MEDIA REACTION: MIDDLE EAST: ATTACKS IN EGYPT; WESTERN

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 000430 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD DEPT PASS USTR USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP ETRD BR SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: MIDDLE EAST: ATTACKS IN EGYPT; WESTERN HEMISPHERE: US IMMIGRATION POLICY; SAO PAULO ¶1. "Internal Factors" International writer Igor Gielow commented in liberal Folha de S. Paulo (4/25): "It is tempting to seek an easy explanation for the attacks in Egypt. If on the one hand there is a strong international component, with a probable link with Al Qaeda and the presence of western and Israeli tourists, it is also necessary to pay attention to internal factors. It is necessary to combine these pieces with a squeezed middle class that has no political representation and with poverty in Cairo, the Nile valley and other isolate points in the nation.... With the rise of the network led by Osama bin Laden, it has become easy to blame 'international terror' for actions such as those of yesterday. Obviously, there is an inspiration and maybe some foreign resources. But poverty and the political repression resulting from the failure of the Nasser model, personalized in Hosni Mubarak's 25 years of autocratic power, are significant factors. Poverty does not mean violence, but fanatics using ideology for their own agenda are facilitated when the state is not present." ¶2. "Latinization Of The US" Former Brazilian ambassador in Washington Rubens Barbosa observed in center-right O Estado de S. Paulo (4/25): "The issue involving illegal immigrants has gained a political dimension of unpredictable consequences in the US.... Latin Americans in the US currently total more than 25 million and have become in 2005 the largest minority in the nation.... Latinos are modifying the way the US feels, thinks, eats, dances and votes.... From a political standpoint, public demonstrations have shown something new in terms of organizational capability and influence in the US political scene. The political power of the Latino vote is present today in large, medium and small American cities.... As a group, the Latinos still do not have their own political identity and define themselves more by immediate concrete interests (immigration policy and living conditions, for example). As one could predict, some conservative and traditional sectors of the US society are reacting strongly.... What is going on is a process of Latinization of the US, especially in the South, and a populational reoccupation of lost territories resembling a peaceful reclaiming [of land]." McMullen