The short story: what had been talked about nonstop for the past month as a “day of anger” with national outbreaks of protests all over the place completely fizzled out with a pathetic whimper. About 40 people were arrested, mostly in Kafr al-Sheikh, and security presence was slightly more massive than usual. Clearly Gaza is a vastly more important issue than this ill-defined “day of anger”, and the very real, very serious anti-Mubarak movement in Egypt should dissociate itself from the “Shabab 6 April” if it wants to get anywhere. If they keep doing this, I predict a surge in the number of new applicants to join the NDP. Egypt’s activists and opposition politicians are discrediting themselves if they make a big deal about a day of protests that most don’t even participate in – and no, joining a Facebook group does not count.
The same with more curse words at Sandmonkey. Hossam will have more later but has already posted along the same lines. Those two agreeing on anything political is a small miracle, and it happened today.
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As a mutual friend is wont to remark "who saw that coming?"
Lame-ass demos are nothing new to Cairo. The opposition, in pretty well all its various ineffective and splintered forms, has at least my sympathy, but is there anybody out there who could demo their way out of a wet paper bag?