My article this week was about Egypt and its sparking internal conflict, specifically the growing “yellow vest” movement. This movement initially started in France. These French people had started a grassroots citizens’ movement. This initially began over the rising of fuel prices and eco taxes, but has escalated dramatically and quickly since then. About a month or two ago, thousands of French protesters took to the streets and went on a complete riot. There were hundreds of people injured and hundreds of people arrested through these protests. These protests were barbaric. People were burning cars, throwing bombs, and just overall crazy violence in the streets. As this movement spreads, it becomes potentially more and more dangerous. However, these protests ended up turning into a deeper meaning. The protests started to target the French president, Emmanuel Macron and his policies. But, this uprising has spread to other countries like Egypt. In the article, an Egyptian prosecutor ordered a lawyer to be arrested after there was a picture of him wearing a yellow vest, similar like the ones worn by the French protesters. I feel that’s Egypt’s government is doing all they can to avoid this protests from happening and spreading over into Egypt. They are trying to put down anyone, especially bigger figures, who would possibly be supporting this protest. Egypt has taken drastic measures to prevent this. For example, they made store traders in Cairo say that they would stop selling the vests to customers and that anyone who sells a vest will put themselves in trouble. Personally, if I was the president of Egypt, I would be scared. I would be taking every caution possible to prevent this protests from happening in my country. Even though it’s started off as being against higher taxes, it turned into a target protest against the president. I would also try to avoid the protest movement because of how much violence and destruction that goes on during these raids. Not only are they dangerous to citizens, but this destruction could also lead to the loss of millions of dollars. Which if you think about it would lead to higher taxes anyway, so wouldn’t that be a lose-lose for the protesters? Overall, Egypt is trying its best to prevent this contagious and potentially deadly protest from entering their country.
