Mubarak falls

Mubarak, the icon

As I write, people across Egypt are taking down (if they haven't already) the ubiquitous portrait of Mubarak found in and outside almost every public building in Egypt. I know his face very well. It was there in the post offices and police stations when I first visited Egypt in 1989, and still there in 2004, 2009, and 2010. His face is not so much representative of a human being, but rather an icon that appears ageless, brooding, and somewhat menacing.  Mubarak has been ill the last couple of years and has been convalescing at his various presidential palaces, allowing the management of governement to his inner circle. While the icon has continued to stare down anyone who cares to look its way, Mubarak himself has been the wizard standing behind the curtain. Egypt has decided to turf out both the icon and the old, withered president.

 

During the next few months, Egypt's politics will crystallize into some form of government.  The future might see one of three things: another Mubarak-like secular police state calling itself a democracy, an Islamist state like Iran's, or something new or at least rare for the Middle East.  My hope is as that the army facilitates a free election in September, and that the people will elect a secular government that allows people the freedom to say what they think in public without fear of imprisonment, torture, or death.  Egyptians deserve a government that is more afraid of the people than the people are afraid of the government, and neither a police state nor a theocracy fit that particular bill.

Tahrir Square protests, Cairo

Last Friday morning at 8:00 AM, Aidan and I were watching the BBC world service and coverage of the Tahrir square protests when the screen byline changed from 'Unrest in Egypt' to 'Mubarak resigns'.  We watched as perhaps 1 million people in the square erupted in joy over the news. This morning I read a piece by a reporter for the Economist magazine that captures far better than I could the emotions surrounding that event:

"The surge of overwhelming bliss that has overtaken Egyptians is the rare beautitude of democratic will. The hot blush of liberation, a dazzled sense of infinite possibility swelling millions of happy breasts is a precious thing of terrible, unfathomable beauty, and it won't come to these people again. Whatever the future may hold, this is the happiest many people will ever feel. This is the best day of some peoples' lives. ...  I cannot deny that there is something holy in this feeling, that it is one of few human experiences that justifies life—that satisfies, however briefly, our desperate craving for more intensity, for more meaning, for more life from life. Whatever the future holds, there will be disappointment, at best. But there is always disappointment. Today, there is joy."

Yup.