So as you have all surely noticed, Egypt has been in the news constantly for over two weeks. There are pictures of angry youth, bloodied protesters and all sorts of talks about revolution, civil war, etc. So what exactly is going on and more importantly, why does it matter? In as brief as possible, I will try to summarize and give you an unbiased, neutral view...
Brief Background on Egypt:1952 - Col. Nasser leads the military to get rid of the Egyptian monarchy and British influence in Egypt. This was Egypt's independence. His revolution was secular and socialist and Nassar's government was based on military power as the major stabilizing force.
1970 - Power is passed to Anwar Sadat. He brought about a lot of economic reforms to encourage investment and gave private sector greater control of the economy. Basically, he introduced capitalist principles.
1973 - "October War": Sadat leads a successful war against Israel that makes him very popular
1979 - "Camp David Accords": Sadat helps form a peace treaty with Israel. It makes him unpopular in the Arab world, but leads to him receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his actions.
1981 - Sadat is killed by fundamentalist attacks. As an interesting aside, amongst the attackers was Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two man in al-Qaeda. The military cracked down in response to this and Hosni Mubarak became President.
That is the brief history of Egypt and it shows that basically, the military has ruled Egypt since 1952. Emergency Law has been in place since 1967 and under that the military can do whatever it wants: constitutional rights are suspended and censorship is legalized. While this is clearly un-democratic, we should not be mistaken, many people in Egypt are very okay with this because otherwise they would not have let Mubarak rule for nearly 30 years! Everyone is not suddenly calling for "freedom, liberty, and justice."
So what happened? Why the protests?
On January 25th, thousands of Egyptians organized together for anti-government demonstrations, calling it the "Day of Wrath." They were inspired by the people of Tunisia who had successfully overthrown their ruler in a similar fashion just two weeks prior to this. The frustrations stemmed for growing poverty, rampant unemployment, government corruption and military rule in which they had no say. They had one common demand: the end to Mubarak's rule.
One thing the protestors are united by is Mubarak's cupidity (excessive greed). There is extreme poverty in Egypt and the economy is doing badly, but Mubarak and his family are ridiculously rich and so are his cronies. In Egypt, the government controls most of the major industries and as you can imagine, Mubarak and other leaders have been siphoning money into their own pockets.
The protests took place throughout the country but were specially concentrated in Tahrir Square. Internet, cell phones, press, many things have been banned and censored in Egypt now for several day. Some physical confrontation also has taken place with people dying and being injured. Other people have been wrongly arrested and all sorts of chaos has befallen Egypt.
What do protesters want?
- Everyone wants economic reform and an end to government corruption. People want jobs, better wages and more civil rights.
- As the Western media may want you to think, the protestors are NOT one unified body all with the same demand for democracy, representative government, liberty, freedom… the usual American clamor. There may be some pro-democracy protestors but the protestors are divided amongst themselves also.
- There is the pro-Islamic group amongst the protestors that is tired of Mubarak's pro-US and pro-Israeli policy. They want to establish stronger Islamic control in Egypt. This group is led by the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that the West has probably depicted in a very exaggerated way as being 'jihadi' or 'extremist'.
What might result of all this chaos?
- The regime might survive under another military official and then major reforms would take place.
- Elections may take place and ElBaradei could be elected leading to the path of democracy. ElBaradei is leader of the pro-Western protesters and a popular figure.
- Elections may take place and the Muslim Brotherhood could move forward with an Islamist-oriented agenda.
- Political chaos and uncertainty!!!
Why does it matter to the US and to the world?
Egypt is the center of gravity in the Arab world and America's biggest ally in that region. A take over by pro-Islamic forces would change the entire US policy. When the US formed their alliance with Egypt in 1973, it strengthened the US power in the Middle East and since then the US has relied on Egypt greatly for its fight against terrorism and its relations with that region.
This also matters to Israel because if a pro-Islamic government is formed, it would greatly jeopardize Israel's nation security. The two countries have already fought three wars but without Egypt in the mix, everything has been very peace for over 30 years. Egypt is the only one with the military strength to attack Israel so this would make things interesting.
Egypt is also a role model and leader for the Arab countries. Their foreign policy guides many of the surrounding countries so any change in their leadership would greatly affect the rest of the Arab world and, consequently, all other nations.
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