Ashok Dhillon
Jul 3, 20133 min
After decades of enforced silence by military dictators, the Egyptian people had finally found their voice with the ouster of the last dictator President Hosni Mubarak. As the improbable took place, a free and democratic election after decades of complete subjugation, it resulted in the rise to power of the political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the election of President Morsi.
Just about a year later, and just as improbably, through a popular uprising, the people have once again ousted the incumbent President with the backing of the Egyptian Army, on charges of Morsi being a ‘Dictator’ in the making. It is stunning that the people of Egypt have successfully initiated and accomplished two political revolutions in just about as many years, where most other people of the World would be hard pressed to see or succeed in one, in an entire lifetime. Issues of political complexity aside, it is an admirable accomplishment of a people that had lived in fear of dictatorial authority and been forcefully silenced for decades.
Leaving aside the question of whether it was the right thing to do for the people to depose their own duly and democratically elected leader, a question that only the Egyptians must answer, we are in awe of the unleashing of the irrepressible passion and energy of the people, who having tasted freedom after decades of forceful repression, refused to be subjugated again, even incrementally, by elected political parties and presidents. If only people of other democratic and non-democratic countries, with corrupt and autocratic governments, could be that irrepressible, energetic, determined and courageous, to effect change for better and inclusive governance, as the Egyptian people have been. What transpires from here may not be pretty or orderly, but it is truly ‘people-powered’, which is more than we can say for most countries. Let’s not forget that the Egyptian Army would not have moved to change anything, if by all accounts, a young man 22 years of age, had not suggested to his young friends to once again rise and protest for change, inspiring the rest of the millions of Egyptians who eventually joined in. It is unprecedented for a people to rise so spontaneously and so frequently, to affect such significant change in the direction of their own governance.
Egypt, historically speaking, is an iconic country with a past civilization of such magnificence and grandeur that even today it resonates with splendor with the rest of the people of the World, who flock to it in the millions to see it first-hand, thousands of years after the apex of its glory. We see a flicker of that great energy and creativity in the turbulent building and shaping of its body politic, and in the current struggle of the Egyptian people to define the nature of its fledgling democracy, as it is being forged even today.
We cannot underestimate the improbability and significance of this young ‘people-powered’ popular uprising, its uniqueness of will, its inclusiveness of tens of millions from across the national spectrum, its backing by the Egyptian Army, as it defies the norms of such events and unleashes a second revolution that will have incalculable consequences for Egypt itself, the rest of the Middle East, Israel, and the rest of the World.
The Egyptian people, though not entirely united, will determine the shape of their democracy and individual freedom, and hence the future of their country as is their right. But one cannot help but feel some optimism in light of their reawakened determination to once again rise and overthrow the creeping authoritarianism and the lessening of individual freedoms that they felt was present in the incumbent government of President Morsi. Their sense of betrayal in their elected officials is real to them and only academic to us, the outsiders, but a people that risk that much for the promised, hard won, unfettered freedom, must have some inherent greatness in them, and it seems they are determined to find the path to achieve it.
The rest of us can take some comfort in that, and must wish them well on that journey.