So, I'm going to Egypt...

So, I'm going to Egypt...

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"The west is bracing itself. Another fait accompli, this time in the Arab world's most populous nation, on Palestine's border, would be a nakba [catastrophe] for western control. So the American administration is immediately speaking of Mubarak's "opportunity . . . to implement political, economic and social reforms to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people". The phrase "managed change" is uttered. You can be sure America's managers are hard at work. What they have to lose in Egypt is as incalculable as what the Egyptian people have to gain." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/28/after-tunisia-robin-yassin-kassab-syria
 
raid said:
Correction: There is no place with zero risk. 😀
Dive in the Red Sea, and watch out for sharks. 😀😎
Click to expand...

😀 I was going to say at the start "your more likely to suffer a shark attack" but I didn't think it would be news in the US.

... and as one is more likely to be struck by lightening while playing golf than attacked by a shark
 
I'm neither particularly adventurous nor particularly unadventurous but these kinds of decisions are made easy by having a small kid. No way am I risking leaving this kid an orphan. Who would teach him how master a camera (that's probably not going to be me anyway 🙂? The argument that there's no place without risk doesn't really say anything. Of course there's no place without risk but surely there are places and activities with more risk than others. It all depends on where your risk threshold is. In my case, it's somewhere before going to Egypt during a potential popular revolution. And I'm a European and I've traveled around the world, including to third-world countries.
 
"Heightening the tension, the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest organized opposition group in the country, announced Thursday that it would take part in the protest. The support of the Brotherhood could well change the calculus on the streets, tipping the numbers in favor of the protesters and away from the police, lending new strength to the demonstrations and further imperiling President Hosni Mubarak’s reign of nearly three decades. " http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/middleeast/28alexandria.html
 
Things are escalating and spreading throughout Egypt. If you're around any type of crowd that has a hint of protest, I would think it prudent to leave the cameras tucked away. Four photojournalists have/ had been detained and CNN and Al Jazeera journalists roughed up.

These types of situations can flare up rapidly and if communications and transport out of Egypt is cut off, it would become more than you'd bargained for.

As a photographer who would be on vacation, I'd take a pass unless the stories to be told were truly important for you and you have the financial and legal resources to fall back on if things got very ugly, which imo, is about to happen.

They're beginning to throttle access to the country for foreign journalists so take that as you will. My tea leaves tell me this could be the start of heavier military and police crackdowns and curfews.

If you decide to go, stay extremely safe and have your embassy/consular contact information with you at all times and check in with them as often as you can.
 
Not a good idea, in my opinion. Egypt has had security issues in the past i.e blowing up buses with tourists, etc. And that's when they didn't have mass protests in the streets. If i were Al Queda or the Muslim Brotherhood, I might consider taking advantage of the situation by attacking the country's main source of income, tourism and tourists.
 
I heard several things on the news this morning that would give me pause about going to Egypt: Mubarek is nowhere to be seen, and one might think that if he was in control he might want to show it; an Egypt expert claimed major changes are underway, there is no going back to the status quo; journalists and citizens are being beaten and tear-gassed.

As I see it, the situation is very dynamic, and just as events may move forward smoothly and peacefully, they can also get out of control. I don't think you should go Gabriel, but if you do, take care.
 
This sounds like a situation where Gabriel himself might be able to successfully navigate things, given that it doesn't get too out of hand. But the additional distraction of trying to watch out for another who clearly doesn't want to be involved would make it too risky for me.

Everyone really needs to be able to take care of themselves in a situation like this. It'd be like SCUBA diving in difficult conditions with a novice--you're greatly increasing both of your risks.
 
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Sparrow said:
😀 I was going to say at the start "your more likely to suffer a shark attack" but I didn't think it would be news in the US.

... and as one is more likely to be struck by lightening while playing golf than attacked by a shark
Click to expand...

There have been very recently several deadly shark attacks in the Red Sea in Egypt. Dr. Erich Ritter was leading the investigations into those attacks. He and I are currently working on a shark attack manuscript.
 
I understand everybody's reaction. It does seem very volatile. And specially Raid's advice carries a lot of weight for me (thank you, Raid).

But I still don't want to fall prey to the collective hysteria that is reigning in Western countries right now.

What caught my attention a few days ago was the following (it's in French, but I guess you can use Google Translate):

http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient...a-manifestation-de-vendredi_1471151_3218.html


Basically, residents themselves are saying that it is all very localized and from their point of view the foreign news are really sensationalizing it with the help of some very passionate Twitter updates.

If we're still going (which I doubt that myself right now), we are certainly not going anywhere near Cairo or Alexandria. The surest thing would be, of course, to just cancel (there is time). But I also don't want to foolishly buy into the sensationalism. As others have pointed out: just about anywhere is dangerous. Hell, living in Paris and taking the Metro in the current climate is dangerous.
 
Gabriel: There is no "localized" effect for such situations. People are very poor and they seem to be expressing a high level of anger and frustration with "anything" that they may perceive as a cause for their misery. This type of frustration is not found amoung the upper middle class or people, but the remaining 95% of the nation will be tense and potentially angry.

Save your butt and cameras and stay away from the Middle East for a few months until we can all see what will be the new political map in Northern Africa.
 
Dude, seriously, that kind of thinking is how people get hurt. You want to go, so you view things by that perspective. The situation cannot be predicted *at all*. You're considering a real game of russian roulette. Why?

"
But already I have started getting reports from citizen journalists that government-hired thugs will make sure that nothing about tomorrow is peaceful. They say that in several low-income parts of Cairo and Alexandria, government-hired thugs were seen to be splashing petroleum over parked cars. This to prepare for protests in which they'll light vehicles on fire when the time is right for them.


They've also heard rumours that the intelligence services will release a separate group of thugs under the name Akhwan al- Haq, or Brothers of Truth, a trumped-up extremist group, that will charge through the streets with swords and caustic acid to splash on the protesters - thus placing all the blame of a peaceful uprising gone violent on a certain kind of Islamic extremism."

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/28/imagining-new-egypt
 
How can anyone advise you? You go and most likely you will be safe, but you can not be sure of this. I won't go to Mexico because there are many other places I can go. Only you can decide what risk you are willing to take. I suspect that unrest and violence will get worse rather than better. The government will probably crack down and the fundamentalist Islamic Brotherhood is pushing this. They are using the legitimate concerns of the people to further their cause and this segment of the Islamic world might not be interested in peaceful means.
 
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