For the past couple of weeks, pretty much all political players (as usual with the exception of the Brotherhood, the Salafi and el Wafd) have been calling for yet another “Gom3a” in Ta7rir.
Friday 9th of September, or Gom3et tas7ee7 el massar, is the first, after a long and enjoyable break from the seemingly never-ending gom3at.
The theme of this day isn’t a new one, the list of demands are pretty much the same, only the tension between the Supreme Council of Armed Forces and the public seems a bit higher than the usual.
On top of the demand list: stopping military trials for civilians, the immediate release of all political prisoners who’ve been convicted by military courts, of course the “purification” of the Ministry of Interior, the usual crap concerning the minimum wage and the ex- NDP members, etc.
I think what counts as the main difference between this Friday and all the previous ones is that SCAF went a bit too far during the last couple of weeks. I mean sending people to be tried at a military court for tweeting! What those people actually tweeted doesn’t matter, even though I personally don’t agree with them! I’m no supporter of the message, but I believe in everybody’s right to deliver their message.
True, the world would be a much better place if some morons would just shut it and spare us their nonsense; but again the beauty of freedom of expression is that they’ll get to say any crappy opinion that comes to their tiny little heads, and I in turn get to say that it’s crappy!
Needless to say, SCAF is the one thing standing between us and complete anarchy. I know this is a bit hard to swallow, but running a country is not as easy as it may seem… Trust me. So a question arises, if SCAF holds its ground, and disregards the protests and the protestors, what’s our next move? Or even worse, what if SCAF tries to pull off some of the ex-regime’s usual shit, like tear-gassing or even shooting protestors, what could this possibly lead to?
I’m all for freedom of expression, but what if that in order to get that, you might actually have to take on the army? Don’t forget, if the army had taken Mubarak’s side (regardless of the reason why they didn’t) we would’ve been living in another Libya or Syria. So you must ask yourself, is it worth it? If you think it is, then there is no harm in taking to the streets tomorrow. If not, then you have some serious thinking to do before you make that move.
Joe.
Joe.
