Great news from Egypt: Hosni Mubarak has resigned. As I said a couple of week ago, Mubarak’s days were numbered when the army didn’t crush the protests against him. If you don’t control a monopoly on violence that you can exercise to eliminate threats, you’re not in charge any more.
Could we be witnessing a wave of democratisation, sparked by the oil/food crisis, like the one that swept Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Lets hope so.
But, remember, the army is now in charge and it was the army that overthrew the monarchy and created the dictatorship in the first place. Democracy may not be their goal.
This interview on RNZ with a Human Rights Watch activist, Daniel Williams, who was arrested by the army and interrogated by them for 36 hours is worth listening to. As Williams says “It’s not that the army is discovering this oppressive system. They created the system in this country”
Hopefully, it will be different this time, but it depends on the military men in charge and what different countries offer them. I predict that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah is already on the blower offering financial assistance to ensure ‘stability’.
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