Reading+Reponses

Post your responses for Thursday January 19th by adding a comment to the discussion board. -Moira

18/01/12 Committee: General Assembly Topic: Sports for Peace and Development Country: Arab Republic of Egypt Delegate: Yelyzaveta Savchynets Kalynychenko(3 C)

The Arab Republic of Egypt has been under the sever dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak in between 1981 and 11 February 2011. During this period of time, Egyptians were kept under pressure and deprived of basic needs; such as lack of speech, high unemployment rate (24.8%), low wages, inflation, police brutality, state emergency laws... Owing to this, the 25 February 2011, a popular uprising took place in Egypt. It was a campaign of non-violent civil resistance which included marches, demonstrations, labour strikes and acts of civil disobedience.

People beseeched to overthrow Mubarak. Of course, he decided to counter-attack and the revolution wasn`t finally non-violent; security forces sent by Mubarak killed 846 citizens and left 6,000 severely injured.



As stated by a demonstrator, this is want most of Egyptians believe: "This day, I assure you, will be mentioned in history as a point of change all over the Middle East, said Mokhtar Kamel. "Gone are the old days where antiquated brutal regimes are controlling the area."

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Regardless to the video of "Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian recolution" and the text Power of the Powerless, as delegate of the Arab Republic of Egypt I need to claim that Egypt is pulling through just the same that Czechoslovakia in the moments of transition from the Soviet Union to a democratic, free nation. During Mubarak's dictatorship, Egyptians were afraid of going against a dictator, but mainly because of the acknowlege that something better could be waiting for them. But when brave people who knew about something better, they understood they could not adapt to this situation as their parents did, they comprehend that if they did it they would be contributing to the dictatorship and they decided they had to show of their disagreement. Manifestations continue and the SCAF(Supreme Council of Armed Forces) is currently ruling over Egypt. Parliamentary elections had taken place in November 2011 after they had been replaced and this had to be followed by constitutional and presidential changes. As Wael Ghonim claims in the video: "This is not the end, this in the beginning of the end". And I would turn again to the statement of our president and Noble prize, Aswan El-Sadat(1970-1981):"He who can not change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress". On the whole, Egypt has began with change, and the reality is that, now more than ever, campaignes for development need to be implanted.

