Gorilla’s Guides

The jubilation over events in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has given rise to exhilaration and a quite remarkable amount of "analysis" in which the fluffy little bunnies now peacefully occupying Tahrir Square will triumph (non-violently!!!) over an entrenched regime which has demonstrated  that it is perfectly prepared to use violence against them.  The exhilaration is justified, who amongst the "hominibus bonæ voluntatis" does not wish those struggling to shrug off tyranny well? The somewhat facile "analysis" now being engaged in by many is not however justified. 

Have you noticed how what’s happening in Tahrir Square (Midan al-Tahrir) looks remarkably like what happened in Tehran during the "Green Revolution"? At the time of the "Green Revolution" people like me, you know people who actually live in the Middle East, regularly visit Iran, studied there, people like that were excoriated by those were absolutely certain that the Ahmadinejad molten mullahs of Qom and their President had been caught stealing an election and were now about to lose power.  What was in fact a North Tehran Middle Class revolt never managed to get the working poor involved and so it went down in the dust.

The similarity to what’s going on in Egypt is striking. I have yet to see or hear either in Arabic or any other language a credible report about large numbers of the working poor taking part in the protests. Those who earn the equivalent of US$2 per day have thus far not become involved.

I hope the slum dwellers and the fellahin (the fellahin are the rural peasantry) rise up and help throw off the tyranny, but so far there have been no credible reports of that happening. Unless and until a very large proportion of the 50 to 60 million (call that around two thirds of Egypt’s population) who make up the slum dwellers and the fellahin decide to shake off ("intifada") the load of oppression from their shoulders, that the "revolution" is in their interests then this  this "Revolution" does not have the depth of support needed to make anything other than very superficial change possible. 

Even if all goes well in getting rid of Mubarak, Egypt will face a long and difficult aftermath in which power will need to be wrested from Sadat/Mubarak’s base:

• the rural well-off,

•  the urban kleptocracy,

•  the security apparat,

•  the administrative elite,

•  those dependent on the forgoing for their livelihood.

If these groups refuse to share or hand over power then bloodshed is likely to ensue, the identities of the ruling oligarchy are well known to other Egyptians — "we know where you live" to coin a phrase.  If it comes to  coup and countercoup  I expect neither lives nor property to be secure .  Nobody, including me knows how all this will end I hope it will end well not least because "Guides" has team members and associates in Egypt and because I have many friends there. Many outcomes and scenarios are possible, the worst of which is the Algerian one in which the results of an election are overthrown by the army or the interior ministry and civil war ensues.

markfromireland