Egypt's Tragedy

The hopes of the Egyptian people that shone so brightly through their revolutionary success have resulted in the realisation of the worst fears of the most sceptical ten years on from that first mass gathering in Tahrir Square.

The foreground books, above, all capture the courageous and exuberant moments that culminated in the overthrow of the dictator Mubarak on 11th February 2011. Murray's book takes you by the hand through the unfurling of those hopes in the thousand days that followed the uprising and the insidious insertion of an even more authoritarian regime led by President Sisi - Trump's 'favourite dictator' who was, quite incredibly, honoured by President Macron with France's highest award, the Legion of Honour, as recently as last December.  What a mockery of the thousands who have perished or languish, still, in Egypt's prisons for nothing more than desiring the freedom we take for granted in the West.

I'm in contact with Declan Walsh of The New York Times - here's his recent piece entitled 'A Decade On, Silence Fills Egypt’s Field of Broken Dreams', if you are interested.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/world/middleeast/egypt-arab-spring-tahrir.html?referringSource=articleShare

And here is my own commentary from Cairo itself on the fifth anniversary... 

https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2138349814952234029