Saturday
Jul222006
The revolt of the frogs
Hossam el-Hamalawy
It is said when you throw a frog into boiling water, it jumps out right away. But when you put it in warm water, then heat the pan increasingly till the boiling point, the frog will not take notice, till suddenly it's faced with a boiling situation and dies. The learned wisdom, the frogs have to revolt now, coz they have nothing to lose but their boiling pans.
With those words activist blogger 3alaa starts a funny posting titled, "Boiling the Frogs between Cairo and Tel Aviv," where political activism meets his cyber-humour. Behind the cartoon and the Egyptian street slang humour however, there lies a lot in 3alaa's message.
3alaa, an independent leftist, shares a belief upheld by many on the left in Egypt today: the local is connected to the regional. A blow struck against autocracy in Cairo, solidifies the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, and vice versa.
During the 15 July demo in solidarity with Sharqawi and Sha3er before their release, 3alaa and his fellow bloggers were distributing a statement, brilliantly written in my view.
The statement affirmed the leftist bloggers' support for Hizbollah and Hamas in their fight to liberate the Lebanese and Palestinian detainees, but drew the attention to the Egyptian fight to liberate our own detainees in the regime's prisons. The statement is only available in Arabic, and could be found here. 3alaa did not forget to add his own humourous touch to it, signing the statement in the name of "30th of February Organization," the name activist bloggers are jokingly referring to themselves by.
In his last posting, you can see a frog chanting against Mubarak, saluting the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance, and stating that "boiling" will not deter dissent.
With those words activist blogger 3alaa starts a funny posting titled, "Boiling the Frogs between Cairo and Tel Aviv," where political activism meets his cyber-humour. Behind the cartoon and the Egyptian street slang humour however, there lies a lot in 3alaa's message.
3alaa, an independent leftist, shares a belief upheld by many on the left in Egypt today: the local is connected to the regional. A blow struck against autocracy in Cairo, solidifies the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, and vice versa.
During the 15 July demo in solidarity with Sharqawi and Sha3er before their release, 3alaa and his fellow bloggers were distributing a statement, brilliantly written in my view.
The statement affirmed the leftist bloggers' support for Hizbollah and Hamas in their fight to liberate the Lebanese and Palestinian detainees, but drew the attention to the Egyptian fight to liberate our own detainees in the regime's prisons. The statement is only available in Arabic, and could be found here. 3alaa did not forget to add his own humourous touch to it, signing the statement in the name of "30th of February Organization," the name activist bloggers are jokingly referring to themselves by.
In his last posting, you can see a frog chanting against Mubarak, saluting the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance, and stating that "boiling" will not deter dissent.
Reader Comments (3)
I should have added an outline around the speech bubbles, doesn't look good with a white background
Cool...
Hey 3alaa, Let me know whenever you decide to add that outline. I'll upload it, and replace this one posted already.
Again, nice posting ya Tennin.