About the Hell Breaking Loose in Egypt

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

It's hard to know whether to feel excited or scared to death about what's been going on in Egypt for the past 10 days or so.

Most of the time, I lean toward the scared end. It's easy to share the feelings expressed by our ad director, Pat Taylor, who watched our newsroom TV for a few minutes Tuesday before wandering into my office and exclaiming: "This is like looking at the abyss and saying, 'Oh, (expletive deleted)! Here we go over Niagara Falls!'"

On the other hand, there's something unnervingly fascinating about it, isn't there?

Though nobody saw it coming, the dramatic sight of hundreds of thousands of people pouring into the streets of Cairo in defiance of their leaders feels genuine. It feels spontaneous. And it feels irresistible. There's a definite sense that history, for better or worse, is being written before our eyes.

Why should people in places like Moore County care about all this? Well, at a minimum, it's disturbing any time you see any country in the grip of anarchy and up for grabs. But this is not just any country. This one has 80 million people and has played a pivotal role in preserving some semblance of peace and stability in the Middle East for several decades now.

More to the point, the current uprising is showing signs of spreading into other tinderbox places. All hell could be about to break loose on a regional or even global level, and it could end up involving us militarily. That has got to be of concern to anyone who lives within earshot of the nation's largest Army base.

At another level, I can't help noticing how much this sudden release of decades of pent-up resentment and hatred feels like the monumental events of a generation or so ago in Eastern Europe.

I was privileged to witness firsthand the immediate aftermath of those events as a media assistance missionary of sorts during the 1990s in newly awakened countries like Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. In North Africa now as in Europe then, the motivation of these would-be revolutionaries seems not so much ideological as simply human - a matter of good people, often young, fed up with a bad system and demanding change now.

Unfortunately, we know these kinds of idealistic liberation movements often have a way of getting hijacked by more sinister forces. Let's keep our fingers crossed. So far, there don't seem to be any major overtones of Islamist fundamentalism. If anyone has been agitating to replace repressive secular politicians-turned-dictators with even more repressive ayatollahs, I haven't heard them. Most of the words we've been heard shouted on TV have to do with democracy and economic freedom, not religion.

Anyone in the media business can only shake his head at the immediate, knee-jerk reaction of the Mubarak administration, which has been to try to shut down the means of communication by which common people could find out what was going on and perhaps join in. If it didn't ultimately work in the Eastern Europe of the 1980s, how can can anyone anywhere hope to keep the lid on indefinitely in this age of a wide-open Internet and all its offshoots?

One indication of the shaky state of events is that no one in America - from the White House on down - knows what to make of all this or where it might lead or which side to take. Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have tried to skate deftly down the middle, warning against another Tiananmen Square massacre but falling short of pulling the rug out from under a longtime ally. And to their credit, Republican leaders aren't trying to second-guess them.

At this writing, looks as if Mubarak has announced he's not running again. It's still way too early to know if this movie will have a happy ending - or even what a hypothetical happy ending might look like. But at this point, it sure is hard to tear yourself away from the screen, isn't it?

Steve Bouser is editor of The Pilot. Contact him at (910) 693-2470 or by e-mail at sbouser@thepilot.com.

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Gabanga 2 years, 3 months ago

No big mystery here.The volcano of oppression and dictatorial rule finally exploded and the lava is flowing over all the Arab states who are dictatorial WITHOUT EXCEPTION! The shameful part is that our government supplied the above with weaponry and other "aid" that these regimes are using against their own people.But what can you expect of a "geographically and historically" challenged administration?

JER 2 years, 3 months ago

Welcome to earth, gabanga. The first thing you should know is that this world did not begin 2 years ago.

JER 2 years, 3 months ago

Do some research and point out the last time I had a comment deleted. I'm not saying I never had one deleted but you will be hard pressed to find many, if any.

JER 2 years, 3 months ago

Your comments indicated that our government supplies weapons and other aid to these dictatorial Arab states. That would be a true statement had you stopped there. However, you continued on with: "But what can you expect from a 'geographically and historically' challenged administration?", which insinuates that only the current Obama administration did it. Were you able to follow the "logic" that time? If not, I am saying that the weapons and aid have been flowing to dictatorial Arab states for years under both Republican and Democrat administrations. This is how we have friends, we pay them to be our friends. We overlook their dictatorships and human rights shortcomings when it suits our larger interests. It also is good for our military/industrial complex , as it keeps them all employed and raking in lots of money. So, in a way, your railing against what has been going on could easily be construed as being anti-American.

Zoey 2 years, 3 months ago

JER, You should have stopped sooner too. Pal, I was all with you, until you mentioned it's a 'good thing'. Let me get this right, you're all for arming citizens of foreign countries with automatic weapons, but oppose even hi-capacity semi-autos here in your country? Un-American?

JER 2 years, 3 months ago

Zoey, where did the "good thing" quote come from in my post? Where do you come up with the notion that I APPROVE of what this country has been doing for all these many years. The only thing in your reply that is accurate is my disdain for "hi-capacity semi autos" in this country or any country, and that was not even a part of this discussion. Read slower.

JER 2 years, 3 months ago

I think I know what may have happened, Zoey. I used "irony" and you didn't know what that was.

Zoey 2 years, 3 months ago

To Do List~

Read Slower
Look-up Irony

Yukonjohn 2 years, 3 months ago

It also is good for our military/industrial complex , as it keeps them all employed and raking in lots of money.

JER, I think he got your meaning pretty well. I was in the military for ten years, and traveled all over the world several times. I saw us arming two bit dictators all over the world....as long as it suited our purpose. Ferdinan Marcos, Pak Chung He, Chevalier, Norrieaga, the Shah of Iran, ...and last but not least...I was in Saudi Arabia when the hostages were taken and we were buddying up to Sadam Hussein!! I bet he rued the day he did that!!! Well, up until the rope got tight, that is.

JER 2 years, 3 months ago

Yukonjohn, I think we are both saying the same thing. I was making fun of our system of supporting scumbags that suit our purpose while making a big display of our outrage for scumbags who have nothing to offer us. My comment that you quoted above was meant to say that we are heavily reliant on war and unrest around the world to keep our economy going. And, in a perverse way, if you appose supplying arms and aid to the scumbags, you would be hurting the economy, which would be not good for the country. I don't think that having an economy based on war is right, I'm just saying that is how it has been for quite a while.

JER 2 years, 3 months ago

You'll have to help me out. What were the subjects involved in these three in a row deletions?

Ross 2 years, 3 months ago

Geez gabanga - Do I detect a bit of jealousy?

lotamom 2 years, 3 months ago

America needs to stop trying to "row other countries boats". Get back in our own boat and paddle like hell for shore before we go all go over the falls. The problem with that is "our boat" is full of holes. We'll have to do some quick patching or start that long, hard swim upstream.

Amazed 2 years, 3 months ago

I think they got the idea to revolt after the successful protests in Tunisia were able to oust their corrupt leader.

nothingspecial 2 years, 3 months ago

Funny how liberals feel that Muslims feel that the great satan is the imperialistic conquering American they think George Bush was. But if you actually listen to a Muslim they see the great satan as all the things liberals fight for in Amercia, such as homosexual rights, everything everyone believes is alright, but religious people are a little bit deluded over fairy tales, Brittany Spears type girls having free rein of the streets, magazines, TV, and movies, and that old "nothing is wrong if done in the privacy or their own home" mantra.

Ross 2 years, 3 months ago

have you taken your "ramblings" meds today?

nothingspecial 2 years, 3 months ago

I don't remember

mymindwanders 2 years, 3 months ago

Gabanga...breathe son...your gonna pop a vessel with those Nodoze you got on sale

huntrJ 2 years, 3 months ago

Personally, I believe in Individual rights which are inalienable. However it becomes apparent to me that because we are not dealing with a country who is being led by philosophical leaders such as we were, and who is being influenced by the Muslim brother hood, we have no reason to expect that "Democracy" will work to anyone's advantage within the country except the extremists. The sad fact is that outside the U.S., there is a growing number of Islamic fundamentalist who believe that governments should be based on Islamic principles and the courts should work through Shariah Law.

Though Mubarak is fundamentally at odds with our own ideological basis as a country, he has been able to protect the non-muslims for the most part from extremists and has kept his peace with Israel. If he falls, and a revolution occurs, we have lost an ally and Israel has gained an enemy. The simple fact is that there has been next to no revolution, outside of our own, which has resulted in a positive government or society and for us to hold any wistful thinking is a denial of reality and history.

What we must remember is that these protesters fall to less than 1% of th Egyptian population and they did not find the people to actually assemble a Million Man March. I believe in Popular soveriegnty however this is not such. I can only pray that who ever succeeds Mubarak come september is not influenced by the muslim brotherhood or the hand of Iran.

dustyrhoades 2 years, 3 months ago

Love these folks who only support democracy if it results in the election of candidates of which they approve.

Fact is, no one knows what the heck is going to happen in Egypt, except that it seems like Mubarak is toast. No one, however, seems to be running the rebellion against him.

This makes for an extremely dangerous situation. They could end up an Islamist state, or the moderates could actually pull off a secular democracy, which will still have to have some place in it for the Muslim Brotherhood--love 'em or hate 'em, they're a potent political force. For a while there it looked like they were going to be sensible and fall in behind al-Baradei, but then it looked as if they were backing away from that. Tomorrow, who knows what they're going to do?

Best thing we can do, though, is stay out of it. No one, including us, can "manage" a revolution, and anyone we back suddenly loses credibility with a large chunk of the "Arab street, " because they don't trust us.

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