Fraser asks where or who is the Egyptian Lech Walesa? Well the answer, somewhat improbably, seems to be Mohamed ElBaradei*. And he’s in Tahrir Square. Al Jazeera reports that the former IAEA chief has more backing than anyone might have expected just a week ago. The Muslim Brotherhood, secularists and socialists are all said to favour ElBaradei becoming interim president should Mubarak’s regime crumble to dust.
I’m less pessimistic than Fraser**. (This may not be a difficult status to acquire.) He writes:
Maybe. But actually the citizens of the Arab world have almost never been given “a choice between a Bad Guy and a Worse Guy.” That’s rather the point and much of the problem. His points about the inherent risks of revolution and the potential for something even worse than the status quo to emerge are well-taken. But – and I don’t want to put words into his mouth here – does this mean he favours the supposed “stability” of the status quo or not? (Perhaps he’d reject this as a false choice.)I wish I could be more enthusiastic about the events in Egypt and Tunisia – but, as I say in my News of the World column (£) today, the citizens of the Arab world all too often have a choice between a Bad Guy and a Worse Guy. Egypt looks like its choice is between the status quo, the Muslim Brotherhood or a military coup. This is not a 1989-style revolution, there is no Arabic equivalent of Scorpions singing Wind of Change. Successful revolutions normally have a well-organised alternative government, with a clear route towards democracy. Where is the Egyptian Lech Walesa, or the Tunisian Vaclav Havel?
There seem to be more options than just “the status quo, the Muslim Brotherhood or a military coup”. Perhaps the calls for a broad-based, representative national government are merely a smoke-screen designed to provide cover for a future military or Islamist takeover. however they might also be a genuine expression of the popular will. It would be odd if Egyptians were prepared to rally against one dictatorial regime only to accept another in its place. Again, the economic grievances and demographic trends powering this uprising will be difficult to satisfy in any scenario but it’s hard to imagine any faction-based replacement has a real hope of meeting the people’s aspirations.
Stability is an important goal but it’s far from the only consideration. Even if it survives, how stable is the regime now? Indeed one could argue that those people who elevate stability above all other concerns (which is not an unreasonable position) should also want Mubarak to go and go now. Why? Because if he or his cronies remain in power the worse it will be next time.
There will be a next time and between now and then it’s easy to imagine the very forces of extremism the Stability Crew most fear will be emboldened and come to be seen as the only possible, if necessarily imperfect, alternative to a failed status quo. If – and again this is conjecture – this were to prove the case then better, surely, to support action now rather than wait until the patient is in an even worse, more desperate state at which point he becomes willing to try anything, including measures that he’d previously have opposed.
As I wrote earlier, it’s certainly true that a new government – whatever its stripe – will be awkward and far from necessarily pro-western. But this is Egypt 2011, not 1989 or 1979 or 1917 or any other historical analogy you care to draw. Who knows whether Egypt is “ready” for anything we might recognise as any kind of democratic society? What we can, I think, say is that the thirst for reform is vastly greater than it was 20 years ago and there really is a much greater sense across the muslim world that legitimacy is conferred by the ballot box. Voting isn’t enough to build civil society on its own but it’s a necessary part of that process. And it is a process that, even if it sometimes means terribly objectionable parties might sometimes win, offers a better long-term future for the region than does a failed status quo.
Meanwhile, the regime-sponsored security vaccuum in Cairo and the other cities may be Mubarak’s best chance of clinging on to power. This demands a certain amount of conjecture but chaos is the regime’s friend. As John Robb suggests, the regime may have a plan: De-escalate, Misdirect, Militarise, Wait, Lock Down. If he’s right this is a logical, if grim, strategy. Worse, it might work. Let’s hope not.
The uncertainty that will follow any collapse in Egypt will be unnerving and bound to test everyone’s patience and courage. Perhaps it is time, in different ways, for Mr ElBaradei and Mr Obama to earn their Nobel Peace Prizes. As ElBaradei told the crowds in Tahrir Square today “What we have begun cannot be reversed. We are beginning a new era.” Let’s hope so and remember too that failure and catastrophe is not inevitable. The television graphics keep telling us about “Days of Rage” in Egypt but they’ve also been “Days of Hope.”
*For more on ElBaradei’s unlikely rise, see this New Yorker piece from April 2010.
**He may be right however! Though, like Fraser himself, I hope he’s not.
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