Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • revolution makers
It was a ticking bomb. It was a ticking bomb ready to explode. I knew
that, but when it was going to explode, nobody knew. They were still operating
under the fiction that Egypt will turn into chaos when Mubarak leaves.
Well, of course that’s damnation of a dictatorship because [in a democracy]
people come and go and there shouldn’t be any instability.… Secondly, the
Muslim Brotherhood are a bogeyman [that will take over the country]. And
third, that immediately Egypt will go into full opposition against the United
States and declare war on Israel and abolish the peace treaty.
All these are fictions. A lot of the sentiments of the people are not going
to change. The fact that they support the Palestinian issue, the fact that they
need to see a Palestinian state, they feel that there are double standards that
are applied to the Middle East, in Palestine and Iraq and Afghanistan—this
is not going to change.
But if you have a democracy, you will then be able to have a government
representative of the people and be able to have peace. It will be a durable
peace. What Israel doesn’t understand is that, yes, they have peace, but it’s
a pseudo-peace. Talk to any Egyptian; where is the interaction between
people There will be peace when we have peace between the Israeli and
the Egyptian people. And of course, it takes two to tango, or three, with the
Americans.
Anyway, these foreign-policy issues, regional issues, are not going to
change because of democracy. In fact, democracy will enable a meaningful
dialogue on behalf of the Egyptian people, a different narrative, different
values based on moderation and modernity and not what you see now: extremism
and hype and lack of understanding. And the regime is perpetuating
that.
FP: Do you worry that if the regime is able to crush the protest movement,
that you’ll see a further radicalization of the country
MB: Oh, absolutely. I think if they try to do that.… I mean, now it’s the
whole of Egypt going out. Tomorrow you’ll probably see something like 10
million people. It’s the entire country of Egypt that is going out. If you try to
crush them, you will then get into a bloody revolution. As JFK said, if you
crush a peaceful revolution you will get a bloody revolution.
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