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    Tone-deaf: With every speech, Mubarak pisses more people off

    By acanuck on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 5:11pm |

    Hosni Mubarak had reportedly been preparing today's "concession" announcement for days. Man, does he need some new speechwriters! After the briefest nod to "the legitimate worries" of young Egyptians, he basically slammed the ongoing protests as the work of political agitators. Not a good start toward calming the waters and creating dialogue.

    As expected, he declared that he wouldn't seek re-election in September. But he sucked the joy out of the moment by saying he "hadn't been planning to anyway." Instead, he said he would serve out his term overseeing a peaceful transition to his legitimate successor. He definitely wasn't resigning, and he wasn't going into exile.

    One overlooked sentence offered a hint of a concession: Mubarak would talk to the legislature about "speeding up the election." But he buried that in a list of other "reforms" he was promising. It sounded like an afterthought, perhaps stuck into the speech to placate the White House.

    The crowd in Tahrir Square reacted to the whole thing with anger, not cheers. They chanted that they would be back tomorrow. But protest fatigue has to be setting in, and Mubarak is clearly betting he can ride the anger out and retire in faux dignity by year's end.

    Most Cairenes are dirt-poor, and the long shutdown of the city means many have run out of money and food. The students and intellectuals will keep up the fight, but average citizens -- though angrier than ever at the government -- may decide they simply have to get on with their lives. I hope that isn't the case. Egypt can't wait another 30 years for regime change.

    Comments

    Nicholas Kristof in Cairo was unimpressed with the speech, and thinks the U.S. should have pressed harder for Mubarak to quit now:

    http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/clueless-in-cairo/

    Maybe the U.S. did, and Mubarak just said no. His speech also said nothing about his son not running in September, although it's pretty obvious that's a non-starter.


    by acanuck on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 5:50pm

    One analogous situation that curiously never appears in the commentary on Egypt is Indonesia in '98. The parallels go pretty deep - big muslim country, with a Military-centric dictatorship on the ropes due to an economic crisis and eroding US support over the preceding years.

    Suharto fell after 6 months of fits of demonstrations, and the interim was handled by his vice-president Habibie before the (relatively moderate) Islamist party of Wahid took over in '99, only to be thrown out in favor of more secular leaders in 2001.

    It's still not a perfect democracy - far from it - but it's on the right path. I mention it just as a counterpoint to the Islamophobia/paranoia I keep seeing cropping up here and there in worries about the possible aftermath and the involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood (who seem temperamentally much like Wahid's Nahdlatul Ulama.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Suharto


    by Obey on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 6:49pm

    Agreed. Islamophobia is a poor perspective from which to view countries that are over 90% Muslim. Their elected leaders are likely also to be Muslim. Out of irrational fear or Machiavellian calculation, we in the West have sharpened existing divisions between secular and religious currents. In some cases, such as Egypt, we've bought into a shell game in which one political group brutally crushes its secular rivals while letting Islamist critics achieve a manageable degree of visibility. That party or leader then proclaims itself indispensable as a bulwark of stability and democracy.

    But there's a danger in casting large slices of a country's population as implacable enemies of secular authorities and of the West. Sometimes they internalize that message, and act on it.

    As for the Brotherhood, it's worth remembering that it predates by decades the Egyptian republic itself. Although officially banned for decades, it's a venerable national institution -- sort of like a Middle Eastern AFL-CIO. Mubarak cracks down on its leadership whenever it serves his purpose, but knows it can't be driven out of existence. In any case, it's too useful as a bogeyman.


    by acanuck on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 7:54pm

    I think Mubarak is playing for time. They'd better get him out now, or he'll find a way to hang on.


    by Donal on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 8:52pm

    Mubarak's pride won't let him admit he's been driven from power, and he may hold out a deluded hope of passing power to his son. But I think the military/security types who head his new government are not blind to what a liability he's become. I fear people are getting tired and hungry, but a couple more days of mass protests may be all it takes to persuade the army to cut him loose.


    by acanuck on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 9:03pm

    Well, in his defense, he's only been inn charge for THIRTY YEARS!!!

    I'm sure that he meant to deal with corruption, poverty, nepotism, and all other "issues that bother the Egyptians" that he plans to turn around next week. Another question: Why have we spent the most that we spend in foreign aid for Egypt? Billions and billions, while Republicans dispute health care for our own citizens.


    by CVille Dem on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 9:09pm

    That Mubarak .... the ultimate incrementalist.

    Also. Because we are clearly morons. Too.

    I wonder if we'll have to pay them less if they won't torture people for us anymore...

     


    by kgb999 on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 2:13am

    The billions are mostly military aid, directly tied to weapons-procurement deals. So it's a stimulus program for U.S. arms manufacturers. You've seen those teargas canisters "made in USA." Good PR, too.


    by acanuck on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 2:13am

    The Corrections Officers Union-transnational fiscal priority. Egypt guards the secod gate to the gaza ghet...er, that is, jail for our B.F.F., (you know who.)

    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 2:24am

    You know, as with other nations we send Egypt a couple of billion dollars every year.

    Its government has supported our aims for decades.

    But our country cannot be responsible for every goddamn thing that happens in this world.

     


    by Richard Day on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 2:43am

    Yeah, we can't be responsible, we can just make things worse. I note this morning Mubarek has his thugs out beating demonstrators in the streets while the Army watches from their tanks.

    I don't suppose the Obama administration pleas for non-violence from Mubarek were prescient enough to tell him his thugs shouldn't resort to violence either in or out of their police/Army uniforms?

    Talk about tone deaf, Mubarek says 'he will not run again', sort of like the captain of the Titanic saying he does not intend to be captain on the return voyage back from New York.


    by NCD on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 10:31am

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