For Egypt, not yet Uhuru.

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For Egypt, not yet Uhuru



I am ecstatic for the people of Egypt but deeply troubled. Theirs was democracy in action; a revolution that has now become an inspiration for the downtrodden in society everywhere. In its aftermath, America decreed whichever government that emerged in Egypt must uphold the Peace treaty between Egypt and Israel along with other international agreements; an order given to its ruling class without due consideration for the feelings or consent of the Egyptian people on the matter. It was this treaty that got Anwar Sadat the sobriquet, the peacemaker, and the joint Noble Peace prize shared between himself and Menachem Begin. A fraud of a treaty that mapped the course which today has led to gross human rights violations and war crimes in Gaza by the Israeli Defense Force, albeit with the participatory consent of a rogue dictator.

The issue that attests to true democracy in Egypt and the ability of its leaders to listen to the people is this so-called Peace treaty and its abolition. The Egyptians say and need for the blockage and oppression of the Palestinian people to stop. They want normal relations with their neighbours restored and for the Raffah crossing to reopen. The Peace treaty is a piece of paper that does nothing but to secure the Egyptian borders and keep the Raffah crossing closed whenever Israel so desires, guaranteeing on the other hand, fat cheques that feed thirty-year-old egos and purchase materials to suppress a people.

But this treaty has become more than a piece of paper, it is today, a deep-rooted commercial enterprise spreading through all facets of the ruling elite in Egypt and cumulating in a $1.5 billion deficit for the American taxpayers every year. It is about being a good boy and taking orders. It is not about what the Egyptian people want but what Israel commands. The Egyptian people know this and understand that any meaningful change of government must be one that produces a leadership capable of rejecting such agreements and treaties entered into by a rogue dictator and his regime that were never representative of the Egyptian people in the first instance. Understanding this, one realizes that the attainment of real democracy in Egypt must affect the Palestinian question and a people’s search for freedom most positively.

The Egyptian Supreme Military Council is by content and outlook a dictatorial body, irrespective of promises made, and a military junta. By nature, it is adverse to democratic influences and pronouncements and by this is anti-people. Undoubtedly, Egypt can be said to have slipped a rung or two on its political ladder, in its climb to a meaningful democratic society, considering also, that the Supreme Military Council has come out, so soon after America ordered it, to accept it will uphold all existing international treaties and agreements. Add to this, the absence of any identifiable timeline in all its communiqué to the people of Egypt and this emerging situation becomes troubling. Ordinarily, it ought not to be up to a vacating caretaker to grant such an undertaking but for the emergent political arrangement to sort out. That they should not have indulged in such an undertaking and yet did, betrays some sinister ulterior motive and the complete disregard for the consent of the governed.

The fact that the Supreme Military Council made these pronouncements without any form of referral, or pretensions to it, to the Egyptian people attests to its dictatorial clout. When we reason that they are the group which will be most hit by an American withdrawal of aid (both military and economic) from Egypt, it becomes clear to see that their resolve to maintain the status quo would be unshakable. So, even if the Egyptian military were to wish for a quick return to democratic society, their working manual would at best remain survivalist. Given this fact, it would not be difficult for America, with its sweet carrot stick, to persuade the military at installing a ‘democratic’ administration which would guarantee the regular delivery of ‘aid’ to it by upholding all existing international treaties and agreements.

To uphold the Peace treaty with Israel or any other agreements entered into by a rogue dictator, therefore, is to deny the Egyptian people a major springboard to their democratic aspirations. It is to ignore the political mandate and desires of a people and deny them a voice in the scheme of things which affect them. Clearly, it has been shown to be of paramount importance to the Obama administration that the voice of Egyptians be not heard on this issue; eighty three million voices that America pretends to have a working relationship with. When that administration speaks about an ‘orderly transition’ in Egypt, it would appear to mean a political process that would continue to enforce from its end, the brutality being visited on the Palestinian people today and over the years by the Israeli Defense Force. Is it not amazing and ironic, that in the twenty-first century, America, that so-called bastion of democracy, is to be found applauding a military junta as the caretaker to an emergent democratic society?

The Peace treaty and agreements pertaining to American bases in Egypt were reasons why it was important to the Obama administration that Mubarak resigns rather than get thrown out of office. It was important to the Americans for Mubarak to be seen to have handed over power to some authority, in order to create the illusion of legitimacy and continuity a la ‘orderly transition’. This coloration is crucial for America and Israel to rope the Egyptians into agreements that have now been publicly and universally disavowed by their ousting of Mubarak from power. Mubarak did not resign, he was kicked out of office by a people he called children.

Mubarak was not a servant to his people, he was ‘master’ and ‘father’ in his own perverted mind. He wore a Pharaoh complex and in his veins ran the steaming hot blood of a cut-throat tyrant. He did not only betray his people, he treated his dog better. Together and in concert with his gang of sadistic plutocrats, Mubarak raped his people with the joyful wickedness of a serial killer. How could America pay such a man top dollar for placing a blanket of emergency rule over his own people for thirty years?

The revolution in Egypt has displayed the hypocrisy that oils American foreign policy and its brand of democracy. The height of deceit to the Egyptian people is for anyone to say, like Obama claims he said to Mubarak during their telephone conversation, that the status quo is not sustainable, whereas it is being sustained right in front of the Egyptian people by America at the behest of Israel. Nothing has yet changed, fundamentally, in Egypt today. The same clique of power-huggers is still in control. Words vaguely spoken are all they have been fed. The Egyptian people must keep their eyes on that political ball and not lose sight of it unless things will remain the same. No matter what the Egyptian people are said to think about their military, it is ill-equipped by their command mentality and anti-democratic disposition to midwife any meaningful transition to real democracy. The rightful place for any military is within the barracks and not within the building blocks of an emergent democratic society.