Walk With An Egyptian, III

New Haven, Connecticut

Walk With An Egyptian, II

New Haven, Connecticut

One of the chants was simply, "Democracy, not Hypocrisy!" Bassem Khalifa, a 28 year old Egyptian studying at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, speaking above, stressed that, more important than the question of what the United States should do, is the demand that America stop interfering in Egypt, and elsewhere, by financing and backing autocratic dictatorships. I wasn't recording audio, but have borrowed this quote of what he said, as reported by the New Haven Register. “They (Egyptians) don’t want the United States to interfere. They want the United States to stop interfering, to stop supporting dictatorships, to stop supporting security regimes and to really uphold the ideals of the United States, which is liberty and freedom and democracy and all of these great things that people have for centuries come to the United States to seek out."

 

More chants: "Brick by Brick, Wall by Wall, We Will See Mubarak Fall!" 

The crowd of 50 or 60 looked to be about half students and half older people. There was media coverage with camera crews from two regional TV station affiliates, at least one AM radio station, and several people who looked like students doing video or still coverage that might be for school publications. Oddly I didn't see anyone doing stills coverage for the state's newspapers. I found a text-only article on the web site of the New Haven Register the next day, and the Hartford Courant's web site linked to video shot by the Fox CT videographer/reporter team.

After about an hour the demonstration wound up and people headed back to normal life for the afternoon. I didn't find out if there are plans for repeats.

Walk With An Egyptian, I

New Haven, Connecticut

Yesterday, Monday, 2/7/11, there was protest on the Yale University campus, on the square in front of the Beinecke Library, to demonstrate support for the Egyptian people and opposition to the Mubarak regime. An Ivy League demonstration turns out to be, well, extraordinarily civil. There were placards and signs. There was some chanting involving clever wordplay.

Several people who appeared to be students from the middle east made short addresses to the crowd, as did an older man—obviously not a current student—representing a Palestinian rights organization. Another woman read a two page email she'd just received from a friend in Cairo. It stressed that the demonstrators in Tahrir Square included citizens of all ages, from all walks of life, Coptic Christians as well as Muslims, and none of them were going to settle for less than the departure of Mubarak and his cronies. "Transition" that would leave most of the existing clique in power was not on the table for the demonstrators.

The only mildly violent imagery was a cartoon poster showing a soccer player booting the president's ass into the distance:

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