Egypt: Some thoughts on a former "home town"

The recent news streaming out of Cairo concerning the hundreds of thousands protesting against the Mubarak regime has taken me back to my days as a student living in Egypt during my junior year of college.  Having lived in and studied the politics of Egypt for some three months (doing much of that studying right in or near Madin Tahrir [Tahrir Square] where most of the major protesting is now occurring), I thought I would offer my appraisal of the situation now brewing.


I suppose that first and foremost I believe that the protests occurring are essentially a good thing for the people of Egypt, who--as almost every American who didn't know two weeks ago now knows--have lived under the Mubarak regime for some 30 years now, with the expectation that President Hosni Mubarak would hand over his government to his son upon his death, essentially continuing the same regime.  The average Egyptian lives in relative poverty--he probably eats every day and he probably even has a cell phone, but good luck making any real social mobility occur for himself or his family, getting a college education for his kids or anything of that sort.  This situation has been maintained by corrupt (yet American endorsed/funded) leaders like Mubarak, who has not until recently had to ever give any serious thought to how the well-being of the masses (or lack thereof) might be tied to his own political future.  Egypt is a "Democratic Republic" on paper, but everyone knows that it is a de facto monarchy.  Such was the case a month ago, but the amazing thing is that all this may change even in the next few days.  Wow!


I have recently heard from the director of my study abroad program in Cairo, Dr. David Holt, who is a University of Chicago PhD in Comparative Politics who has lived in Cairo for about 10 years now.  It was interesting to hear his diagnosis concerning the protests in the region in general and in Egypt in particular: "These events—in Tunisia, Cairo, Yemen, Algeria, Jordan—reflect the same symptoms of aftershocks from the 2008 crash in the US, where people here feel threatened by cuts to food and petrol subsidies. In this respect, Tunisia is symptomatic of another  problem you all witnessed here [in Egypt]—a lack of governing legitimacy for the political and economic oligarchs whose corrupt privileges are partly sustained by US foreign policy alliances and financial aid. In this sense Tunisia is symptomatic rather than causative."  Basically, the region's tolerably corrupt (at least tolerably from the U.S. point of view) leadership has until very recently been propped up by U.S. financial assistance.  Since our economy tanked, there has been less funds to allocate to such political subsidies.


From a economic-political point of view I think Dr. Holt's thesis is solid.  I also wonder, however, about another social factor that might be playing into all of this.  The Middle East in general--with urban centers like Cairo being no exception to the rule--is very young.  I think I heard it mentioned recently in a report I was reading about Yemen (another nation in the region undergoing similar crises) that over half of the population is under the age of 24!  I don't know the exact figures on Egypt, but it can't be very far from that number.  As with most young people throughout the world, these young people too are much more aware of the global socio-political situation than their parents' generation ever was.  I mean how could they not be with the Internet, cell phones, YouTube, Facebook, etc? (all of which are at least as popular among teens and twenty-somethings in Egypt as they are here in the US.  In fact, when I was there in 2008 I was surprised to realize that Egypt already had a 3G mobile phone network, whereas most of the U.S. still did not!)  A big part of the governments' (Egypt's and others' in the region) response to these kinds of protests and uprisings has been to cut off mobile phone and Internet networks (i.e. a year or two ago with Iran, or last week in Egypt).  Who are using those resources?  The young people!  Egypt, like many countries in the region, has an enormous youth population that has seen how the rest of the world lives via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, mobile smartphones etc. and they want something better for themselves.  It will not be surprising, then, to learn that the American University of Cairo--a major university in Egypt, with as much young-blood (and Western influenced) politics as anywhere in the country--is just a block away from Tahrir ("Liberation") Square in Egypt.  I've not heard any definitive reports, but I wouldn't be surprised if that campus is being used as a major staging/organizing point for many of these demonstrations.


Well, I find this all fascinating, and almost wish I could be there now (though probably at a distance at this point) to see it first hand.  (I mean the McDonald's that I used to study and get a milkshake at is right there in Tahrir Square!  It probably has a tank in front of it right now, though.)  That would not make my wife or my family very happy, though, so I'll stay put for the time being.  Pray for Egypt, though.  Pray that the people would remain patient yet persistent, pushing against the corrupt regime yet avoiding violence whenever possible.  Truly, our attitude here in America (which Egyptians are aware of, by the way!) to all of these developments in Egypt and the region at large will be very important in the days and year to come.  We as Americans ought to realize the sober fact that it is our government that has essentially been financing and establishing these corrupt regimes that are being toppled even as we speak.  It's time to wake up and realize that our nation's leaders have been using our tax dollars to invest in governments like Hosni Mubarak's.  Like most of the financial "investments" our country has made over the past few decades, we may soon realize that the dividends are not to our liking.  Keep watching!