After eight days of demonstrations against three decades of repression and outright humiliation at the hands of President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians—and the world—witnessed the beginning of the end of the regime unfold in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as Mubarak pledged Tuesday not to seek another term in September’s elections.
“Tahrir” translates as “liberation” in Arabic—a fitting name for the epicenter of a revolution that only a week ago seemed inconceivable to the Egyptian people, let alone the world.
Yet, despite the exhilaration shared by Egyptians and those who promote freedom for all peoples, the American government has responded with equivocation and calls to initiate unrealistic reforms that stand no chance so long as Mubarak stays in office.
This foot-dragging on the part of the Obama administration is being perceived as support for Mubarak by pro-democracy protestors, and that is hardly the message that the U.S. should be sending, especially when some protestors are pleading for American support and recognition. Even Mubarak’s declaration Tuesday to step down in September and Obama’s call for a peaceful, orderly transition “now” seem tardy given his early waffling.
The administration’s initial response to the events unfolding in the Nile Delta was one of “watching and responding,” as a State Department spokesperson put it. Mubarak, a long-time U.S crony, kept the peace with Israel and played ball with the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program, which involved the abduction and extrajudicial transfer of suspected terrorists to face torture in secret detention facilities in Europe, North Africa and Central Asia.
The administration at first felt it could ill afford to speak out against a leader they considered a staunch, cooperative ally. Vice President Joe Biden claimed, absurdly, that he “wouldn’t call [Mubarak] a dictator.”
As the days went on, and an attempt at a crackdown by the notoriously brutal Egyptian police only served to fan the flames of dissent and earn the protestors sympathy, the military—Egypt’s most powerful and respected institution—threw in its lot with the demonstrators after being deployed by the government to the streets. Having never fired on their own people before, the Egyptian army made it clear that they had no intention of doing so now.
Without the support of the military, Mubarak’s government lost any semblance of legitimacy, and suddenly the U.S. government, despite its solicitous attitude towards their embattled man in Cairo, found itself in the awkward position of appearing to support an oppressive autocrat while maintaining its promotion for democratic ideals.
Despite eight years of Bush’s “freedom doctrine,” Obama’s approach has been that of acceptance. In a 2009 speech in Cairo, Obama spoke of democracy as one of five themes displaying his executive priorities.
“I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed on one nation by any other.”
In other words, America won’t interfere with how you live—even if it means aligning with regimes and against peoples.
The president was wrong in making democratization seem like an imposition—equating the promotion of democracy among indigenous movements in the Middle East (or anywhere else) with military invasion is inaccurate.
The revolution in Egypt was borne of a collective dissatisfaction of a regime that stamped out even the most rudimentary complaints against its rule–an organic, homegrown dissent that the United States might have once championed as a former torchbearer of human rights and freedom for peoples.
Egyptians, tired of being shamed and humiliated by a ruler who displayed such open contempt for his citizens, he jailed political opponents at will, systemically paralyzed or destroyed every institution of civil society, and held sham elections in which he would claim 85-90 percent of the vote, took to social media and the streets to voice their despair and dissatisfaction.
Inspired by the recent uprising in Tunisia, which saw the ouster of another North African strongman—American-backed Zine El Abidine Ben Ali—the feeling of empowerment by ordinary Egyptians reached a tipping point, and through the power of peaceful protest, they find themselves in an extraordinary position: being able to control their own destiny.
Indeed, the lack of a unified opposition, remains a concern for the United States, as well as Israel and the rest of the region. Egypt, the most populous Arab country, has only one well-organized institution other than the military. The Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group, has survived underground in Egypt since the late 1920s and exists in the Gaza Strip under another name: Hamas.
The situation is no doubt a troublesome one to the government, who recognizes the need to support the protestors in Egypt in their desire for free and open elections, but fears the rise of radical groups like the Muslim Brotherhood through democratic means.
But currently the demonstrations beginning to topple the Mubarak regime are secular and youth-led, and the Brotherhood has yet to garner widespread support. Rather than a demand for an Islamic state, the crowds in Tahrir Square are demanding “freedom”—hopefully a positive indication for a transition to true democracy, and not a redux of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Time will tell if the opposition can coalesce and peacefully transition to a new, democratic government.
It is imperative that President Obama offers support to those pro-democracy protestors that are calling for it. The naysayers that claim the U.S. has little to no influence in an Egypt without a strongman like Mubarak in charge are flat out wrong—the military relies on $1.3 billion of American aid a year, and it is unlikely they will be willing to jeopardize that money by turning a deaf ear to the U.S.
More importantly, standing on the side of peoples rather than regimes is something the United States needs to recognize as a benefit and not a detriment to the betterment of humanity. Fearing the prospect of anti-American elements in a government is unreasonable when one fails to account that American policy helped create the climate of repression and authoritarianism that stifled even most basic, elementary aspirations of the ordinary Egyptian.
The American policy of supporting illegitimate, tyrannical governments composed of the elite, at the cost of the dignity and self-worth of the average citizen, be they Egyptian, Tunisian, Iranian, etc., discredits the professed American desire for freedom and democracy for all, and displays an outdated, imperialistic attitude that renders our leaders and our stature in the world more and more irrelevant.
In the end, the Egyptian people will determine who will rule them—not Washington. However they decide upon their new government, we hope that the respect for the rights of religious minorities, equality for women and true political and economic reforms are among their priorities.
Above all, we wish to convey to the Egyptian people that we stand by them in their plea for democracy, and not with those who would wish to deny them freedom.
