By Mairi Mackay, CNNAugust 9, 2011
London (CNN) -- Fresh from their own revolution, Egyptian bloggers tried to make sense of the scenes of looting and burning buildings coming out of the United Kingdom Monday.Violence initially sparked by the shooting death of a 29-year-old man in London spread to other parts of the nation Monday night, with dramatic scenes of blazing buildings and confrontations between police and hooded youths.
The news of London's riots -- along with the ongoing violence in Syria -- has captivated many Egyptians, with some saying that the revolution is spreading to the United Kingdom, according one CNN stringer in Cairo.
It is just over six months since former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down following 18 days of protests by hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Egyptian bloggers watched the action on Al Jazeera and CNN Monday evening, tweeting their thoughts and analyses of the situation in London.
Egyptian blogger Zeinobia, watching CNN live Monday tweeted of correspondent Dan Rivers' report from the south London neighborhood of Peckham that: "The CNN reporter in London is acting as if he is in a war zone."
Moments later, Rivers ran down the road to avoid bottles that were being thrown at him and Zeinobia tweeted "Oh God they are attacking the CNN crew in London and it was a live action."
Then Zeinobia, who participated in the February 2011 revolution in Egypt, went on to share her confusion about the methods employed by the rioters: "To be honest I do not understand why protesters would set shops and houses on fire by all measures."
Mosa'ab Elshamy, another blogger from Cairo who took part in the revolution, condemned the widespread looting, writing: "Egyptians and Tunisians took revenge for Khaled Said and Bouazizi by peacefully toppling their murdering regimes, not stealing DVD players."
Noor Noor, an Egyptian activist and son of presidential candidate Ayman Noor reflected on events Tuesday, saying: "Politically speaking, marginalized people and injustice is everywhere and when it happens in more developed countries like England, people are more likely to react more violently to injustice.
He added: "I hear people flirting with the word revolution in London but this is premature. The January 25 revolution started with certain demands that later resulted into controlled aggression. London started with aggression.
"In Egypt, corruption and oppression was part of the polluted air we breathed. In England its not necessarily the norm, so injustice may hurt even more."
While Sarah Abdel Rahman, an Egyptian student and activist who participated in the revolution from the start, added: "Violence is not justified but there must (be a cause) behind all this destruction.
"The government should analyze it because if the kids felt like they owned their neighborhoods or related to to them, they would not have destroyed them."
Tuesday, as London started to clean up the mess left by Monday's riots, many Egyptians on Twitter likened it to efforts made by them to clear up Tahrir Square after the revolution.
Amr Tarek Gayed, a student at university in Cairo likens the London cleanup to the cleanup of Tahrir Square post-revolution: "While Cleaning the Streets of #London ... Exactly as we cleaned the streets of #Tahrir Square ... British or Egyptian we are all the same :D"
Blogger The Big Pharaoh wrote: "#Tahrir spirit in #London. Brits in #cleanlondon, marching with brushes exactly like what we did. http://yfrog.com/kj5oewj"
Mohamed Fadel Fahmy in Cairo contributed to this report.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/08/09/london.riots.egyptian.bloggers/index.html?&hpt=hp_c2
By: aydeo
In: Other News, Other Middle East
Tags: Egyptian bloggers, UK riots,
Marked as: approved
Views: 6253 | Comments: 18 | Votes: 0 | Favorites: 0 | Shared: 0 | Updates: 0 | Times used in channels: 2
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not a riot nor a revolution. simply large amounts of social detritus partaking in mass burglary.
Posted Aug-10-2011 ByWell_Red (175.10) 
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LOL, it's not a riot, it's mass opportunist looting and vandalism by scum. There is no objective. The moron who was shot and is used as the excuse for this was armed with a blank firing gun modified to shoot live ammo FFS.
Posted Aug-10-2011 Bydorbie (2528.40) dorbie View Channel Send Message
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"The government should analyze it because if the kids felt like they owned their neighborhoods or related to to them, they would not have destroyed them."
The niger doesn't value anything other that himself.He hates his host country and despises the local population.He would do anything to better his own life ,especially if it involves trampling over "whitey's shit".
Posted Aug-10-2011 ByKpEMuKoBcu (32.30) 
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@dmorgan0628 Yeah,this is a perfect example.
Posted Aug-10-2011 ByKpEMuKoBcu (32.30) 
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Just saw an article that British media have completely ignored the viewpoint of the rioters/protesters. They are niggers offended at being stopped by the police every day for no reason. Others are whites and blacks who cannot afford to live anymore and take it out on the businesses in order to get the message to government. In Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria the protesters pride themselves on not using weapons and showing max restraint against brutal police force. In UK they are fucking hopeless mo More..
Posted Aug-10-2011 ByLarry0011 (176.90) 
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Makes me sick when they said they where looting to get taxes back. It would help if you fucking contributed to it in the first place. Hope you all get caught. I saw one dumb bastard coming out of poundland with about £5 worth of food lol, hope it was worth it you uncivilised shits.
Posted Aug-10-2011 ByStuntManMike (262.70) 
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lol 1 million protesters in egypt= no fires. 10 chavs smahing london up burn it down
Posted Aug-10-2011 Byjay333dee (339.00) jay333dee View Channel Send Message
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@jay333dee
wanna check that again...?
during the weeks of mass protests in Cairo there was quite allot of damage, including heavy damage and looting in their national Antiques Museum.
Posted Aug-10-2011 Byaydeo (6046.58) 
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@aydeo Still i didnt see any buildings burning. If there were 1 million london protesters. i hate to think what would be left
Posted Aug-10-2011 Byjay333dee (339.00) jay333dee View Channel Send Message
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These Egyptians want to think of it as 'protests'...its fits the easy prism of nasty English Govt, police against hapless immigrants
Problem is, the facts don't fit into the prism...so they're confused
Posted Aug-10-2011 ByElegantDecline (2130.98) 
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No money and jobs make youth get mad <--- summary of whole event
Posted Aug-10-2011 ByDGJames (19.34) 
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@MB-UK I have no clue about the whole event <--- Reality
Posted Aug-23-2011 ByDGJames (19.34) 
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