each other. There is a lesson in that incident for all of us, and it may just hold the key to our salvation.
Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 15:06 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 1900 GMT: C.J. Chivers of The New York Times, who has been reporting from Misurata in Libya, posts this photograph of the war-torn city:
And for comparsion, this was Misurata in August 2010:
So, now what? Well, now is the hard part. This is the part where we stop playing revolution, and start playing politics for the sake of the country. This means caring more about perception and public support over righteous and legitimate demands. Do you know what that means? Well, if you do, but think that the revolution must continue on the street, well, congratulations, you are the reason why we are losing. If you don’t, well, please relax and keep an open mind, cause this is about to get really uncomfortable.
Photo: Ian Lee (CNN)1425 GMT: Charges have been filed against eight activists detained in Monday night's protests in the Shubra neighbourhood of Cairo. (EA earlier reported six had been arrested --- see 0940 GMT).
The eight, who are all Muslim, have been charged with illegal rallying, rioting, damaging public property, and assaulting police officers on duty.
1000 GMT: Pope Shenouda III, the head of the Coptic Church, has called on his "children" to stop demonstrations and to pursue dialogue in solving problems.
The Mufti of Egypt, Dr. Ali Gomaa, has called for joint Christian-Muslim development projects and for television discussions between Christian and Muslim youth.
Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 7:41 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
By its glaring inability to take these grievances seriously, the institutional opposition has condemned itself to continuing irrelevance in parliamentary life and has prevented a credible political articulation of the economic and social demands of both industrial and agricultural workers, ignoring that these movements could indeed constitute the much-needed popular support for a political opposition to the Mubarak regime.
Thus, it is not the split between secular and religious opposition, but rather the one between institutional and popular oppositions that constitutes the foundation for the survival --- that's what it is: mere survival – of Egyptian authoritarianism.
Yesterday, even as President Hosni Mubarak tried to settle any tensions over this month's Parliamentary elections, in which his ruling National Democratic Party won more than 90% of the seats, there were further signs of troubled political waters.
Saturday, December 11, 2010 at 7:31 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
There is no transition whose beginning is not the consequences --- direct or indirect --- of important divisions within the authoritarian regime itself. Those divisions, in Egypt, are only likely to grow.
For the National Democratic to make a strategic blunder at such a crucial moment in Egypt's history suggests a regime that is nervous, unsure of itself and increasingly incoherent.
The Parliamentary elections were the first such mistake. Whether there will be more ---- and whether the opposition manages to capitalise --- will determine the course Egypt takes in the coming, critical months.
Claimed footage of vote-rigging arrangements by supporters of ruling National Democratic Party in Alexandria:
Amira Howeidy of Ahram Online summarises the state of the new Egyptian Parliament after yesterday's second-round voting:
In the parliamentary election’s second round, preliminary results indicate that the NDP [ruling National Democratic Party] has swept 96 percent of the available seats.
