CAIRO - I like watching the Nile, in the light of the mild winter, Levantine, and imagine the lively conversations elusive, as thick as gusts of wind infiltrated among the luxury, overbearing skyscrapers sprouted on both sides of river. You have the impression to hear the rustle of democracy. I guess what is in fact a democratic debate.I guess what is in fact a democratic debate, passionate, uninterrupted, inaudible, the dominant authoritarian oligarchy can not silence at all. The land of the pharaohs, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, in fact all forms of communication offered by the web for Internet users to flout the imposing apparatus of repression, and to promote dialogues and projects without worrying too much censorship.
The mukhabarates, the secret service men, as numerous as ants, reeling in cyberspace, trying to catch the invisible dimension of the void created between the Aswan Dam, the tombs of Luxor and the pyramids of Ghiza. Their centuries-old experience of hounds is not much. The subversives are diluted in the atmosphere.
Of course, the power may obscure the great global network within national boundaries, but doing so would kill the progress of electronic, just the pride of sophisticated society which overlaps with the ancestral poverty. Backwardness and modernity co-exist almost everywhere, like wealth and poverty live side by side.
Here the mixture is very thick and hot. One day could be explosive, and that silent speech, which slips between the big hotels on the Nile, could be the detonator. They're not just a hope or fear. Young surfers are seventeen million. Facebook is practiced by tens of millions. Twitter has more users than any other Arab country.
It is difficult to overlook the fact that the spotlight of the invisible, disruptive activities of the twenty-first century, enabled by cyberspace, was a country of endless beauty remains. But it is time to approach the record, and let stand fantasy. Egypt and Tunisia and then discusses the events after the Mubarak on the Internet.
In a society where the opposition has limited room for maneuver and the press is under strict surveillance, even if you allow freedom unthinkable in many other Arab countries, who invented the Internet is democracy. E 'in its field that is designed to conquer it and already the practice with the freedom of expression.
We throw ideas, draw up ads, slogans are invented, we promote initiatives. The ministers and representatives of business, integrated into the dominant party of the President (the National Democratic Party), are probably right when they say that it makes no sense to speak of a contagion of Tunisia.
To those who ask, with hope or apprehension, if after Tunisia will be the turn of Egypt, it is impossible to meet. There is no point asking the question they are two different realities. They are not wrong. But the small opposition parties, ignored, neglected and not always reliable, however, have intensified their contacts.
Shall consult. They went on strike first movements outside the institutional framework. Thanks to the Internet would have even formed a "People's Parliament ', perhaps more ideal than real, in opposition to the official, in practice employed by the party of the president. On the web you do not lose time.
You're in a hurry. For tomorrow, Tuesday, was a planned event. As a first step was to take place in the heart of the capital, the Museum Square, near the Nile. However, it would be too easy for the police to disperse, suppress or even prevent the appointment. It 'so popular in the neighborhoods that should be held small meetings (one hundred and twenty in Cairo to Alexandria).
So many meetings mobile, dispersed in several places of the two cities. The information has been disseminated via the Internet and on the participation of political parties and movements, there is still uncertainty. Equally uncertain is the origin of the project, deemed illegal by the state of emergency in force since 1981, when Sadat was assassinated.
The idea of an event would have been born even before the events in Tunisia. These have formed the times. The Egyptian world of the Internet is full of characters. The most prominent is Mohamed el Baradei, Nobel Peace Prize and former Director of the International Energy Agency. Facebook Baradei calls for a peaceful transition of power, in his view the only way to avoid a repetition of the events in Tunisia to Egypt.
A constitutional reform would enable him to participate, albeit with little chance of success (says he has collected over one million consensus), the presidential elections at year's end. When you run out the mandate of Hosni Mubarak, in power for three decades. The appointment is fraught with risks, a power that draws its origins from the military coup of 1952, when King Farouk was exiled and ended the monarchy in Egypt.
Despite the traumatic events, the sudden death of Nasser, four years after the humiliating defeat del'67 in the third war with Israel, and Sadat's assassination in 81, the sequences were performed without apparent tears. And always in the military. Now, 82 years, and in poor health, Mubarak may also participate for a further term of six years.
Or, as is thought, could be proposed, namely to impose groped, his son Gamal to 47 years. Which would not be welcome but the army. Why not a military (his father gave him responsibility in the party) and is therefore not in the tradition. In addition, Hosni Mubarak is a president who has never given rise to great enthusiasm, and that has helped the family.
Would not be so many people reluctant to support his reappointment, it is sick, or a succession in favor of his son. These are issues that call to mind the story of Tunisia. But the big difference is that, unlike that of Tunisia, the Egyptian army has a role. It has many other dimensions.
In the world of the Internet, the problem of succession is treated with urgency. E 'seen as a crucial moment, the great turning points possible. Even before the deadline. As the writer Nawal el Shadawi, many are aware that most of the eighty million Egyptians "has neither power, nor education, nor is it organized." And then you have to change the educational system (in Tunisia was far better) and the mentality of the people, inclined to jump on the bandwagon to religious movements.
The Muslim Brotherhood is very active in health care and social development. These changes fall within the stated goals of what is called the "Internet democracy", which brings together, with different political positions, lawyers, journalists, engineers, doctors, students. All eager to discuss and plan the future of Egypt.
Gamal Eid, a former lawyer and a busy time nell'Human Rights Watch, is a popular blogger and does not hide the dangers they are committing to criticize the regime. If you rarely go to jail journalists, bloggers are condemned with ease. To have been disrespectful to the president in a poem one of them was sentenced to three years.
Even the Muslim Brotherhood, in which a few military professionals, albeit in different currents, radical or reformist, have created a wide galaxy of sites. Mahmoud Abdel Monem, thirty years, has gained great popularity in his blog describing the torture suffered in the past six months in prison along with other fifteen hundred Muslim Brotherhood.
He distanced himself from the brotherhood and now draws as many young men, turkish Islamic party (AKP). Among the most popular blogger is also a woman, Esra Ahmed Abdel Fata, who coordinates a network of Web sites
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