8 Year Old Saudi Girl’s Message to Mubarak (Updated)

Check out Juju’s message to President Mubarak to the right. What a smart girl!

Mona Eltahawy:

When people want to know who’s in charge, and when people keep trying to ring the Islamists’ alarm bell, the people answer: “We’re in charge.”

The thousands of Egyptians braving the brutality of Mubarak’s security apparatus are having none of it. It’s about freedom and dignity for them, not about the dictator and the Islamists. It’s the West that’s hung up on that. And it’s hung up on it because for decades the West has sided with “stability” — which has come at the cost of the freedom and dignity of Egyptians, Tunisians and other Arabs.

More:

One of the main demands of the protests is an end to Mubarak’s rule. In presidential elections later this year, he was expected to seek a sixth term in office. I would sincerely love to see Mubarak go, and if he does, those Egyptians who smashed through fear must be the ones to decide who they want to replace him.

They don’t want a Mubarak-lite. They will not sacrifice their freedom and dignity so Western allies can feel better about Egypt — which means a future government must reflect all those Egyptians out there, day after day.

On the Palestine Papers… from the Christian Science Monitor:

Why Palestine papers didn’t spark outrage against Abbas’s government

But the Palestine papers published by Al Jazeera have further dented Abbas’s already low credibility, calling into question his ability to negotiate a lasting peace deal.

This is an Open Thread on Egypt, the Palestine Papers, and the rest of the Middle East…and whatever else is happening this Saturday evening.

To the left: A picture of the human wall protecting the Cairo museum, circulating on twitter.

Update

Stacyx has a brilliant post up called “Egypt: Democracy For Me But Not For Thee“ — she has said everything I’ve been thinking watching the Western media’s coverage and said it better than I could! Please go over and read the whole thing.

Teaser:

As I watch some of the coverage of what is going on in Egypt it’s interesting to see that some of the biggest supporters of “democracy” and “freedom” have now decided that maybe democracy isn’t such a good thing. At least not when it comes to Arabs.

It’s a rehashing of the theme of ‘Fear of a Muslim Planet’ and quite a few commentators I have seen or heard or read are now offering us all a false choice between a corrupt, oppressive dictatorship in Egypt and crazy, America-hating Islamists, as though there is nothing in between those two things. This is interesting because thus far the protesters in Egypt seem concerned with things like food prices, unemployment, repression, government corruption and nepotism, etc. as opposed to promoting Islamic fundamentalism. We’ve heard a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood in the media over the last two days and while I think that discussing any role they play in these protests or their aftermath is certainly very important, a lot of the commentary seems to be hyping a threat that really hasn’t manifested itself, at least as of yet.

Update II

From the Tahrir demonstrations: