Read reports by agencies such as the Humans Right Watch, Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders and you quickly get a sense that Egypt is a very nice place to live. The country has been in a state of Emergency for 30 years, a fig leaf to cover President Mohamed Mubarak cracking down with brutal force on any dissent and to detain political rivals.
Egypt, it seems, is ripe for a revolution which is why almost every other Middle Eastern country where authoritarian regimes are the norm, will be nervously watching the events in Cairo this weekend.
The trigger was the four week of demonstrations in Tunisia helped by damaging disclosures from Wikileaks ending Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's corrupt 23 year reign forcing him to flee with 1.5 tonnes of gold.
Now Egyptians are rioting and the Yemenis and Jordanians have taken to the streets albeit in smaller, less violent numbers.
What will make or break the potential revolutions is the role of the army. In Tunisia, the refusal of the military to fire on protesters proved to be the turning point. In Egypt, all eyes are on the military and waiting for which side they will decide to come down on.
This could very well turn out to be a false dawn much like Tiananamen Square in China when the Army brutally stomped out dissent or the Middle East's very own 1989 when surpressive regimes fell like dominoes one after another.
The ramifications for the West could be enormous as Mubarack has long been a friend of ours, Tony Blair even holidaying with the much maligned Mubarack and American Vice President Joe Biden recently calling Mubarack 'an ally of ours.'
However this ends, and i hope the Egyptians and the citizens of the Middle East get the freedom and Governments they want, this could well be an historic time for the region much the same way the 90s was for Eastern Europe
6 comments:
dream on
what nations in the middle east aren't authoritarian regimes?
q
Israel is the only one that could avoid that label.
Turkey and Lebanon are both relatively un-authoritarian parliamentary democracies, but have some structural flaws which mean they're not generally regarded as 'established democracies' or are entirely free from state coercion.
The Palestinian authority conducted a successful election, but it also has its flaws, in the form of police-state tendencies (reports of detention without trial, torture, unauthorised state surveillance) meaning that the rule of law has not taken root there either.
About the most authoritarian/least democratic state however, is our friend Saudi Arabia. Along with Libya and Iran.
And it's good that nobody seems fooled about Iraq's situation: Setting up some ballot boxes alone does not a democracy make.
The problem with democracy seems to be that the people don't always vote for the leaders the others want. Intersting themse looking around some blogs is that if Mubarack goes, the Muslim Brotherhood will step in and we have another Iran to deal with, hence let's hope the dictator stays and the revolution fails.
'Interesting theme emerging' that bit in the middle is meant to say.
"The problem with democracy seems to be that the people don't always vote for the leaders the others want."
Absolutely right. Hamas being the prime example.
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