The Egyptian peoples heroic struggle has finally brought down the 30 year old autocratic and thoroughly corrupt Hosni Mubarak regime. The peaceful display of peoples power that continued for 18 days was unique in a Third World country where movements often tend to become violent. Mubaraks overthrow is an historic event in the Arab world ruled by hereditary kings and autocrats. The revolution in Egypt is likely have an effect on a number of Arab countries in the days to come.
The peoples movement has broken two myths about the Arab world. First, that the Arabs are unfit for democracy and second, that the sole agent of change in the Arab world are extremist parties like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hamas. The way hundreds of thousands of people overcoming class and religious barriers and defying repression by security agencies and their hired thugs protested in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez City in support of democracy is a testimony to the Egyptian peoples yearning for civil liberties and a democratic system. The anti-Mubarak movement was launched for purely secular ideals like the rule of law, human rights and an end to autocracy. The Muslim Brotherhood joined the protests a few days later. Gauging the public mood, it tried neither to press for its peculiar program nor decided to capture the movement. On the contrary, like a number of other parties, the Brotherhood supported El-Baradei as the representative of the opposition in talks with the establishment.
While the Egyptian people have won a great victory, they have yet to pass a number of hurdles to reach their cherished goal. For the last fifty nine years, the army has remained the most powerful force in the country and autocratic rulers have not allowed political parties to grow. As he stepped down, Hosni Mubarak also handed over power to the army. The movement for democracy has formidable tasks before it. Political forces have to agree on an interim government, the 1971 constitution has to be amended to make it conform to democratic norms, the fake parliament which was put in place by Mubarak through political engineering needs to be replaced and an independent election commission set up to hold fresh elections. Hopefully the Egyptian people will overcome these hurdles. With the widespread awakening one has witnessed, one can predict safely that whatever the twists and turns no force would be able to deter the Egyptian masses from their march towards democracy.
