How to Follow #Egypt

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, especially since my ability to keep track of and understand political events is kind of why they keep me around here at the Quad, but until yesterday I wasn’t totally sure what was going on in Egypt. I knew that a lot of people were very angry and were taking their anger to the streets, but that was about it. And at the risk of wrongly accusing the rest of you, I’d bet that you don’t have the rapidly unfolding events totally within your grasp either. Lucky for you (and me), the Internet is here to save the day. Here are some of the news organizations, blogs, and people who seem to be telling it like it is. So go forth and educate yourself!

Mother Jones, the popular political magazine, has an idiot-proof guide to the protests in Egypt.  In a single post that is being continuously updated MoJo gives you the basics of the situation, then provides a list of the major events so far, starting from Jan. 25 when the protests erupted and continuing through to the present. Once you know the basics — the protests started on a national level last week in response to long-held anger towards Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s heavy-handed rule and the dire economic straits Egypt finds itself in — you can move to other resources to fill in the gaps.

Al Jazeera English has been streaming live coverage of the events in Cairo. They assume a certain level of familiarity with the subject and don’t waste time rehashing the story every five minutes, but instead focus on the developments in the protests and the government, as well as provide predictions for events to come. This is a great resource, and based on the feed I was watching the level of discourse is much higher than what I am accustomed to on the American 24-hour news/fear cycle.

Moving away from traditional media: personal blogs, Twitter, and YouTube are all interesting ways to keep abreast of the details of the situation.

In particular, one Cairo activist’s blog, The Arabist, provides quick, specific updates of the situation on the ground. Again, the author assumes that you already know what is going on in Egypt and is trying to fill in the gaps left by major news outlets. The blog takes a decidedly anti-police, pro-protest viewpoint, but does so while providing interesting, relevant information rather than harping on a grudge.

Twitter was a great resource for those organizing the protests early on in the movement, but Mubarak has shut down Internet access in Egypt. However, many have found workarounds (for instance, using dial-up connections routed through other countries) and some groups outside Egypt, including a French internet provider and the folks at the Openmesh Project, are trying to help solve this problem. Following #Egypt and #Jan25, and #Jan28 will bring up plenty of interesting, thoughtful tweets and tweeters.

YouTube is currently sporting a link across the top of its screen which takes you to CitizenTube. Here, YouTube has compiled a playlist of videos taken on the streets of Egypt as protests unfold. The great thing about this is that you can get an idea of the scale of the protests and the almost desperate anger of the protesters. The not so great thing is that none of the videos are in English and hardly any have an English explanation, so unless you understand Arabic you won’t be able to understand what is going on. Nevertheless, getting an idea of the scene on the ground is crucial to really understanding the situation, and video is the best tool we have to do that.

Obviously, with such an important situation grabbing the attention of the whole world there is no way one post could contain all the trustworthy, interesting resources that are out there. But this should be a good start to providing an understanding of the crisis in Egypt. And while it is easy to get caught up in the riots themselves and forget the reasons behind them, there is a very important game of musical chairs being played by Egypt’s government, not to mention the responses of international governments, including the United States. Stay tuned for Quad coverage of the details later this week.