Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Moving Past the Movie: Understanding the U.S. Embassy Attack in Egypt

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, September 14, 2012

Moving Past the Movie: Understanding the U.S. Embassy Attack in Egypt

Click here to access article by Sara M. Salem from Muftah.

Here is another useful article in which the author contributes some additional details, insights, inconsistencies of official and mainstream reports, and background in relation to the complex phenomenon of anti-American protests currently going on in the Mid-East.

Regarding context, events do not happen in a vacuum – the lead-up is almost as important as the event itself. In the case of Egypt, the protests unfolded amid an on-going revolution, the rise of a transitional government, a deepening economic crisis, a possible IMF loan to Egypt, and intensifying foreign direct investment and privatization of the country’s economy.