Stress reveals the best and the worst

Stress brings out interesting things in both people and institutions. Egypt is under stress these days. What has been revealed?

Mubarak: his speech last night revealed a chasm between his understanding of the situation and that of ordinary Egyptians. For Mubarak, two things are critical:

1) sticking with the constitution:  “to satisfy the demands of the youth and the people in a way that respects the constitutional legitimacy and would not restrict it in any way”

2) saving the economy:   “the priority right now is regaining the sense of confidence in Egyptians and a sense of trust in our economy, our reputation.”

No surprise here.  Along with the military, these are the mainstays of the regime, a constitution that ensures continuity by blocking any serious political competition and an economy that feeds regime backers.  The only surprise is that Mubarak thought this would appeal to the hundreds of thousands who gathered in Tahrir square last night to hear his resignation and celebrate the death of the regime.

The military:  its two communiques betray its profound ambivalence.  As
Shadi Hamid on the New York Times website says:

The military is by no means a pro-democracy organization. It has benefited from the status quo, becoming a privileged, powerful economic force in society. It has something to gain, but also, perhaps, quite a lot to lose.

While expressing support for the democratic goals of the demonstrators, and offering itself as their guarantor, it is backing the regime-led, constitutional transition, at least for the moment. In Arabic:

As Amir Taheri puts it, this is “change within the regime, not regime change.”

The United States:   this is the biggest shift yesterday, with the President saying,

…the United States has also been clear that we stand for a set of core principles. We believe that the universal rights of the Egyptian people must be respected, and their aspirations must be met. We believe that this transition must immediately demonstrate irreversible political change, and a negotiated path to democracy. To that end, we believe that the emergency law should be lifted. We believe that meaningful negotiations with the broad opposition and Egyptian civil society should address the key questions confronting Egypt’s future: protecting the fundamental rights of all citizens; revising the Constitution and other laws to demonstrate irreversible change; and jointly developing a clear roadmap to elections that are free and fair.

This marks the definitive return of the “d” word, democracy, to American foreign policy, after two years of exile to cleanse it of its associations with George W. Bush and military intervention. If the rights are universal, they need to be respected not just for Egyptians, but for others as well. Stay tuned: this will be heard throughout the world, frightening autocrats and inspiring demonstrators.

The protesters: they remain inchoate, but I found this Asharq Alawsat interview with an April 6 activist interesting:

As for our meeting with Dr. Ahmed Zewail, we believe that he is the closest to our current viewpoint and desires, and even when he held his press conference he was careful to deliberately separate his viewpoint from the viewpoint of the protestors. As a result of this, we believe he is one of the most important figures and we support his candidacy to be a member of the “presidential council” that we propose governs the country’s affairs for a transitional period.

Ahmed Zemail is the Egyptian and American winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, who has returned to Cairo to join the demonstrations. Zeweil in 2008 asked the question,

Does the problem lie in the fact that we are Arabs or is it because we are Muslims?

This was in reference to the failure of the Arab and Muslim worlds to participate in contemporary scientific advances, but it could well have been asked about democracy in the Arab and Muslim countries as well. The account of his answer was also more broadly applicable. After denying that lack of scientific progress was due to either Arab or Muslim culture, he is reported to say,

…the appropriate environment for scientific research is absent in the Arab world…he explained that had it not been for the freedom of creativity in the United States he would never have progressed in the field of science to such an extent.

If this is the man the protesters are looking to for at least part of their leadership, we are fortunate indeed.