Friday, September 16, 2011

EGYPT - Fight for the 'Soul' of a Nation

"Egypt's Young Revolutionaries See Fight for the 'Soul' of a Nation" PBS Newshour 9/15/2011

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Margaret Warner continues her reporting from post-revolutionary Egypt.

Tonight -- tonight, she talks with political activists trying to find their way in an uncertain future.

MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): The road from Tahrir Square to a new Egypt winds through modest neighborhoods like Imbaba in Cairo. And last night, volunteers from the new Al-Adl, or Justice Party, descended on this coffee shop with good cheer and resolve, bearing brochures and campaign videos, trying to coax an audience from their cars in the streets and from their games of backgammon indoors.

But the young organizers found that, in the brand-new game of Egyptian retail politics, it's a buyer's market.

MAN (through translator): I think, in a couple of years, these parties will be filtered and you can determine who is good or not. Then, I can make a choice. Right now, I can't decide.

MARGARET WARNER: But time is what the dozens of new political parties in Egypt don't have. Parliamentary elections are just around the corner, yet the ruling Military Council hasn't set a firm date or campaign laws.

It's a far cry from the clarity of the heady revolution last winter that began with protests in Tahrir Square and ended with toppling President Hosni Mubarak 18 days later. The challenge now, building a democratic Egypt in Mubarak's place.

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