Arab Spring 1

We just finished listening to President Obama’s speech on the Middle East and are feeling proud. It was specific, challenging and (we feel) spoke to the concerns of Egyptians. Hopefully meetings with Israel’s Netanyahu in the next few days will produce some action on a Palestinian state.  In the next five days we have several social events with Moslem and Christian friends here and will discover their reactions.

This was the second time today that President Obama has been the center of attention here.  Today, after returning from the pyramids, we met up with two officials from the US Embassy and had lunch. They alerted us to a planned demonstration on the street below us.  As we emerged from lunch, the demonstration was in full force down the street.  It was different from the one we’d observed yesterday in Tahrir Square (a large one is planned for tomorrow) in that the participants were clearly fundamentalists: men with beards, galabayas and hats, women in full black burkas (which are unusual in Cairo).  A large sign addressed to Obama was being held up by two men, while others held smaller signs with the same message.  One of the women allowed me to take her picture with the sign: “Freedom for Omar Abd El Rahman” with the blind iman’s photo.

Last night, our friend’s daughter who had been an HR director for Coke (she is Magda in Cairo Diary), explained how she and a friend had opened their own personnel recruitment agency.  She explained that while she had never taken an interest in politics before, she now faithfully watches the news.  This new sense of engagement and empowerment among the youth was reported by our embassy friends as well.

More tomorrow, Linda

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 19th, 2011 at 11:20 am and is filed under Leadership, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.