By Luke Thomas
February 11, 2011
Under pressure from relentless, impassioned protests, Hosni Mubarak today resigned the presidency of Egypt bringing to an end 30 years of a hard-line, despotic rule over the African nation and its citizens.
“In the name of God the merciful, the compassionate, citizens, during these very difficult circumstances Egypt is going through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from the office of president of the republic and has charged the high council of the armed forces to administer the affairs of the country,” Vice-President Omar Suleiman announced. “May God help everybody.”
Power has been transferred to the Egyptian army headed by Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. A general election is expected by September.
Following the announcement, fireworks lit up the sky over Cairo as cheers of joy and celebration rang out in Tahrir Square where the uprising began some 18 days ago. Citizens hugged soldiers showing their appreciation to the army for remaining neutral during the unrest and protecting protesters from paid pro-Mubarak thugs. Though estimates vary, as many as 300 Egyptians may have been killed during the protests.
“I’m 21 years old and this is the first time in my life I feel free,” an ebullient Abdul-Rahman Ayyash, born eight years after Mubarak came to power, told the Associated Press as he hugged fellow protesters in Tahrir Square.
A victorious, historic day for freedom and democracy, the world has witnessed the power of people in numbers to bring down dictators and unpopular regimes.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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February 13, 2011 at 9:25 am
Yesterday I reported, for KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, on the claim of Ugandan opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye’s warning that Uganda could be the next Egypt, after next Friday’s elections, which no one expects to be free or fair. http://goo.gl/SddcF
San Francisco has particular reason to take interest in this one, because Yoweri Museveni, whom the U.S. has been backing, arming, and using since the Cold War, is using the Anti-Homosexuality Act or Hang-the-Gays Bill to win, saying that if Uganda follows Europe into homosexuality, it will become Sodom and Gomorrha. And his government is denying that David Kato’s murder had anything to do with his advocacy for Sexual Minorities Uganda.
It gets worse, a lot worse, e.g., armies, including this Ugandan Army that we so often use as our own using mass rape, and mass, targeted, male on male rape, and HIV, as weapons. Believe it or not, it gets even worse, re U.S. complicity.
But there, for starters, is reason to watch this election coming up, in Uganda. U.S. policy there should change, whatever the outcome, and whether or not the Ugandan people find the strength to rise up in the face of soldiers and specially trained commandoes already all over the streets.
February 12, 2011 at 6:49 am
Eternal vigilance y’all. Sounds like Tantawi (AKA. “Mubarak’s poodle”) is part of the old guard, and may have already ‘re-empowered’ the Police, Cabinet and other functionaries of the old regime. Hopefully 80 million people wont be wronged again, but lack of vigilance is a root cause for the erosion of our “democracy”.
February 11, 2011 at 6:45 pm
Imagine! “Freedom and democracy” without a new trillion dollar war!
(Only muscle to Egypt’s military establishment who hurriedly flew to the Pentagon and back.)
Hooray for people power!
May the people’s victories be free of all illusions, and their’s alone!