By Dr. Murad Alazzany
Professor in Sana’a University
The Egyptian youths have remarkably achieved a great victory when they put an end to a thirty years of autocracy in Egypt. Their historic uprising which started on the 25th of January and continued for almost 18 days has forced Hosni Mubarak , the president of Egypt to bow to their demands; to step down and to hand over power to the army council. We congratulate those courageous youths for their resilient and extraordinary commitment to achieve such a historic and fundamental change in Egypt.
It is indeed a critical moment and a millstone in the history of Egypt and the history of the whole Arabs. However the overthrown of Mubarak left us with two important questions regarding the Future of Egypt. The first one pertains the next role of the opposition while the second pertains the role of the army.
Regarding the opposition role, it is true that the overthrown of the president represents a pivotal turn in the opposition three-week revolt . They did succeed to upend one of most enduring dictatorships history has ever known. However, they should not consider that their ultimate end. They should not get overwhelmed and then to be overcome by the emotions of such temporal victory .
Opposition should bear in mind that Mubarak , in spite of his autocracy and dictatorship, was not the main obstacle that hinders democratic reforms in Egypt . Though a head , he is still only a member of a repressive regime that Egyptians have suffered from for three decades. The other members who are plenty have not gone anywhere, they did not step down. They were the main tools of the corrupted regime and as long as they are still there playing major roles in the Egyptian political atmosphere, then a departure of one man does not make any big difference. They are in fact trying now to line themselves with the revolution not for any purpose but to redecorate their past heinous crimes, to consign their misacts into history and even worse to perpetuate themselves in power.
Thus the opposition should not leave the Tahrir, their focal point of uprising and change, only when all of their demands get fulfilled and when they surely get did of all symbols of the corrupted autocratic regime out of their lives. They should get back Egypt out to the right path and nominate those they trust to lead their country. Otherwise all of their efforts and sacrifices will be a waste.
Regarding the role of the army, it is what worries us the most. our worries stem from two perspectives. We are first worried if the military men exploit the situation and refuse to fulfill the promises to supervise the implementation of the reforms and peaceful transition of power.
We still remember how the revolutions which took place in the Arab world the later fifties of the 20th century started and where it ended. These revolutions started in Egypt by a group of military men who initially aimed at abolishing the monarchy there and establishing republic. The success of the revolution inspired numerous military men in Arab countries to revolt against monarchies. But these revolutions ended in military republics which seem sometimes worse than the current monarchies in the area.
As it was the military men who led the revolution, they perceived it a divine right to enjoy the fruit of their effort assigning themselves many privileges to them. Thus, it will be hard for those militaries to lose these privileges by handing over their power to a civil government elected by people. Our worries grow bigger as the army chiefs, or what is called the old missionaries showed a strong commitment to themselves and their institution which we expected that it could be dismantle at any time. But military men will bow to the will of the people, only of the youths of Egypt stay in the Tahrir till Egypt becomes a full democratic society. If the Egyptian youths manage to achieve that, it will be the first time in history that Arabs could get rid of the military rule .
However, our worries again stem from the fact that those military men have little recent experience in directing and governing the country. even if they are sincere in fulfilling their promises and in responding to the demands of the youths, we still do not know how they are going to supervise the implementations of reforms and transform of power. Our worries could be true as the military signalled a light for the current government to continue administering the country and it did not indicate how it will take the kinds of fundamental steps towards democracy that protesters have been demanding.
Egyptians youth must be aware that rule be the military has only to be temporary. The first step that must be taken by the military now towards a real democratic transition is to dissolve the country’s feeble and illegitimate parliament. The army also has to suspend the constitution and to call for elections in six months. protesters’ demands. The dissolution of what is seen as an illegitimate parliament must be the first thing to be declared by the army, such constitutional reforms must be non-negotiable but must go in sweeping steps to echoed protesters’ demands. If those reforms are achieved then Egypt will have witnessed a real revolution – beyond the overthrown of Hosni Mubarak.
Inspite of enjoying popular support, the military must now cope with the new situation and do its best to faster the transition of power in a way shows he is able to deal with the post-revolutionary stage. In order to not lose its landscape still basking in the glow of Mr. Mubarak’s fall but beset by demands to ameliorate hardships that percolated across Cairo on Sunday.
We Arabs support the Egyptians youths as we are aware that that extraordinary change that takes place in Egypt now does not matter only for the 80 million Egyptians. Their revolution will be an inspiration to all of the people in actions of the Egyptian people have been “an inspiration to people around the world, including here in the United States, and to all those who believe in the inevitability of human freedom.” Rather it does matter for all of us, we Arabs as we share with Egyptians the same situation and may be destiny. We all share in common all these social problems of inequality, corruption, autocracy and repression of unresponsive and unaccountable governments. We know that the wind of change in Egypt will blow to shake all the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. These regimes which first were chocked by uprising in Tunisia and now in Egypt are trying to decorate their autocracies by false promises of reform and by rising of wages to buy off critics and to defuse tensions. However, as Egypt changed the political situation of Arabs in the later fifties and sixties of the last century, it will now. The symptoms are visible from Yemen to Jordan and from Algeria to Syria.