I’ll keep it brief, but isn’t it nice to see Hosni!
It seems so long now and I for one have been missing him. Of course his ‘former’ colleagues remain largely in place and there’s a long way to go to even begin to consolidate the revolution. But the break with the past is good, the rest we know will take blood, resolve and time…
Of course, the regime has been pushed to get this far, almost week by week, and that will go on until real change is achieved. Change only ever happens like this. When someone tells you that shouting, anger, protest, rebellion even defensive or strategic acts of violence never gets anyone anywhere, as autocrats large and small always waste their breath saying, well; laugh in their faces and press on…
I’m sure Fruit Store regulars know from your own experience that tired, jaded, reactionary, conservative, No-sayers always only ever respond to force -or anyway forcefulness- however boring it is to have to resort to it. In that respect there are continuities between Tahrir’s very expensively acquired and yet only partial freedoms and much less dramatic ones closer to home -and yes, I’m writing as an urbanforester when I make that point [not that the extrapolation necessarily works the other way around, of course].
Anyway, hooray-hello-Hosni; lets see much more of you and yours in future and work painstakingly through your crimes to ensure that justice is seen to be done and change is institutionalised.
Meanwhile, check the current issue of Bidoun and it’s programme of summery Seminars at the Serpentine here.
NOTES FROM A FRUITSTORE 
Nice to see Mubarak! Haha, that was different! Just wrote a piece on him actually, care to have a look at it?
http://adnanchowdhury.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/mighty-mubarak-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-family-man/
Agree that change often requires force, but find use of the word ‘always’ a bit excessive. I think genuine change when created through democratic discourse can be more effective and longer-lasting; though of course appreciate that it doesn’t work with autocrats!
In the absence of ‘democratic discourse’…
Democracy, in its varying flawed forms, gave us the obscenity of Gulf War 2 [and if a million march against a unilateral attack and sustained slaughter of another people/country not that long freed from colonial rule, and that slaughter goes ahead, what of democracy then? Of course the slaughter was in the name of democracy… explicitly. I’m advocating forcefulness and even force in those circumstances. I’d force a native English speaker to learn Arabic for every bomb dropped on Iraq, for example], and I’m trying to avoid the really obvious cliches…
Imagine a state that describes itself as a democracy but is founded on an act of ethnic cleansing and incarnates the most vulgar excesses of autocratic method and outlook… I advocate forcefulness and certainly force in resistance to that!
I think we must be exact in looking hard at what ‘democracy’ enables and stands for today and recognise the failing civilisational arc in its concomitant bloody excesses…
Do you have a Facebook page or Twitter? Would love to follow you there, I’m on my iPhone and love reading your stuff!
No I’m still fighting to remain free of FB, have sort of succumbed to twitter but am finding that there are still only 24 hours in each solar day. Hoping as ever to steal or stretch that and to use some of that 25th hour to tweet… But I think you know already that you can subscribe here and read anyway, no?
Egypt renews… http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1062/cu171.htm
You have really interesting blog, keep up posting such informative posts!
Simple but interesting blog post I must say. I’ve just added your RSS to my google reader! =)