Saturday, February 12, 2011

egypt: dictator out, junta in. celebrations and congrats too early

hosni mubarak egypt's dictator was ousted yesterday, after 30+ years of brutal corrupt oppression and 17 days of protests, strikes, riots, looting, prison breakouts, lynchings, etc., etc..

a military junta of his closest cronies (with equally brutal and corrupt personal histories) have taken power in place of their master with vague promises to bring in democracy some time in the future.

herd, around the word (including a few idiots in sri lanka), are celebrating and offering congrats to egyptians.

!?

too early imo.
democracy is yet to dawn in egypt. i will keep my congratulations and celebrations till then. anybody with a brain should.
remember all those 'color revolutions' in recent past from ukraine to georgia to lebanon. hardly harbingers of democracy. egypt is likely, imo, to fare even worse.

america's impotent involvement

over the years united states of america gave more aid to mubarak's brutal regime than to any other country except isreal. it turned a blind eye to repression of opponents of that regime and even used the regime to do its dirty work by sending (/'rendering') terror suspects to egypt so they can be tortured without legal obstacles prevailing in american territory.

when protests started, obama administration in usa (and its poodles in west) which support many such regimes and directly commits and oversees even worse brutalities in iraq, afganistan etc., assumed its usual hypocritical stance as champion of democracy and human rights, and called for reforms but stopped short of calling for mubarak's resignation. but as days went on, usa became aware of his and its own impotence. to cut its losses obama administration seems to have decided to dump mubarak and try its luck with a friendly military junta. (cia chief got ahead of himself when he announced mubarak's departure on thursday).

btw it is indicative of so called super power's over stretch and ever increasing weakness that it is now always responding to events and has lost its ability to control them in favor of its allies as in the past.

[mainstream western media's coverage of protests with deliberate blind spots (disgusting anti jewish sentiments of protesters, role of widespread anti christian riots in late december and early january, etc.) and exaggerations (role of social media) deserve another post. ]

what next?
whether a junta consisting of mubarak's (and west's ) cronies can maintain power is an open question. only the events will show.

in any case, imo, there are two likely outcomes, and both does not involve a functioning democracy of even imperfect western (usa, eurape, etc.,) or asian (south korea, taiwan, japan, malaysia, india, and of course sri lanka, ) models.

outcome will be determined by how, now legitimized, protests are handled in the future (as in next year or two) by those in power in egypt.

there will be more protests. double digit unemployment and inflation ensured the high public participation of protests. those causes are not going to disappear; disruptions from protests (and this year's freak weather around the world) will make them worse.

possibility 1

junta or some of its members successfully maintain power creating a mubarak lite regime, compliant to west and paying only lip service to aspirations of egyptians. this would involve cracking down on protests at some point. tunisia, which also ousted its dictator, seems to be going this way; newly installed pro western president was given emergency powers, a story buried by mainstream western media.

result, no democracy.

possibility 2
junta fails in face of future protests and soldiers unwillingness to crack down. an unstable government made of weak out of touch pro western 'liberals' (eg elbaradei) will be installed. islamists (led by grandfather of all islamic fundamentalist parties, muslim brotherhood) will support this temporarily to get rid of junta. once that has been achieved, muslim brotherhood, which is the most organized and experienced political entity apart from government and has maintained itself in opposition to a repressive regime, will take control.

don't believe this scenario? well you better read history. that is exactly what happens in revolutions. barring a counter revolution (led by elements of old regime) most extreme and organized party among revolutionaries always gain control. perfect example,1917 revolutions in russia. (coincidentally first one took place in february there too, we know what happened by october).

a country under the muslim brotherhood is not going to be democratic.


interesting times
'may you live in interesting times', goes an (alleged) old chinese curse.
today the worldwide herd is unwittingly celebrating the dawn of interesting times for the egyptians.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about Sri Lanka's dictator?

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
What about Sri Lanka's dictator?

2/12/2011 12:44 PM

"


He's already in jail serving time for his crimes and futures crimes against the nation.
If you Colombian mutts greedy for power and getting your selfish way had been successful in crowning him as president (through his violence + coup) you pathetic bunch of racist money hungry power lusting losers (who at long last have been shut out of the corridors of power to which the keys you never deserved but "earned" by worshipping your white masters) would also be in jail or have your heads chopped off by now as we all know the madness of that intolerant dictator (which we witnessed during his idiotic and disgusting violence unleashed election campaign that was planned, backed and funded by the West/US) and your kinds penchant for whining, lying and defaming when you do not get your way will lead to a confrontation and well we all also know el general does what el general wants no matter what (in many ways he’s much like your gang of “elites” so I can see why the two of you came to bed so quickly).
And of course your white masters would do nothing to help you because their pet would be acting with their full blessings. Then again seeing you purged from Sri Lanka would be the only good thing el general would do. Like how he got rid of that racist religious cult pushing extremist scum mutt lasantha.