Revolt in the Nile

Friday, 11 February 2011 00:13

Written by Neric Acosta

It all began in the borderless cyberspace, we are told. Eleven Facebook groups of Egyptian youth started a campaign for greater freedom and democratic space in a country long stifled by the three-decades rule of Hosni Mubarak. Mobile technologies and the Internet’s active blog-sphere snowballed and facilitated ‘people power’ in Cairo and other cities, with hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life pouring out into the streets.

Predominantly young and urban professionals, they came in droves and congregated in historic squares and city landmarks in the last two weeks to precisely claim that space and assert not only their indignation against economic stagnation and rising unemployment, but their demand for fuller political liberties and a more responsive, open government. Weeks earlier the same demographic of restless youth brought down the corruption-ridden dictatorship of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in neighboring Tunisia and ushered in a new government with the sheer force of peaceful street protests and vastly modern instruments of communication.

In Yemen and Lebanon the stirrings of democracy are increasingly heightened with the power of the Internet and the real-time transmission across continents of information and video images. Pundits, news wires and diplomats ponder the imminent ‘domino effect’ across the region – and its far-reaching geo-political and global implications. Beware the remaining tyrants of the world. Welcome to People Power, 21st –century, Facebook-Twitter-driven style.

Unfortunately, what began as peaceful efforts at popular mobilization in Egypt has grown ugly and infernal. Even as this piece goes to press, Cairo, Alexandria and other major centers in this ancient land along the meandering Nile are caught in the throes of unrest and violence. The reports say that pro-Mubarak forces – notably thugs-for-hire and unruly gangs – have been deployed to sow mayhem in the streets by throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, leaving tens dead and many others injured. When the protesters’ numbers grew by leaps and bounds, the Mubarak government shut off easy access to the outside world by cutting off Internet and mobile connectivity. The repressive security and military apparatus of that has long ensured ‘stability’ has been yet again unleashed.

No one knows exactly how a powder keg situation like this will turn out. If this festers long enough, the broad range of democratic forces could polarize and other interest groups or those inclined to fundamentalism can be radicalized. The United States, which has provided billions of dollars to Mubarak’s government over the years to ensure that this most populous country in the Arab world remains a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism in the region, has stopped short of cutting clean and withdrawing support for the regime. The signals are mixed and the language fuzzy, as in President Obama’s and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statements to “work out a peaceful transition” and “find mechanisms for people express legitimate grievance.”

The US might not in this case with Egypt do as they ultimately did with Ferdinand Marcos at the height of mass protests in 1986, which led to the People Power Revolution or the first EDSA uprising that ended Marcos’ 20-year rule. In its fear of extremism spreading across the region, the likes of which took hold in Iran after the US-backed Shah fell from power in the late 1970s, the US certainly views this primarily from the prism of strategic and security imperatives.

People power in Egypt might yet go the way of elaborate subterfuge and clandestine movements in the face of state power and repressive emergency measures long practiced by a regime that considers demonstrations and public rallies as mere security and public order issues. But if the lessons of adjacent Algeria – or of the Bush-led debacle in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East’s tumultuous colonial histories, for that matter -- are anything to go by, external pressures or Western interference in working out ‘transitions of power’ have got it largely wrong.

In the end, democracies that stand a chance at sustainability are those that are inherently home-grown and organic. The youth of Egypt who began with passionate blogs calling for spaces of freedom are integrally a part of a hyper-connected world that intuitively understands democracy as elemental to human progress and the humanizing of globalization’s reach to all corners of the world.

Beyond strategic realpolitik or unremitting geopolitical realities, the unfolding experience of Tunisia and Egypt and their neighbors are anchored in the liberating forces of human aspiration and universal principles of truth, justice, and freedom. The Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soveif calls it nothing less than “Egypt’s rightful place in the sun – out of the shadow of this brutal regime.”

On the other side of the globe, a courageous dissident and Nobel Peace laureate reminds the world that in the end, this is about power and how it is marshaled or used. Aung San Suu Kyi would tell us that for tyrants everywhere, it is not power that corrupts but the fear of losing it – and the “fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

The men, women and youth in Cairo’s streets found it in themselves – and in the newfound power of the Internet – to face that scourge of power and make Hosni Mubarak face up to his own fear of losing power. It is for the world to sit up, notice and lend its support for the reclaiming of the kind of power that replaces fear with possibility, and despair with the liberating energies of hope.

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