We have been enslaved—not just for the past three decades of Mubarak’s rule, or since the 1952 military coup but—for five thousand years with the start of the Egyptian civilization.
Amid all the ongoing talk about political reform and the post-Mubarak scenarios, I can’t help but thinking we haven’t waited that long, that long, that long, just to end up with liberal democracy and people we can at best elect every five years.
This nation deserves no less than a republic, run by direct democracy.
Saad Eddin Ibrahim, my former university professor and the “dissident” I dislike the most, has declared his support for Gamal Mubarak’s presidential candidacy.
I recall it was in 2002, when I worked for the Cairo Times, at the same time when Jimmi had started already to create some political buzz with his repeated public appearances with daddy at NDP and govt events. Saad was just fresh out of jail. Issandr went to interview him in his home, and when he came back to the office, he told me in shock that following the interview, he was chatting with Saad and the latter told him he would not mind seeing Gamal Mubarak as a successor to his dad and that the young Mubarak is someone he (Saad) can work with.
This was not part of the interview published then. And in all cases the Mubaraks were still a taboo then for both the private and state media. So that chat wasn’t published.
To cut a long story short, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, even at the height of his so called “conflict with the regime” is an opportunist, and has always been an opportunist, unrepentant normalizer with Israel, and an American lackey who embraced wholeheartedly the Bush doctrine. His latest public move to declare his support for Gamal Mubarak’s nomination should not come as a surprise.
The power and water cuts are turning into a serious national crisis.
It’s ironic. “Improving Egypt’s ailing infrastructure” has always been a cornerstone in Mubarak’s propaganda, which has blabbed about “Mubarak’s wisdom” and how he “saved us from wars” to “focus on building the country, enhancing public services,” bla bla bla…
As his reign about to end, we are literally witnessing the collapse of Egypt’s infrastructure, and together with it, Mubarak’s legacy.