Yesterday afternoon I sat glued to CNN, watching millions of people shout and sing and dance in the street. It was beautiful. I heard them shouting and catch a word here and there—kicking myself for losing my ability to speak Egyptian Arabic.
"But," the American commentators warned, "what if the government the people elect does not favor the United States as Mubarak did?" We had a good thing going with Mubarak, as we do with the Saudi royal family. For longer than I like to admit, I considered this possibility. Oh, no, I thought, buying into the worry, what if we lose our friend, the most populous country in the Arab world?
Then I realized—the United States was not the primary beneficiary of Mubarak's friendship, Israel was. My country supports Egypt's military not to protect ourselves from danger but in order to protect our overgrown child to the north. I realized this was what the CNN reporter meant when she said, "Israel, which has long been the only true democracy in the region, is very nervous tonight." WHAT?! WHAT?! How can a country that considers a huge portion of its citizens a "demographic threat" (Netanyahu, 2003) be democratic? How can a country that denies citizenship to four million people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip simply because Arabs would become a demographic majority be a democracy? Israel is a lot of things, but I would hardly call it a beacon of democracy. Oppression is oppression whether an autocrat orders it or a fairly elected parliament orders it.
So whatever, commentators. I hope Egypt opens its border with Gaza now that it doesn't have to do what my country orders it to do. And if Egypt wants to go further and put some pressure on Israel, I'm okay with that too. Israel kind of deserves it.
Let's just be happy for the Egyptian people. How many stand up to autocrats and win without a war or a coup? I'll end with something Alaa Al-Aswany (author of The Yacoubian Building and a 2010 book titled, roughly, Why Does Egypt Not Revolt?, among other books) said in 2005 about his vision of Egypt in 2055:
After living away, I go back to Egypt. . . . After praying at the mosque, people spill out onto the streets to protest. I see police and I ask someone, "Will they beat us when we get to the end of the street?" . . . He tells me, "No, they are here to protect us." . . . There is a picture of a woman without a veil. . . . He tells me, "She is our candidate for president. . . . Times have changed. Things were very bad, there was a leader who ruled for 30 years, but when he tried to make his son president, there was a revolt." "What was his name?" I asked the man, and he said, "it was such a terrible time, no one dares to utter his name." (Vivan Salama, Daily News Egypt, 8 December 2005)Egypt is free!
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