Egypt’s “Day of Anger” Stays on a Low Simmer

The police turned out in full force in Cairo yesterday in anticipation of the April 6 youth movement’s call for a national strike aimed at the Mubarak government. But turnout by protesters was low: “barely one hundred demonstrators gathered in downtown Cairo.” The Arabist has pulled together today’s headlines in Egypt from the state-run newspapers to the opposition press, and they all agree the planned “day of anger” was a bust. Joseph Simons at the Foreign Policy Association’s Egypt blog notes that the few protesters who did take part were mainly students, with workers and the opposition parties sitting on the sidelines: “Although it supports April 6, it seems that the Egyptian political opposition is taking a more cautious and calculated approach, which may have weakened April 6’s ability to mobilize.”

The Committee to Protect Bloggers sees a silver lining in this anticlimactic turn of events: “Considering the fact that Egypt has arrested secular and left-wing students, attorneys, members of the press and of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood, I cannot imagine a better poster-child for the idea that all of us, regardless of our politics, religion, creed or ethnic background, are best served by the ability to say what we will in public and compete in the ‘marketplace of ideas’ than the Sixth of April. If that message can be taken away from this apparent failure, then maybe the failure is not so egregious after all.”