{"id":26219,"date":"2013-07-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/26219\/a-protest-showdown-lebanon-versus-egypt"},"modified":"2023-08-11T03:07:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T03:07:48","slug":"a-protest-showdown-lebanon-versus-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/en\/26219\/a-protest-showdown-lebanon-versus-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"A Protest Showdown: Lebanon Versus Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"With the heat just beginning, it seems like the Arab Spring has finally turned into a long-awaited Arab Summer.<br \/>  <br \/>  Over the weekend, political protests in both Egypt and Lebanon took both countries by storm, with an estimated 200 people gathering for the former, and <i>millions<\/i> stampeding for the latter. With similar causes\u2014Lebanon rallying to denounce its parliament&#8217;s mandate extension and Egypt hoping to impeach President Morsi\u2014it seemed that Arabs everywhere were expressing their political frustrations in arguably the best way how\u2014the age old art of protesting.<br \/>  <br \/>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/26219-2.png\" width=\"100%\"><br \/>  <i>(Lebanese protesters in Nejmeh Square by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/174789446029310\/\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">\u0627\u0644\u062d\u0631\u0627\u0643 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u062f\u0646\u064a \u0644\u0644\u0645\u062d\u0627\u0633\u0628\u0629\u200e<\/a>)<\/i><br \/>  <br \/>  Population wise, Egypt dwarfs Lebanon&#8217;s 4.3 million with a whopping 83 million of their own, so its quite unfair to judge protest numbers based off of attendance.<br \/>  <br \/>  Yet one stark difference between the two countries is clear; Lebanese protests were <i>only<\/i> going on in downtown Beirut, whereas Egyptian ones were <i>everywhere<\/i>\u2014all over Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Suez, and even in the U.S. <br \/>  <br \/>  Millions upon millions of Egyptians took to social media to express their solidarity, branding the now famous slogan &#8220;Ta7ya Masr!&#8221; on statuses, tweets, posters, and faces. And unlike Lebanon, police brutality did not make headlines\u2014in fact, at one point, the Egyptian army <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-23115821\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">reportedly <\/a> flew in and dropped Egyptian flags on Tahrir Square, to the many cheers of protesters.<br \/>  <br \/>  Regardless of their religion, political party, or social class, nationalism is the redeeming quality of all Egyptians. Ask any Egyptian person (and as an Egyptian, I can vouch for this), who they are and the first thing you will hear is a resounding &#8220;Ana Masri.&#8221; Ask the very same question to a Lebanese and you&#8217;ll most likely hear &#8220;I&#8217;m from Bekaa. I&#8217;m Druze. I&#8217;m a Hezbollah supporter. I&#8217;m Orthodox. I&#8217;m from Ain Saadeh.&#8221;<br \/>  <br \/>  Though we&#8217;ve yet to see any tangible outcomes from either protest, it is clear that Egypt is currently the protest champion. Ta7ya Masr!<br \/>  <br \/>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/26219-1-250x167.png\" width=\"100%\"><br \/>  <i>(Egyptian protesters in Tahrir Square, by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=515483135165733&#038;set=a.194153880631995.46816.194147200632663&#038;type=1&#038;theater\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">STOP Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon<\/a>)<\/i>    <figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" data-id=\"450319\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/26219-250x188.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-450319\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/26219-250x188.png 250w, https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/26219.png 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" ><img decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"450321\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/26219-1-250x167.png\" alt=\"(Photo via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=515483135165733&#038;set=a.194153880631995.46816.194147200632663&#038;type=1&#038;theater\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">STOP Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon<\/a>)&#8221; class=&#8221;wp-image-450321&#8243;\/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">(Photo via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=515483135165733&#038;set=a.194153880631995.46816.194147200632663&#038;type=1&#038;theater\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">STOP Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>    ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the heat just beginning, it seems like the Arab Spring has finally turned into a long-awaited Arab Summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":450323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_preview_accessed":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[340],"media-embed-type":[],"class_list":["post-26219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-wethepeople"],"authorship":[176],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Protest Showdown: Lebanon Versus Egypt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With the heat just beginning, it seems like the Arab Spring has finally turned into a long-awaited Arab Summer.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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