Saturday 12 February 2011

'Egypt is Free'

Mubarak has quit. The dictator is no more. In a strange turn of events President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down after making a firm stand that he would not step down till his term ends in September. Egyptians are jubilant. They had marched on to the Presidential palace and surrounded government buildings, and lo and behold, Mubarak flees with his family to a Red Sea resort. So the people have triumphed. What next?

This is the question in everyone’s mind and academics and scholars all over the world are sweating over “what-ifs”. The enthusiasm of the Egyptian people has reached a fever pitch. Their belief in themselves and their ability to bring change is soaring high. Whoever now comes to power needs to take this into consideration. Maybe after a year or two or even earlier than that the people of Egypt might go back to their stance of accepting without protest whatever is meted out to them in the name of politics by those in power; but not in the next few months. This is a new chapter in Egyptian history. No one can say what will happen the next moment. I believe there is no point in losing one’s sleep over what will happen if Islamic fundamentalists take over power. What if they do? They won’t be having any worse influence on international politics compared to the dismally flawed US policies in the Middle-East. If we can give the US all the scope to exercise its idiotic (I need a stronger word here) foreign policies that has had disastrous effect on the international political arena; I believe that we should give the Egyptians a chance to prove themselves. At least they have earned it.

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