As expected by many (and predicted by Mockoblog two weeks ago), Hosni Mubarak abdicated. Protesters are celebrating what they consider to be a victory over a regime which for too many of them coincides to all they can remember – a lifetime.
Scenes of jubilation in Cairo, Alexandria and other major Egyptian cities and throughout the Arab World have the unrestrained joy and the party-like atmosphere resembling a football victory. But who exactly won exactly what? The protesters definitely believe they won the battle against Mubarak, yet they have no idea what’s going to happen next or, indeed, if they won or the regime chose to dispose of the 82 year old president like a trapped lizard which breaks its own tail in order to survive.
The situation in Egypt is still very volatile and nothing really has improved in terms of filling in the political gap. There seems to be no clear direction, no solid leadership in the street opposition, no positive unity (after the negative message of ‘down with the regime’), no credible alternative to the military power.
The matrix of the Egyptian society after decades of iron fist government is polarized. Most Western commentators fear the dichotomy between Islam and Coptic Christianity, yet the main divide will be between the poor masses and the collaborators of the Mubarak regime. And this is a very intricate social pattern, scaled down to the very single family. There is no corruption without corrupt people and no torture without victims. It is likely that the class that used to have the power will struggle to hold onto it while the pro-democratic protesters will have to protest again. As long as the military holds the power, there will be some balance in the status quo but this is unlikely to last. As the opposition will get better organized, so will the Mubarak’s ‘old boys’ – it will be just much easier for them, as they still hold the connections, the resources and the knowledge.
After a series of slight mistakes and embarrassing miscalculations, the White House finally got it right when Mr. Obama said that this was ‘not the end of Egypt’s transition’ but ‘the beginning.’ The beginning of what? This is neither a walk in the park for Egypt’s impoverished majority, nor the cup of tea for other authoritarian Arab regimes, nor much good news for Israel and its allies. A single spark could ignite the Middle East and the situation in Egypt, be it just economic, not even social, political and religious, is a bonfire. Civil War is still in the cards and it may even be of a kind yet unknown to humanity, a pan-national Arab civil war which, if not managed in the region, could easily turn into World War III, perhaps the precursor of the New World Order.
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