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Egypt: A Very Egyptian Coup

Categories: Middle East & North Africa, Egypt, Politics

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Picture by Ahmad347 [1] via Ms MoneyGirl [2]

It started with a wish…

ECF7B262-E35C-4AA1-BA30-FD44F908984D.jpg [3]

@Sarahngb [4] – That Rainbow over Tahrir is close to a miracle! Let's hope another will follow… RT @justimage [5]: http://yfrog.com/h0jzngjj #jan25

Then a trickle of rumours:

@Sandmonkey [6] – This might end tonite, hussam badrawy just said mubarak is coming on TV tonite to answer the people's demands. Fingers crossed.

This was seen by my dad on bbc. If anyone else saw hossam badrawy, let me know.

and by the time the army made “announcement number 1″ [7] on Egyptian State TV – Twitter had a major flood on its hands.

Some people greeted the cryptic army statement with a general WTF?? [8] but @SamihToukan [9] got it:

Army just made a useless announcement saying nothing … Whats most significant about Army announcement is not the announcement itself but fact that Mubarak was not chairing meeting.

And then the fat lady sang [10]:

Mission accomplished. Thanks to all the brave young Egyptians.

wrote @ghonim, Wael Ghonim [11], the formerly imprisoned Google manager and the revolution's celebrity.

But with the sunsetting [12] of Mubarak, the debate and speculation for the future begins:

@3arabawy disagrees with @gonim in a series of posts he wrote:

We didn't fight and sacrifice all of this, so as to have the army, which is ruling us from 1952, remains in power! … The Revolution must continue … very disappointed with @Ghonim's position.

@ManAbuTaleb [13] went further:

@ghonim said previously “someone like me with an MA degree shouldn't be treated like this” so its OK if one has lesser degree?

@ghonim doesn't speak for me … have you seen him on TV just now? @Ghonim is saying very naive things. Very disappointing. Now where's that unfollow button?

Sandmonkey has put together [14] his own suggestion for a political programme:

Now, I am not a leader of this movement, and god knows I would be loathe to name myself as a spokesperson for the 5 million individuals nationwide who have joined these protests. …

the status quo just won’t do. This lack of action and organization will be used against us (the protesters) in every way possible. … So here are my two cents

And he gives his program for the forming of a new political movement.

And on the Arabist blog Issandr El Amrani discusses the timetable for constitutional reform [15] and discusses various opinions about the future.

I will leave it there – whatever happens, by the time you read this, the world will have changed again! This is only the beginning Global Voices really ought to have a “revolution” tag.