Posts from — February 2011

It is difficult, even for those of us with limited attention spans, to bring ourselves apart from the developments in Egypt and the region at large. Nearly all of us are impressed with a great and palpable sense that history is moving in seismic shifts even as we watch. This sense is compounded by the speculation we all indulged in, a little more than a week ago, as to whether other countries in the Middle East would follow Tunisia’s example. To be sure, the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, as well as the subsequent toppling of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was more likely than most things to set off such massive demonstrations elsewhere, but most of us tend to quietly believe that history never progresses quite at the rate we would have it move if we were the deities of such things, and that the best realistic outcome was a few minor demonstrations scattered over the region, followed by the usual arrests. [Read more →]