#Tahrir Square

[vyorei]

"Oh Al-Aqsa, do not worry, we will redeem you with our soul and blood"

Egypt you're showing fucking amazing solidarity.

Here's an example from protesters at Rafah:

Source for video: @LowkeyØnline on Twitter

[thistabithahope]

Tahrir Square, 2012

Source

[ama979302]

Tahrir Square - Cairo, Egypt 1965

[himbos-hotline]

🌾 Describe your OC through the eyes of someone absolutely head-over-heels in love with them

Jayden Orton from the perspective of Adam Cole [baybay]

friends to strangers to tag partners to fuck buddies to enemies to friends to lovers

"the only thing you'll get is this curse on your lip, I hope they'll taste of me forever" - FOB, chicago is such two years ago

[afrotumble]

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/learning-from-the-apes/

Learning From The Apes

In 2011, Lara Logan, a CBS reporter, was in Cairo’s Tahrir Square covering the Arab Spring celebration– the peaceful overthrow of Hosni Murbaraks’ military dictatorship.   The crowd was jubilant as they sang and danced in the streets, so the reporter was surprised when her translator suddenly shouted, “Run!  Run!”  She did her best to follow him through the swirling crowd but soon lost sight of his back. What followed was an event that made media headlines.   Surrounded by 200-300 men, Logan felt their hands as they tore at her clothes, a frenzy that would not be satisfied until she was naked in their midst. If she cried for mercy, no one heard her.  Instead, countless males jammed their fingers up her vagina or engaged in sodomy before passing her to another as if she were a slab of meat. The entire time, she hung suspended by her arms and legs like an item of wet laundry.  Little wonder that her mind collapsed into a black hole of certainty. “I’m going to die.” Somehow, a knot of women nearby managed to reach out and pull her into their midst. Her nakedness they shielded with their bodies, a barrier that stopped the men in their tracks as if confronted by a tsunami. There was no mistaking the message that blazed from the women’s eyes. “We do not know this victim, but she is female. She is us.” Logan suffered wounds that kept her in the hospital for four days. Healing her psyche would take longer.  Even so, she was lucky.  Two of her male cohorts were killed that day in Tahrir Square. Readers may be surprised to learn that Logan’s claim to have been gang raped wouldn’t hold up in an American court. Rape excludes acts of oral, and statutory rape; rape with an object, finger, or fist. Rape is limited to penis penetration. The other violent act, the law reduces to a charge of assault.  Little wonder that Carrie N. Baker, writing in the Summer 2023 edition of Ms, conclude that women aren’t going to win within the legal system. (pg. 20) The sisterhood Logan experienced is a powerful force for women’s rights but it’s unreliable.  Sojourner Truth, a former slave, pushed her way onto the platform of the Women’s Rights Convention in 1851 where she was initially unwanted.  Finally given her voice, she asked the audience why they’d attempted to exclude her. “Ain’t I a woman?”  Not waiting for an answer, she went on to define the power of sisterhood, a message that those gathered in that room needed to hear. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again. So far the women’s movement hasn’t righted the wrongs against their sex. Other social divide them. That’s why Jane Rosenfeld’s new book, The Bonobo Sisterhood should be a primer for every female. An activist and member of Havrad’s Law School, Rosenfeld looks to the apes as a model for female behavior.  Bonobos live in matriarchal societies, proving that male dominance isn’t inevitable. Nor should it be. Patriarchy works against women’s interests and uses sexual coercion to control females as reproductive resources.  (“Be Li kth eBonobos,” by Carrie N. Baker, Ms., Summer 2023, pg. 20.) Bonobs females withstand male aggression by practicing cohesive behavior.  When a male threatens a female in the species, she lets out a special cry.  Hearing it, others of her sex come to her assistance–whether they know her, like her, or are related to her. (Ibid, pg. 21) This unquestioning unity enables the females to contain male aggression. Activist/actor Ashley Judd who wrote the preface to Rosenfeld’s book calls that unity empowerment through empathy. (Ibid, pg. 23) Empathy without regard to race, religion, culture, or political ideology is what Egyptian women gave to Lara Logan on the afternoon of her mass rape.  I’ve extolled that form of sisterhood before. Our mutual security should be our common bond. We owe each other that much loyalty. “Aint we all women?”

[derangeddolphinofmagic]

society recreates itself

[thistabithahope]

#Jan25

🇪🇬 Tahrir Square: 2011 vs. 2018, when I first visited Cairo.

There's a 2021 great essay in Foreign Affairs from Marc Lynch, reflecting on the 10th (!) anniversary of the Arab Spring:

"The uprisings have profoundly reshaped every conceivable dimension of Arab politics, including individual attitudes, political systems, ideologies, and international relations. Superficial similarities might mask the extent of the change, but today’s Middle East would be unrecognizable to observers from 2010. The forces set in motion in 2011 virtually guaranteed that the next decade will witness even more profound transformations—changes that will confound any policy based on a return to the old ways.”

Photo by Ramy Raoof

[kaalbela]

In Solidarity with Palestine

1. People shout slogans during a protest to show solidarity with Palestinians outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, Turkey | Emrah Gure

2. Some protesters try to stop other protesters not to attack the French Embassy in Tehran, Iran during an anti-Israel protest | Vahid Salemi

3. Demonstrators chant during a protest in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, at Martyrs' Square in downtown Beirut, Lebanon | Bilal Hussein.

4. A man poses with a Palestinian flag as people gather in Tahrir Square of Baghdad, Iraq to protest | Murtadha Al-Sudani.

5. People clash with anti riot policemen outside the Israeli consulate during a protest to show solidarity with Palestinians, in Istanbul, Turkey | Emrah Gurel.

6. Protesters clash with Lebanese security forces outside the U.S. Embassy during a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza in Awkar, East of Beirut, after Israel's strike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza | Joseph Eid

7. Protester demonstrates in front of the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey after Israel's strike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza | Ilker Eray

[oldlovecassette]

Students on Tahrir Square campus at the American University in Cairo, 1971. Photographer unknown

[un-known97]

يا الميدان 🔺

Tahrir square

Byme @un-known97

[afrotumble]

ALAINE - TAHRIR SQUARE - 1THIRTY1 RECORDS

[catdotjpeg]

Egypt has detained several students who were trying to promote pro-Palestinian boycotts of Israeli companies and solidarity campaigns. The students are among dozens of people held in connection with protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, some of them detained in October when state-sanctioned rallies spilled over to unauthorised sites, including Cairo’s Tahrir Square. According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent Cairo-based group, at least 125 people have been arrested since the Gaza war began in October. Ninety-five are still being held in pre-trial detention on charges including membership in a banned group and spreading false news. Three students were arrested this month over their attempt to create a group called Students for Palestine, according to Nabeh el-Ganadi, a human rights lawyer. They include Ziad Bassiouny, 22, a student at an arts institute in Giza. About 40 members of Egypt’s security forces were deployed to arrest Bassiouny at his apartment on May 9, his mother, Fayza Hendawy, said.

-- "Egypt extends crackdown on Gaza activism with student arrests" by Usaid Siddiqui and Maziar Motamedi for Al Jazeera, 31 May 2024 17:30 GMT

[good-old-gossip]

Egyptian security forces dispersed a Gaza solidarity protest outside the headquarters of UN Women in Cairo on Tuesday and detained several activists who took part, according to local media and activists.

Police forces detained most of the protesters, including Mahienour el-Masry, Lobna Darwish, Rasha Azab, Ragya Omran, Mai el-Mahdy, Israa Yusuf and Farida al-Hifny, according to Egyptian activist Ahmed Douma.

During the demonstration, the protesters read a letter addressed to the UN agency for gender equality and women's empowerment, condemning the human rights violations and war crimes affecting women in Gaza and Sudan as a result of the conflicts there.

"Dear UN Women, we are a group of Egyptian women appalled by the atrocities committed against our sisters in Gaza as a result of the Israeli genocidal war on the Palestinian people since 7 October," the letter read.

"We are also appalled by the failure of the UN to protect the two peoples from the ongoing war crimes, especially sexual crimes, and in particular equivocating between the victims and culprits," it added.

The letter accused UN Women of "discriminating against women in Gaza and Sudan" by failing to stand up for them. It also called on the UN agency to carry out investigations into alleged sexual crimes and war crimes against women in the affected areas. Middle East Eye has contacted UN Women for comment.

The police action on Tuesday is not the first time protesters in Egypt have been detained for taking part in protests about Gaza. Egypt has effectively banned protests since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power over a decade ago, and security forces routinely suppress any anti-government activity.

Security forces have detained dozens of pro-Palestine protesters since 20 October, when thousands took part in a rally in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square, which was the epicentre of the revolution that culminated in the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Following the crackdown on that gathering, protests have been smaller in size and have been quickly dispersed by security officials.

On 30 November, four international activists were detained and held incommunicado for over 27 hours, following a pro-Palestine protest outside the Egyptian foreign ministry in Cairo.

They had staged a rally to demand security clearance for the Global Conscience Convoy, a humanitarian convoy into Gaza planned by Egypt's Journalists' Syndicate, to deliver badly needed aid. Security forces also dispersed a women's pro-Palestine protest in Cairo on 8 March, which coincided with International Women's Day. On 4 April, authorities detained at least 10 protesters at a vigil outside the Journalists' Syndicate in Cairo, denouncing the Egyptian government's role in the siege on Gaza