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elcome to the Digital Meltd0wn Music Blog. The aim of this blog is to introduce the readers to music that is out of print, commercially unavailable, released under a creative commons license, or with approval by the featured artist. The majority of the music posted here would be considered underground. Don't let that fool you into thinking that the music featured here might be any less enjoyable than that of the mainstream artists you hear on the radio, as this couldn't be further from the truth. Please keep in mind that the majority of the artists that appear on this blog, along with their respective record labels, are not wealthy and need your support. If you enjoy the material that you find here, please support the artists/labels by purchasing their material afterwards. If you are an artist/label that would prefer to have your material removed from this blog, simply leave me a comment, and I would be more than happy to promptly remove the offending post. In addition to running this blog, I also work on a few other projects during my spare time. You can find links to those, as well as a few other important links associated with Digital Meltd0wn in the menu bar above.

Friday, February 04, 2011

A Message to Protesters and Revolutionaries in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and Jordan - رسالة إلى المتظاهرين والمناضلين في كل من مصر وتونس ، واليمن

Egyptian Revolution

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

working for an international import/export company, i too am watching this with keen interest and applaud these brave souls in their on-going fight for freedom and for change....
kudos to you for your message!
GMB

Zer0_II said...

The events taking place in Egypt have made me realize the true power of the internet. I have been saying for years that I believe the internet will be remembered as one of the most important inventions of the 20th century. I don't think anyone could have predicted that it would play such a key role in massive protests and revolutions. I can only imagine what type of impact it might have in the future.

I also believe that the events that have occurred in the Middle East have underlined the importance of internet usage as a basic fundamental right. When a form of communication becomes instrumental in helping people to obtain their freedom, then they should have just as much right to use it as they have the right to bare arms. Perhaps this will make people think twice before allowing President Obama access to an internet "kill switch." In a time of crisis, people need to be able to effectively communicate, not have that ability taken away from them.

Even though the world wide web has only been around for a few decades now, a historical pattern has already begun to emerge. Governments which seek to restrict internet access, generally have poor human rights records. The internet may be the single most important method for communicating with others around the world for the next century. It is important that governments allow their citizens to freely access the internet. Failure to do so sends a clear message that they wish to hide their oppressive activities from the rest of the world, and prevent their citizens from reporting what is taking place there or reaching out for help.

I think the following picture sums up how I feel about the situation: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_h8iJcagR9X0/TUX6B1k2O0I/AAAAAAAACbY/CAW6hn3944A/s400/Vut.jpg

Zer0_II said...

@GMB: Thank you for taking the time to comment. Although I try to follow politics and news throughout the world, I prefer to remain apolitical on the blog. However, the events taking place in Egypt have truly captured me, and I found it impossible not to respond to the situation taking place. Not only do I feel as if I have a debt to watch what the Egyptians are accomplishing, I also feel as if it is important to let them know that we are watching, and they have the support of the entire world.

It truly is inspiring to see so many people from around the world assuring the Egyptian people that we are watching what they are doing, and we are supporting them the best way we know how. The internet has made this outreaching possible, and I feel honored to be able to witness such a historic event unfold.

IMI said...

I would find it hard to believe that anyone in an industrialized society is ignorant of what is happening and has their fingers crossed, hoping for the best. What may not be represented well, as you pointed out, is the scope or all the elements behind the protests. For example, Sadat was not very well liked and yet he was portrayed as being popular im the western press. Something similar happened in Iraq when Saddam's statue was pulled down. The few people there weren't chanting for the US like the western press implied, but possibly a more fundamentalist and repressive regime.

That's what I'm unsure of is who is behind the protests - is it the Muslem Brotherhood and what will they bring? Egypt has never been a democracy.

I spent some time in Egypt >twenty years ago and Mubarak wasn't liked then. I'm surprised he's hung on this long. Life outside of Cairo (and the tourist path) it was pretty primitive (no ac, flushing toliets, etc).

About all I can be sure of anymore is that if an anti-corporate gov't looked like it was about to take control, industrialized nations would step in. Thank for taking the time to point out how revolutiomary this truely is.

Art is expression, including political. I can't watch the whole world and my focus the last decade has been on central and south Americas.

Strange Ranger said...

Exciting stuff. I hope it works out, and that not too many concessions are made to the opportunists who are looking to exploit the situation in order to get richer.

LONG LIVE EGYPT!

Zer0_II said...

IMI: Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I think you are giving many people in the United States far too much credit though. Unfortunately there are millions of people here who simply do not care about what is going on in the rest of the world, nor do they understand the historic importance of what is taking place there. These people simply want to be left alone in their capitalistic snow-globe fantasy land.

I honestly do not think the Muslim Brotherhood are behind the protests, and if they are, they have went about their business in a most ingenius way. If you will remember, the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed ElBaradei did not come out of the woodwork to join the protests until after they were already in full swing. I have been watching Al Jazeera and CNN closely since the protests first started. Both networks have interviewed Muslim Brotherhood members since they first joined the protests. The Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly stated that they are not interested in running for political offices, and that this revolution is for all Egyptians, including Christians, rather than being an Islamic revolution.

It is getting late here, so I need to cut off my comment there, but I would like to finish responding to your comment as soon as I have more time...

IMI said...

You've already added more than I was aware of. Right after I wrote last night, I peaked at a couple of foriegn news sites -Asia Times and one in Mexico. They both were speculating on Israel's involvement. That's something I hadn't considered. The Economist had an article on the possibilities which I havent looked up yet.

I think it's rare for mass grass roots movements to be rise spontantiously. They are funded by someone. The Us has become pros at causing destabilization through civil wars. I'm doubtful Egyptians are protesting for the right to get McDonalds. I wouldn't trust CNN. I just downloaded several weeks of podcasts from Democracy Now from itunes (free). Another paper that overs decent coverage is the Guardian.

I don't think people in the US are as ignorant as they sound. I think they just want to believe what they want to believe; i.e. "Faith" has replaced critical reasoning and become more important than truth. The truth is too humbling and depressing. "Democracy" has become an economic term. The US has sided with Iran after the shah was booted calling that "Democracy". Same in Haiti, Venezuela, several others that removed democratically elected leaders in favor of dictatorships. I'm not projecting anything, I just suspect this isn't as simple or innocent as mainstream would like us to believe. Egypt is extremely geographicaly strategic. War is a business.

The internet has always scared me as to how fragile it is when it's taken it for granted.

saturnword said...

@IMI Your statement on toilets makes me question when you were in Cairo. Flushing toilets have been common since the 80's or 90's as far as I'm aware (possibly before then even). More so in the cities than in the villages and poorer areas. I've lived there for several years and visited off and on after that.

That aside, this wasn't started by the Muslim Brotherhood and this is not a religious revolution. This was something started by intellectuals that live there were peacefully demonstrated and then attacked by police in the street. Christians, muslims, and the agnostics/atheists in the country have banded together from day one of this to take on the police and Mubarak. The proof of this has been all over the web since the start. Best news sources that I have seen for this is Associated Press and AlJazeera English. AP has some graphic videos on their site in regards to this as does the facebook page that I linked below.

http://inanities.org/
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/
http://www.facebook.com/elshaheeed.co.uk
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/HOME?SITE=AP

Here's a relevant blog post of mine on this: http://domesticgenocide.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=d4ef9802353603657550285be3ad4fe4&topic=332.msg618

Record Fiend said...

Zer0_II,

I appreciate your recent comments over at my place. If you add a blogroll to your site, I'll gladly list your site in mine in exchange for the return gesture. I already have a button for your blogroll site on my sidebar, but I understand that what you're doing here is now your primary focus.

Power to the people.

RF

Anonymous said...

A great day for ordinary people everywhere. however we should not make the mistake of thinking that democracy means fredoom, it only means the freedom of multinational companies & the powerful few to exploit workers by making them think that having a vote can actually change anything, we have had democracy in the west for many decades & yet real power remains in the hands of the wealthy, the rich get richer & the poor pay the price. The Earth & its bounty belongs us all Equally & real freedom will only exist when poverty,hunger,slave labour, & exploitation of the many by the few has been eradicated.
Long live The peoples revolution

psychedelic48

IMI said...

Saturnworld: Thx for your comments. I was traveling with WHO and was not in major cities (toliets and dung fuel) apx 20yrs ago. Even then the poverty in Cairo alone was not pretty if a person ventured off the "tourist path". If the disparity had gotten worse between have's and have not's ... I can't imagine it. "Democracy" has been turned into an economic term meaning "freedom for corporations" to ignore local laws; pollution, overtime pay, hours, etc. The Suez canal is a major strategic assest that both British and Russian's battled for. Israel has always been hyper-nervous about Egypt. War is big buisness.

I caught a couple of glimpes from commentators on FOX and ... they should be reclassified as comedy.

It seems the rvolution was not any one population and the unifying aspect warmed my soul. I have not stayed up to date on the middle east since any area takes independent research to avoid filtered hype. That's why I'm glad to hear from people who are more in tune with an area.

I heard Yemen was next. That's amazing since it was largely a tribal culture when I was there.

f said...

Hi Mike, long time dont come to your blog, so when I see your post and I could not keep quiet. Did you know that all that protest are organaized by USA goverment? USA are loosing they economic positions, they in crisis, and they want to strike European Union and Russia,to negotiate the situation and rise up. You can google and find some documents about USA organaized protests. And remeber when Mubarak refused to resign, he was immediately asked by Obama.
Relationship between Russia and European union become more stable and better, and it is bad for USA. There is a huge amount of oil comes throu Egypt to Europe, if the flow will be blocked it will destabilizes the economic in Europe and the dollar will strengthen its position. And of course USA wants to kick out Putin. So I think there will be soon organaized revolutions in Russia, just like in Egypt. if you know, there will be presidential election in Russia in 2012, so they want to organaize revolution in Russia to, to kick out Putin, to reduce its reputation before the election, and if Putin will lose USA take control of Russia through their agents, like Hodorkovsky, thats why Putin blocked him in advance. It is all a very difficult situation to explain, its not so simple as you think. I don't want to offence you or USA people, its not about people, its about government, and sorry for my English, some things I can't explain correctly.

Zer0_II said...

Hey Fillzy. It's good to finally see you again old friend. How has life been treating you? Before I forget, do you happen to have an invite for Vkontakte, or know anyone that would? I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me out with that.

I can say without much doubt in my mind that the protests were not organized by the United States. I have talked with several people from Egypt, as well as those in other countries where protests are occurring. The Egyptian Revolution was largely the result of the youth in Egypt being upset with the abuses by the state police, unemployment, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. I almost think that it is disrespectful to those who were courageous enough to take to the streets to give the United States credit for their actions, which required a great deal of courage and determination on their part.

Aside from that, the United States stands to lose a great deal from the Egyptian Revolution. The US was investing nearly $2 billion dollars a year into Egypt. Our government would have rather kept Mubarak in power, and maintain the status quo in Egypt, rather than see a revolution which could have unintended consequences. The United States was behind the curve from the very beginning, not only with the Egyptian protests, but those in Tunisia. Obama didn't take a firm stance against Mubarak and ask him to step down until it had become obvious that the protesters were going to succeed in pushing him out of power. I have been following Al Jazeera very closely. They provided much better coverage of the protests that other media outlets, such as CNN, and they have a better understanding of what is taking place there and why. They have a number of excellent documentaries on their website that are well worth checking out. Many of them were filmed months and years ahead of the protests, and feature stories about several activists who were organizing protests and speaking out against the government via blogs and social networking.

I honestly can't comment on the situation in Russia because I know next to nothing about it, but I would be shocked if large scale protests did occur there. I don't doubt that the United States does fear a powerful Russia, and hasn't completely let go of their cold war fears. After all, many of the same politicians who were in office in the 70s and 80s are still in power.

f said...

I'm okey man, I got much work at my job now.
as for Vkontakte, its difficult to invite someone. I need to write down my cell phone number to them, which I don't whant. But I can give you a keys from one of my account (I got 3) , my old account that I don't use. I can give you login and pass. I just wanna ask for what purpose you need an account? Because to be honest Vkontakte is a shity network for 16 years old emo girls, nothing intresting, the only thing that good is that you can watch online movies, very large ammount of movies, old and new, because there is no moderation there, people can upload porn and murder videos and its ok. Nobody from administration will delete it.
if you not intresting in videos there is nothing to do there.

if you got time , please read this page, just translate it using google from russian to english.
http://eg.ru/daily/politics/23969/
of course translation will be not perfect but you will got the main idea, very intresting and logical article.

f said...

friend, did you get my last comment?

Zer0_II said...

@f(illzy): I responded to your comment above. Are you referring to a different message? If so, I didn't see any other comments or e-mail messages from you.