Confounding a hopeful day's worth of expectations, Hosni Mubarak vowed today to stay in power. Omar Suleiman, the spymaster turned vice president, has allegedly assumed some degree of executive authority from Mubarak. In advance of another mammoth demonstration scheduled for Friday, the #Jan25 revolutionaries are expressing their anger and frustration over the social media tools that initially brought them to the attention of the outside world.
Over Twitter, the opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei basically begs for a military coup: "Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now." Sandmonkey, one of the widest-read Egypt-tweeters, succinctly comments, "FFFFFfuUUUUUCCCCCKKKK!"
On the Facebook page We Are All Khalid Said, the online epicenter of the protest movement, people are trying to win the threads as a way of venting their frustration. For instance:
Dima Hamamah snarks: "President Mubarak's private physician declares that he has become deaf and confirms that it is a temporary condition that will end with the end of the demonstrations."
Kaid Al is more serious: "Tomorrow, Friday, the people will go to the presidential palace to occupy it and we will be done with the tyrant." Thanks to Kareem Shaheen of Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper for translation.
Elsewhere on We Are All Khalid Said, Egynasr Das is in a revolutionary mood: "Egypt tonight will sleep with no president, no army and no police. What next? It looks like we have to build a new nation on the ruins of our old state. God protect us and we are up to it." Gamal Khalel puts out a "riddle": "Who is stupider, Mubarak or Suleiman?"
Not everyone on the page is in favor of the protests. This pro-Mubarak guy calls out Wael Ghonim, the Google executive and We Are All Khalid Said administrator who became an inspirational figure for the demonstrators after Mubarak's agents briefly detained him:
"If Wael calls for demonstrations and crap again," writes Samar Galal, "then he's seriously a traitor and agent.”
Demonstrators are calling for even larger protests tomorrow; the past two Fridays have seen mass anti-Mubarak rallies throughout Egypt. The protests have been peaceful so far. But now the protesters appear to be angrier than ever. Some are urging their comrades not to fall into what they consider a regime plot to spur a violent pretext for another crackdown.
"All the media leaks before the address raised our expectations to the roof," @ZeinabSamir tweeted. "This is a dirty plan to aggravate the people and remove their adherence to peace[ful protest]. The revolution must continue, but peacefully."
Photo: Flickr/AlJazeeraEnglish
Extra special thanks to Kareem Shaheen for crucial translation and research help.
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