The Egyptian people versus Mubarak

Having been away on vacation for a while, I haven't yet commented on the events that have taken place over the last few weeks in Egypt. The protests in Egypt are one of the most positive aftereffects of the popular revolt against Ben Ali in Tunisia, having been largely inspired by the success of those protests. Of course, as noted by some commentators in the aftermath of the events in Tunisia, Egypt's situation is somewhat different in that its people are on average less prosperous and well-educated, and the military has heretofore been seen as solidly behind Egyptian president/dictator Hosni Mubarak. But despite these differences, the protests have been remarkably successful in forcing the Mubarak regime to make concessions, even if it is still unclear whether they will win out in the end.

One positive aspect of the protests is the fact that they were not led or organized by any particular political group or faction of society. The protesters are mostly young, and include both Muslims and Christians (despite the recent problems between these communities in the past) and many secular liberals as well as the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the latter group is now relatively moderate for an Islamist organization, having given up armed struggle in favor of political means, I would find it hard to give unqualified support to a protest spearheaded by them. They joined the protests not long after they started and now play a prominent role, but they are just one part of the overall movement, which is the way it should be (I don't think they should be excluded either, just not in charge). It's true that the lack of any obvious leadership for the protests is beginning to create some problems in that there is no one person or group of people who can reasonably claim to speak for all or even most of the protesters, which makes negotiations with the government trickier and opens up the possibility that the regime could prevail with a divide and conquer strategy. But the inclusive, democratic nature of the protests is still something to admire.

An interesting sideline to these protests has been the reaction in the US. The Obama administration's initial response was mostly commendable, if a bit overly cautious. Obama and Clinton spoke in support of the protesters and against any attempt by the government to suppress them. Of course this should be the minimum that we'd expect from them, but considering the longtime ties between the Mubarak regime and the US, a even more tepid response, while deserving of strong criticism, would not have been surprising. Their reluctance to call outright for Mubarak's resignation is less praiseworthy. Of course they are worried about what might happen if he goes, something which does need to be considered, but even his early departure could be managed in a way that avoided immediate chaos, and would show the Egyptian people that the US fully supported their aspirations.

But regrettably, not everyone in the US does support their aspirations. Oddly, and yet in some ways predictably, some on the right have spoken against the protests and in favor of Mubarak, despite his terrible human rights record and complete lack of respect for democracy. Sure, many of these same people railed against Saddam Hussein in support of George W. Bush's war to supplant him, and talked about how important it was to replace evil dictators with democracy. But then Hussein was no longer an ally of the US (though he had been), and as far as the right (or at least much of it) is concerned, dictators are only bad if they aren't allies of the US. This can be seen in the strong support given in by the American right to past dictators like Pinochet's Chile, the Shah of Iran, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) in China and later Taiwan, and so forth (of course not only the US right is guilty of disgracefully staunch support for dictators; witness Margaret Thatcher's show of support for Pinochet when he was threatened with prosecution for his crimes). Some on the right are already criticizing Obama for abandoning Mubarak, much like earlier right-wingers attacked previous administrations for failing to adequately support the Shah, the Batista regime in Cuba, or Chiang in China. Apparently they fail to see the irony in their railing against people like Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, the post-revolution Iranian leadership, or the rulers of China and North Korea and supporting someone like Mubarak (I am also frequently critical of China's leadership, but I don't give people like Mubarak a free pass either, and I certainly wouldn't support him over a popular revolt like this one). Of course, some of them are so far out you have to begin to wonder about their sanity, an example being Glenn Beck who I hear went on some bizarre rant about the Egyptian protest being part of a global leftist conspiracy.

However, though there is no question that no support should be given to a regime with as poor a human rights record as Mubarak's, it is not unreasonable to be concerned about what might replace him. As other examples from Yugoslavia to Somalia to Iraq have shown, sometimes the chaos that erupts after a dictator falls may be nearly as bad as he was or even worse. On the plus side, despite the tensions between the Coptic Christian minority and the Muslim majority, Egypt doesn't have the serious communal divisions of countries like Yugoslavia and Iraq, so it is less likely to face the same kinds of problems. The danger that another dictatorship may arise has to be considered, as well as the possibility of a mostly democratic but still radical regime under a group like the Muslim Brotherhood (though they are not al Qaeda or even Hamas, they are less likely to be tolerant of minority groups like the Christians and are likely to enforce more rigid conformity to their vision of Islamic law). But with sufficient pressure from inside and outside the country, there is a chance that Mubarak and his cronies can be pushed aside and replaced with a moderate, democratic government. Of course, there is also still a chance that Mubarak will ride out the storm and possibly even renege on some of the promises he and his government have already made, or that things will deteriorate into chaos. But in any event, what the protests have accomplished so far will be an inspiration to other liberal, democratically-minded people in the region, just as Tunisia's were.