First Tunisia, Now Egypt: There is fresh air on the planet, may it blow in all directions -- let there be thousands of Tahrirs. On Tonight's program we being with Mark LeVine reporting from Tahrir Square on the jubilation and victory today, the organization he witnessed on the ground, the mood, music and sentiments expressed in the last eighteen days as a people Egyptians toppled a brutal dictatorship showing world what democracy looks like.
Then Yoav Peled joins us to talk about Israeli reaction and Israel-Egypt relations. We’ll ask Yoav “Whither the Middle East” after today’s events – in what directions will the fresh air blowing from Tunisia and Egypt continue? We’ll also talk to Yoav about “Post-Post Zionism” the title of Horit and Yoav Peled’s article in the latest New Left Review, confronting the Death of the Two-State Solution.
Plus:Paul Laverty, screenwriter, joins us to talk about his new film “Even the Rain” (Tambien La Lluvia), Spain's Official Submission for the 2011 Academy Awards. It opens this week in Los Angeles and we have tickets to give away. TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA (Even the Rain), directed by Iciar Bollain and written by Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty, intertwines Columbus’ arrival in the Americas with the making of a film; it mixes the Spanish crown’s exploitation of gold in the 16th century with the fight for water in Cochabamba in the year 2000. The film takes us from the fiction of a period film to the reality of a film set in a small Bolivian city. And from that reality to another which is deeper and more dramatic, that faced by people with practically no rights, prohibited by law from collecting even the rain. Paul Laverty’s previous films (in collaboration with film maker Ken Loach) include (among others) The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) Sweet Sixteen (2002) Bread and Roses (2000) My Name is Joe (1998) and Carla's Song (1996).
