Young people in Egypt today are taking the road of the Arab future, while the regime fights in defense of the past, authoritarianism and the fossilization throughout our region. There is no more eloquent expression of this division, at least for now, before and after strategic calculations appear, and before and after regional sensitivities are taken into consideration. With its youth vanguard, Egypt is having its say: Freedom. Everything else is details. No one can deny the importance of these details here, and their impact on creating the system of rule for the future. If the regime falls due to the force of the street, or the intervention of the army, it will face a reality different from what will be created if President Husni Mubarak steps down of his own free will. If dialogue succeeds in moving events toward guarantees that the regime will adhere to, in the points enumerated by Mubarak in his two addresses (that contained no proposals for how to implement them), without maneuvering, trying to outsmart the opposition, or avoiding the realities of the last ten days, will provide proof of the regime's desire to spare the blood of its people, and of its good intentions. The contrary case, which involves the opposition's restriction of its options to the violent overthrow of Mubarak and his government in the street, or via the army's tanks, will mean that the current regime will end up prompting the next government to adopt radical steps, inside and outside the country, which will be difficult for other Arab regimes to accept. Day after day, the demands become more deeply entrenched, and the regime delays in understanding the breadth and profound nature of the protest movement. This has caused the West to urge Mubarak to “begin the process of change and transition of power.” Naturally, those who are instinctively hostile to the West will see what the Obama administration says, and what the British, French and German governments say (among many others), as nothing other than the master abandoning his servant. Once again, those who hold such simplistic theories are making a mistake. The West is completely aware that more blood in the streets means the opposition's demands will be stepped up, along with more of a hard-line stance with regard to achieving its demands and holding accountable the parties that were late to support the revolution. In this sense, we can understand the comment by the American press spokesperson who said that his country wanted change “yesterday.” It would be better to look toward the future and think about the importance of responding to the just demands of young people who have only known abuse and humiliation at the hands of the regime's “pashas,” instead of expanding on the cruelty of the regime, which has acted in a pathologically cold fashion as it ignores the tragedies of Egyptians over the past decades. It would also behoove some of Mubarak's authoritarian colleagues, even if they took a different stance than him in terms of “moderation,” to pay attention to the naked facts that have moved people in Egypt and Tunisia and elsewhere, and the simple yet profound demands of the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples. They are demanding freedom, respect for people's humanity, and the peaceful rotation of power. Issues such as the Arab-Israeli struggle and relations with the West are not appearing in the rhetoric of the Egyptian opposition, except from the standpoint of condemning Mubarak's excesses with regard to the rights and dignity of Egypt, and not on any ideological grounds. This point is considerably important. To paraphrase playwright Berthold Brecht, we can say that “because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.” In other words, political rule in Egypt over the last 30 years, and not since January 25, has moved from one mistake to another. The regime can only blame itself for what has happened. The coming hours will be very important and decisive - firstly for Egypt, and secondly, for the millions of Arabs who are searching for freedom, dignity and bread.
