Série de notas sobre o Egito enviadas a diversos correspondentes nos últimos dias. Tradução mais tarde, quando houver tempo.

[08h50 | Feb 06 - To private mailing list]

Chief-Torturer Omar "Extraordinary Rendition" Suleiman is holding talks with self-appointed "opposition figures", including the Muslim Brotherhood. Of course with full US support, who'd rather deal with a military/MB government than with a full democracy in Egypt.

They've done it before in Iran, and it's not that they haven't learned: the results were what they wanted.

However, despite all the hype around the demonstrations, the Mubarak regime won't fall. Mubarak himself may have to go enjoy his billions under German protection, but the regime he represents will stay on. Egypt is too important in the general scheme of domination to be allowed to fall into the hands of its people just because a few million brave middle-class Egyptians have been facing the police and the army for two weeks. As long as the Egyptian workers keep going to work every day, even if they defy the curfew to join the demonstrations after work, the regime will survive.

[15h30 | Feb 06 - via Twitter]

Protesters may be about to be left to their fate with full international support and indifference from the rest of Egyptians.

It's too late to chant against the army now, after spending two weeks legitimising their role as arbiter.

[10h38 | Jan 31 - To private mailing list]

The sight of so many determined demonstrators marching through the cities of Egypt made me forget a few simple basics.

1. Egypt is too important a piece in the Middle East scheme of domination to be allowed to simply fall apart. Mubarak is clearly planning a crackdown on demonstrators, for which he'll have the full support of Mideast dictators (including the Palestinian Authority) and "Western" democracies (including Israel and China and Russia - "democracy" here is a very fluid concept).

2. No matter how many Egyptian citizens march, Mubarak's power will be safe as long as a successful general strike is not staged against him. Labor unions in Tunisia were State-manipulated. Labor unions in Egypt are State-*owned*: union officers are civil servants, State employees.

3. The Egyptian military's top brass stand among those with the most to lose with Mubarak's demise. They have already started to arrest Egyptian and foreign journalists, in collaboration with the police. The next hours will show the folly of those who believe in the "democratic tradition" of military forces which have been the basis of the regime since 1952.

4. As usual, the future of democracy in Egypt (and in the rest of the Middle East) is in the hands of 1) rank-and-file soldiers and 2) factory-floor workers. If they 1) refuse to go against protesters and 2) go on strike, Mubarak falls. If they don't, he stays.