from the LP Three Imaginary Boys, Fiction Records, 1979“F-I-R-E I-N C-A-I-R-O” The recent revolutionary fervor in Tunisia (which I was referencing a couple weeks ago) has now spread like wildfire into Egypt, with its largely college-educated population now equally at the end of their rope from decades of bureaucratic corruption and high unemployment, indicating the powder-keg potential of any successful revolt in the Middle East to snowball quickly across the region; most notably, to my sociological nature anyways, is the fact that in both countries, the catalysts for these masses of people taking to the streets were, in fact, single acts of self-immolation, echoing the protests of Buddhist monks in Vietnam over forty years ago (forever emblazoned on the cover of Rage Against the Machine’s debut album). This is a new tool of protest in the Arab world however, and something about its silent yet visceral impact has clearly struck a nerve with the people there---how could it not? Is there any more striking or profound display of dissent and absolute psychic exhaustion than lighting oneself on fire?! Many experts agree that Mubarak is far less likely to just leave the way Ben Ali did, and there are already reports this morning of widespread internet and cell-phone outages around large Egyptian cities, so we very-well could be in for a longer and perhaps bloodier situation than we’ve seen in Tunis---let’s just hope that whatever power structure results gives the Egyptian people more freedom, not less…
