As readers will know I rarely comment on politics and international affairs, but I have to be honest and say that the situation in Egypt (and indeed in Tunisia) is worrying.
The Egyptian people (the demonstrators anyway) seem to think that having got rid of Hosni Mubarak it’s all downhill.
Well maybe not. As I read it, all they have done is manage to force Mubarak into an orchestrated military coup. Mubarak bought himself enough time to get his money to a safe haven and is now in the process of following it having handed power to the military. Let’s not forget that the military senior officers are almost certainly all Mubarak’s men; as such they have little interest in change even if their junior officers and men don’t share their views.
What would you read into these headlines from BBC News today?
Egypt army tries to clear square. There is a stand-off in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as protesters who have camped there for 20 days thwart army efforts to clear the area.
Egypt’s army dissolves parliament. Egypt’s military authorities say they are dissolving the country’s parliament and suspending the constitution, two days after taking power.
Superficially this looks to me like the actions of the average military dictatorship:
We do not want any protesters to sit in the square.
Hundreds of policeman – who had become hugely unpopular for their violent attempts to suppress the uprising – had entered the square.
Military statement said the current government and regional governors would “act as caretakers”.
The higher military council said it would stay in power six months, or until elections … saying it would suspend the constitution and set up a committee to draft a new one.
Main priority was to restore the country’s security … if instability continued there could be “obstacles”.
It is all the right noises, but they are the noises all newly installed military rulers make: “We’ll stay in power until we can arrange elections”. And so often those elections never come.
It all sounds to me like the beginning of a repressive military dictatorship. For everyone’s sake I just desperately hope I’m wrong, and that this …
… doesn’t turn into this …
