Well I know a lot has been written about the Egypt situation. I say situation because no one seems to know what to call it. A crisis seems to severe, a revolution maybe to presumptuous and troubles seems to negative.
What we currently have is the overwhelming majority of the country is crying out for a change. The President Hosni.Mubarak came into power about the same time as we got Margret Thatcher, since then we have changed leader four times. That's with both Thatcher and Tony Blair serving two and a half terms. Both of them had lost popular support because people get bored of the same views and opinions all the time, even bored of the same face. Also if you look at them at the start and end of their terms you can see they both aged beyond the length of their terms. Running a country is hard work and stressful. Maybe less so in a dictatorship where you don't have to win public opinion or fight elections.
But the power does get to them. The more power you have the more people will think 'if something happens to them, I could have that power'. So you have to watch your back and fight off the paranoia. This power and paranoia seem to make leaders think that the country will crumble and fall if they were to go. I think that's all Hollywood, just like in every gritty film where a few city blocks get a power cut is followed by looting and rioting. When in fact when New York had days without power, people piled into the streets sofas in hand and partied, got to know their neighbors and got on with their lives. Obviously if this was permanent power loss it might have been different over time. As long as people know it will get back to normal or even better in the future, then they can put up with quite a bit.
But keep telling people lies and giving them no hope. Well then you have a right to watch your back.
Back to Mubarak. His crime is not staying in power so long. His crime seems to be giving the people living there no hope that thing will get better, lining his own pockets while some of 'his people' are starving and stopping anyone getting big enough to oppose him.
Even now he had declared he will step down, providing he actually intends to, its not for months because he doesn't want to leave a power vacuum.
What power vacuum?
So what do our leaders actually do? They don't directly collect tax or spend it, they don't police our streets or teach our children. At most they could be the person who makes the rules, or changes them most likely, but even that its generally a body of people who turn their ideas into something that might work. But their main role seems to be to stop anyone else taking their place and meeting up with other leaders.
So in the awful worst case situation where everyone who assumes the role of leader instantly drops down dead leaving you with no leader. The country can still function quite well. Tax can still be collected by tax collectors and spent as before on schools, social services and policing the system. Lawyers and courts can still apply the current law.
A few months of no government is not going to turn your country into a anarchistic state overnight. In fact you will probably find the people will PARTY as long as they know sometime will step in and 'run the country' again.
So in Egypt Mubarak stated he will go sometime in the future hoping the crowds would die off and the call for change would become murmurings again. Though the people know if they return to their homes and back to their daily lives, it would be oh so easy for Mubarak to pay people to 'disappear' a few people. Or even quite a lot of people. So a few days after the announcement of his departure and after time for it to sink in. With no more violence after the obvious paid thugs that stirred it up earlier and the international condemnation that came with it. People are starting to think safety in numbers. Get him out before he can exact his revenge and even more people than before the announcement are piling into the city centres. If you are going to go. Go now.
But there is a few other problems that is sopping the rest of the 'Western world' calling it a glorious revolution. Firstly there is the great Muslim threat. The fear that the Muslims will gain control and turn the country into a different kind of dictatorship. One 'The West' will not be on friendly terms with. While it is unlikely anyone will be able to set up another dictatorship after this show of strength. Whoever takes control need to make life better for the people or they will be kicked out too. So it's likely that they will get democracy and probably quite a few different governments and bias over the coming decades.
In the immediate future the rest of the world leaders don't want the world to see that a country can be run without a leader. They don't want their own people thinking about things like that.
There could be elections in a month. Weeks even if the whole world did everything it could to help. The problem is the rest of the world wants to work out who to back and see who is the best candidate for them. Dig up a bit of dirt on the opposition. Basically work out how to stop the Muslims getting control. Think about what the worlds reaction would be if this was North Korea and the people were calling for a change with the army refusing to stop them. Would 6 months be fine?
But it's not really even a Muslim thing. It's control and power. As old as the history of Egypt. It is almost the center of the world. People and goods travel through Egypt and in the past few decades it has also played its role as an Israeli prison guard helping keep the Palestinians in the worlds largest detention camp.
Almost certainly one of the first and most populist moves the next government could do would be to tear down the walls between Palestine and Egypt and let trade flourish there. A more hardline government might even cut the 20% of fuel Egypt supplies Israel.
With Palestine and Egypt friends Israel would find it much harder to do offensive maneuvers inside their territories. Along with the fact Israel seems to be having trouble holding together a government, a free Egypt could equal a weak Israel. Which could happen as power already seems to be heading east.
The whole world could once again be changed by Egypt and Egyptian history gets another chapter in the worlds history books.
I must visit one day.
