Source: Asiatimes on line
The news and images coming out of Egypt are deeply troubling. At least 36 people have died since last Friday, and over 1,250 have reportedly been wounded in clashes around Tahrir Square in Cairo (and in several other cities).
On Monday, the Egyptian government resigned and on Tuesday the military regime offered further concessions, and yet the crisis goes on. There is much at stake in the outcome of the confrontations, both for Egypt and for the Middle East as a whole.
To anybody who has been following the decline of the Egyptian economy and the repeated failure of key sectors of internal security since the ouster of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February, none of this is surprising. Neither is thedisappointment of the crowds surprising to any one familiar with the course of the countless democratic and “color” revolutions in Eastern Europe over the past 20 years; some of the latter – specifically the one in Serbia against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic – inspired the organizers of the anti-Mubarak movement.
Still, the timing of the unrest is important, as it started just days before the parliamentary elections in the country that are scheduled for next Monday. Moreover, it began at the same time as another crisis in the region (and another episode of the Arab Spring), that in Syria, seemingly nears its climax. These apparent coincidences are deeply suspicious, and suggest that either external or internal forces (or both) may be involved.
The protests on Friday were organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, which rose up against an attempt by the ruling military to pass a document that would guarantee its authority over the future elected government. They were quickly joined by pro-democratic activists and others.