Facing crossroads in Cairo
Image: Steve Rhodes.
While embassies and corporations begin preparations to remove citizens and foreign workers from Egyptian soil, journalists and cameras flood to the streets of Cairo. Although utterly enormous, much of the city looks accidental, as unfinished residential tower blocks rise above the small businesses dominating the ground level. The people who live in these decaying death-traps are occupying a very vivid testament to the problem that the Egyptian governing elite has become, providing little of value to the Egyptian people beyond the very visible and powerful security of the state itself.
Amidst an enormous population explosion, the complex corruption and overbearing bureaucracy of the state permitted the majority of its residential housing, which now sprawls out further and further from the Nile, to fall into the extralegal and informal sectors of society. There, it became cheaper to pay the taxes on an unfinished piece of land than a finished piece of land, and certainly very easy to find somebody desperate and needy enough to want to live there in order to access one of the busiest cities in Africa. Buildings such as this frequently suffer collapses that kill its occupants, entire families at a time, for the sin of seeking the opportunities of life within an urban centre.
As the Egyptian state fails its people who are seeking to improve their standards of living, it also threatens their dignity with the pervasiveness of state security. Security checkpoints and well armed police guards were – at least prior to the uprising – commonplace. President Mubarak has never been shy of subverting democratic electoral processes while utilising the strength of security forces to ensure stability, yet he is clearly ageing and distanced from the will of the people in a way that breeds frustration and mistrust. It is no surprise these people now take to the street.
While Mubarak, much like his predecessors, has long feared and protected himself from the ambiguously terrorist associated Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian people may well have reached a tipping point; one where they are willing to deal with Islamists later, in return for a government that will reign in corruption, inflation in the prices of necessities and vivid lack of freedom in everyday life. The support of the Muslim Brotherhood for the movement is crucial, with its history and knowledge of leading action first against the British and later President Nasser, and may well provide the added pressure that forces Mubarak to begin organising his resignation. Their supporters in parliament could potentially be co-opted into any new arising government.
But for the Western governments, and the electorate watching them, there is a clear dilemma; the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, despite being outwardly peaceful, has an undercurrent of militancy and similarities in ideology to Islamic hardliners elsewhere. It is very easy to understand the thinking of American foreign policy handlers for what is now decades; Mubarak offered strong leadership one of the few Middle Eastern states to be on talking terms with Israel. The veneer of legitimacy has been blown away from Mubarak’s government, a fact the rising death toll of protesters attests to, and it is hard to say no to calls for freedom and dignity.
Egyptians want to have a good standard of living in a country that is by and large more prosperous and capable than its neighbours, and do not wish to fund their own oppression at the cost of their livelihoods anymore. These are values the United States and the West cannot deny they have supported in word and deed before. Complicating matters is the fact that the military bases and fighter jets, now working overtime in a display of power, are supplied by the US. Unless they act there is the very real problem that they will be perceived to have been on the wrong side of the revolution, should it be successful without a word of support from Obama or Clinton
Whether we get behind the uprising in Egypt or not is unfortunately a matter of whether we will act to protect ourselves against our worst fears, or to acknowledge the common rights of people to an acceptable life free of tyranny and poverty. It is a decision fraught with consequences that will ring out in the political future of the Middle East.
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Mubarack is going to have two choices, stand and fight, literally, or hop in his helicopter, with his suitcases of gold and cash, and make a run to Venezuela, where Hugo will greet him with open arms and help him with his luggage…
The Muslim brotherhood is on a roll, at the moment, they have momentum…But that could suddenly change if Mubarack got really tough and decided to pacify the population by force…The only question then is if the military will obey him…He better keep that copter warmed up, things could change rapidly…