Madina newspaper Acolleague, obviously less occupied with what has happened in Sudan after the independence of the Republic of South Sudan and overwhelmed by the return of millions of Egyptians to Tahrir square, asked me “What happened to the revolution in Egypt? Where is it heading?” I answered; but could not hide my surprise that a Sudanese would be more concerned with what's happening in Egypt than the pressing issues in his own country which is danger-bound. A country which Arab governments have placed on the back burner as current developments in Libya, Syria and Yemen garner great attention. The fall of Hosni Mubarak from power does not draw down the final curtain for the first-ever since the revolt against Bibi, the second Egyptian pharaoh more than a thousand years ago, Mubarak's fall from power is just a scene in the saga of the revolution. The popular revolt is still brewing like a volcano that yet has to spit out all of its lava. As matters are evolving now I consider the return to Tahrir Square a normal, awaited act for the following reasons: First: The popular uprising in Egypt, loosely called revolution, is in dire need of a “head”, a Herculean-like leader with a great zeal of energy, willingness and determination. It requires , however, some sort of consensus to pursue a national “game plan”. Second: The absence of a “head” —leadership — has tempted many forces, groups and self-anointed leaders to jump into the forefront of the national scene to pursue their own visions or the vision of others that they have come to adopt or for some ulterior motives. Third: Mubark's downfall uprooted a pillar of a holistic political sytem that had been driven by individual decisions for decades. All throughout, the people sat on the gallery of spectators applauding in fear and in suppressed pain. The revolutionary reconstruction has progressed in a slow pace with so much hesitation. This begged the question whether the “administrator” of the revolution, the military council, as grudgingly accepted by the people to avoid the worst , is bent on pursuing the gains of the revolution or if it has its own vision of pulling down the “temple” and rebuild it. Fourth: There was a measurable degree of consensus at Tahrir Square right up to the time Mubarak relinquished power that the revolutionary forces seem to have lost their track when faced with the reality of “so what's next”. Such state of dizzying euphoria came to the fore during the negotiations on whether a new constitution should be put in place first or should parliamentary elections precede it. Fifth: Currently, the “military council” – the current revolutionary administrator — does not seem to share the vision of the revolutionary forces that led to the downfall of Mubarak. Thirty years of Mubarak's rule left no person or group in Egypt without a stain of the purported “collaboration stigma” with his regime or cohabiting with it. Against this backdrop, it looked impossible to find a stigma-free person or group. Therefore, the insistence of the protesters to look for a leader without any association with Mubarak looks at best romantic, if not outrightly, childish. Sixth: As long as the indecisive drift goes on toward unclear options and with many being puzzled by the turn of events, the endless search for unclear or unpopular options would lead to the empowerment of the streets again. Driven or agitated, the protesters have returned to the streets demanding immediate revolutionary GPS reorientation and quicker pace of reforms. Seventh: One cannot overlook the sense of self-pride engulfing the Egyptian public mood, it gives an inkling that the Egyptians are vying for more listings in the Guinness Book of World Records, as if toppling an established dictatorial regime in 18 days is not enough; as if to be the first revolutionaries to clean the trash and leftovers is not sufficient; as if to have drawn about 7 percent of the population to descend onto the streets to demand the abolition of a previous regime still leaves much to be realized. Probably, Egyptians want to bring the temple down peacefully and reconstruct a modern government system. Eight: The Middle East region for centuries has not witnessed a revolutionary model, creative and capable of creating a modern state with its relevant institutions. The absence of such model puts the Egyptian experiment in square one. It is true that our nearest neighbors north of the Mediterranean have been tinkering for centuries with modern state models. Yet, mimicking a civilization and its underpinning values makes it less practical for the Egyptian on start-up phase. Ninth: Probably, the Tahrir Square youth and the Egyptian elites are belaboring to craft a government model that requires more than their current resources could afford or pay for. At best, they could find themselves in a clashing orbit with the domestic and probably regional powers to whom current Egyptian reform discussions and its future spillovers may not mesh well with theirs. Tenth: The current Arab interest in the developments in Tahrir Square, which is just as much as with the daily happenings in Libya, Yemen and Syria, puts additional burden on the Egyptian people in less measure than the savant vanguards of the Cape of Good Hope or the trail-blazing revolutionaries of the Bastille. __
