Friday, February 04, 2011
Editorial

It is a sad fact of geopolitics that when countries lecture others, they do so to address their own interests. The wise people of Egypt should bear this in mind, even in the face of increasingly feisty anti-Mubarak rhetoric issuing forth from erstwhile allies. Even confronted by violence and chaos, they must not allow ulterior motives, foreign meddling or personal desire to see them stray from the path already trod by millions of supporters of democracy.

These are young people who are capable, politically aware and legitimately vocal. It is these people alone who can decide their future, much as demonstrators have taken the choice of amputating the mistakes of the past.
The regime is dead, to all intents and purposes; the civilians, journalists and lawmakers who have witnessed the uprising have signed the mortuary note. But it will take a collective effort of unparalleled unity of purpose to prevent a devastating rigor mortis taking hold. Any nation wishing to interfere is urged to placate central players, not provoke them.

Friday brings the prospect of more mass gatherings and with it, regrettably, the prospect of greater violence. The people of Egypt have suffered too much already; first, through decades of neglect, crippling poverty and unemployment which the government failed to address; second, through those injured and killed in clashes currently tearing across the country. If more have to suffer (and the hope is this doesn’t occur), such pain and anguish should be rewarded by the creation of a better and brighter country for all Egyptians to inhabit, not one in which hatred is sown and division fomented among people who share the same grievances and futures.

This is a revolution which began with a set of demands and which, if it doesn’t falter, will see those demands met, albeit not as soon as many would like. Events of the past two days have, through fear, violence and intimidation, mutated this popular movement into a situation bordering on civil war. Not only would such an implosion erase the progress of 10 days of unprecedented popular unity, it would also seriously jeopardize the willingness of the moribund regime to relinquish the reins of power.

Wherever individual loyalties now lie after witnessing the total breakdown of security and order as well as too many fallen protesters, there remains a common, solitary choice: change or regression. No one is better qualified to make this choice than the people.

Egyptians – who own this revolution, who conceived and nurtured the changes being witnessed – must be left alone to deal with its maturity.