For the first time in the history of their country which is thousands of years old, the Egyptian people are electing their head of state. Still some think that they are replacing one pharaoh with another. Why, they ask, after a revolution that got rid of a dictator, did the people vote for the candidate of a potential dictatorial regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the ex-prime minister of the evicted Mubarak? What was the revolution about, then? I asked an Egyptian banker this question and he told me a story: “We finance factories and farms. Recently thousands of them closed down. After investigation, we found that all of them suffered from the same phenomenon. Their lorries were highjacked, with their cargo, on the way to the market. They, later, received calls from the hijackers asking for at least 50,000 Egyptian pounds to return the vehicles — empty! As if this wasn't enough, the workers kept striking and demanding more and more pay increases. It was no longer viable to keep those businesses running, so they closed shop.” The banker explained that people are fed up with insecurity, political fighting, and daily demonstrations. They long for a stable work and living environment, even if it means less freedom. A well-organized party, with full control of all parts of government, or a general representing the military council and security apparatus seems to be their choice. They preferred this over inexperienced youth, theoretical intellectuals, and lip-serving parties, who went too far in pushing for more freedoms, and in their appetite for bloody and destructive confrontation with the government, military and Egypt's allies. The fun, for most, is over. Reality is sinking in.
In this Egyptians are no different than Russians. Vladimir Putin came from within the former Communist regime. He was the head of the much hated and feared Soviet Union intelligence service, the KGB. Still, Russia under Yeltsin was controlled by Jewish billionaires, armed gangs, and mafias, and suffered from poverty, chaos and insecurity. Ordinary Russians woke up from the freedom euphoria in such a bad shape that they yearned, at any price, for stability, security and the ability to be able to satisfy their basic needs. Russian strongman Putin gave them all that and more — plus some democracy into the bargain. That's why they keep electing him over and over again. Like Russians, Egyptians are smart people. They learnt their lessons the hard way, too. Dictatorship, which existed from the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser's coup up to the people's revolution, will not be coming back any time soon. No president will be able to act like Mubarak in the presence of an elected parliament, a free press, Twitter, and Tahrir Square. But a general chosen by the military or a candidate from a strong, well-organized party “should” be able to deliver what people need most: peace, safety and food. I hope, and expect, they will have them all — and keep democracy, as well.
Dr. Khaled Batarfi is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah. He can be reached at [email protected].
