What Mubarak needs to do now. (Interesting read, quite informative)

[snagglepuss]

Globe and Mail

snip

Hosni Mubarak, the octogenarian President of Egypt, should avoid two opposite pitfalls. He should not persist with his apparent attempt to make his son Gamal into his successor, and he should not open up a power vacuum by declaring an instant democracy. The courageous demonstrators in the streets are expressing genuine grievances, but they do not yet constitute a basis for a new government.

snip

The West is justifiably apprehensive about Islamists leaping into the breach. The demonstrators do not appear to be expressing Islamist militancy; they are protesting against corruption, poverty and lack of public services. Though economic growth in Egypt has been quite healthy, most Egyptians are not experiencing its benefits.

But the Muslim Brotherhood is the only well organized opposition party, though in the last election, after it boycotted the second round in protest, it lost almost all its 88 MPs (out of 518), who had sat nominally as “independents.” The officially recognized opposition parties are small and weak. The Brotherhood stood aside from the protests for some days, but now has given them backing – to take effect after Friday prayers. If the essentially secularist military regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak crumbles, the Brotherhood could take over by default.

snip

On its face, it (the Muslim Brotherhood) is rather a staid, perhaps even a fusty organization, but that might change very suddenly if the daunting force of the established order were to disappear. Moreover, some hitherto little known Islamist faction could seize the initiative – as a point of comparison, the Russian Bolsheviks were once quite obscure, compared with the widely supported non-Marxist Socialist Revolutionaries.



Read more at

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/what-mubarak-needs-to-do-now/article1885435/

[MasonJar]

1. Horrors! That is precisel;y my fear. What autocratic regime has

been overthrown in the Muslim world, which has not been replaced by a worse one? Regimes of theologically backward people, who think women belong in the Dark Ages. Actually women had considerably more rights in the Dark Ages than they do in these Islamic states.

[snagglepuss]

2. I am wondering if the MB are simply waiting in the wings before they make

any moves. If Mubarak doesn't fall, they lose nothing.

[Robbie88]

3. Very interesting article. Thanks for posting.