Hosni Mubarak was forced from power by a popular uprising in the ancient country of Egypt, leaving the army in power. During the revolt, the press was full of stories about democracy and hopeful images of revolution. The idea of people rising up to defeat tyranny was intoxicating and it swept across the internet. But how are things going in the country now that the cameras aren’t pointed at them any longer?
While the left tends to romanticize revolution and embrace it as a wonderful means of achieving victory and justice, the right tends to be suspicious of revolutions. The left views revolution in the misty light of the common people’s struggle against oppression, while the right notes that no revolutions end well for the people involved, often resulting in a situation as bad or worse than the one it replaced. So while the left was overjoyed watching the Egyptian people rise up and fight for liberty, the right was more cautious in its praise.
Things in Egypt aren’t as interesting to the media these days, with Libya looming larger and other local events taking attention away from Egypt, but a closer look reveals a troubled and troubling country.
First we learn that the Muslim forces and even the ruling Army shot and killed some Coptic Christians at a monastery, chanting “Allahu Akbar” and “Victory, Victory.”
Egyptians took to the streets again, trying to pressure the interim government to guarantee the liberties they revolted for to begin with. The military responded at night by tearing down tents, beating people, and warning them to leave.
Sunni cleric Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi was exiled by the Mubarak regime for being too inflammatory, anti-Semetic, and radical. He has returned, and is no more moderate than before. Meanwhile, common TV interviewee and “face of the new Egypt,” Google employee Wael Ghonim tried to speak about a moderate, modern Egypt and was kept off the stage by al-Qaradwi’s security forces.
In the state of Minya Ahmed Dia-el-Din, Egypt, the governor is demolishing homes of Coptic Christians. The governor has scheduled the destruction of their community center. Why? Because the Copts decided to stop paying a regular “fee.” Part of the fee was to give up the community center to build a mosque. The governor responded by scheduling demolition of many of their homes because they wouldn’t pay a million Egyptian pounds as a “voluntary contribution to the governorate.”
Women marching for a greater role in Egypt’s future were rushed by a much larger crowd of men and both verbally and physically assaulted, groped, and beaten.
As Christopher Hitchens points out, the revolution’s only real success was to oust Mubarak, but there is no viable or even suggested alternative to his dictatorship. There was no opposition leader to turn to, no alternate party, merely a call for better government. The only really organized group that can be considered a viable alternative is the Muslim Brotherhood, seeking to turn Egypt into another Iran.
So far, the longing for democracy and liberty that President Bush says lingers in every heart does not seem to be finding much success in Eygpt.
