How Do You Go from Reformer to Dictator?

President Hosni Mubarak came to power in the midst of crisis thirty years ago. In the beginning, he was a reassuring manifestation of stability for most Egyptians as well as for world leaders, particularly those from the West, searching for an ally in the Middle East. Today however, crisis once again dominates Egyptian life and Mubarak is widely recognized as the cause of the problem.

Over the span of his rule, Mubarak, this former pilot and Air Force general who despite his combative and stubborn nature, had taken baby steps toward democracy. Ultimately however, he gave into the siren calls of the more familiar authoritarianism that combined with poverty and government corruption, has finally resulted in driving the Egyptian people into the streets in violent opposition to his government.

The prospect that Mubarak was grooming his son Gamal Mabarak to succeed him, created a sense among many Egyptians that they were trapped in a seemingly never-ending cycle of despotism, deprived of any opportunity for real change. His son’s quick rise through Mubarak’s ruling party didn’t help much and actually caused tremendous domestic angst. Then, Tunisia erupted into the kind of uprising that shouted to the people of Egypt, “You too can be free. You too can throw the old order out.”

Hosni Mubarak, now 82, announced this past week that he will not seek another term, but then in the very next breath, rejected demands that he leave office immediately. This half-hearted gesture towards meeting the demands of the protestors—leaving office sometime in the future but not right now—was met with howls of protest from the tens of thousands of Egyptians in the streets who want Mubarak out yesterday.

For those of you too young to remember, Hosni Mubarak came to power in Egypt in 1981 when he was sitting in a reviewing stand next to his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, where he was gunned down by Islamic militants. Mubarak was serving as Sadat’s Vice-President when this happened and it was widely felt at the time that Sadat’s death signaled an end to the world’s best hope for Arab moderation.

Immediately after the assassination the Egyptian parliament designated Mubarak as the sole presidential candidate and he was subsequently elected head of state on October 13, 1981 with almost 99 percent of the vote.

At the beginning, the new President Mubarak strongly and convincingly destroyed the Muslim insurgency whose strength had been previously underestimated and from within whose ranks had come Anwar Sadat’s killers and interestingly enough, some of the future leaders of al-Qaida.

He also promised he would introduce democratic reforms which won him considerable popularity in Egypt and he demonstrated his promise by releasing more than 1,500 politicians, journalists and clerics that had been jailed by Sadat.

During the 1990s, the second decade of his presidency, he fought hard against a resurgence of Muslim militants who were in the business of attacking both foreign tourists and Egyptian citizens. It was also during this time that Mubarak facilitated Egypt’s return to the arms of the Arab world after having been out in the cold because of its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and so gained the stature of being a major mediator in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Throughout his presidency, Mubarak has been locked in a constant state of struggle with myriad challenges that have confounded most of the Arab world through modern times: strangling corruption, economic anemia, Israel and Palestinians vying for the status of who could kill the other faster, and the ever constant specter of the brand of Islamic militancy that spread throughout the region enticing the young and innocent into acts of suicidal abandon.

This is not to say that there has been a lack of resentment towards his regime, especially in recent years as the new technology that is helping to facilitate the current revolution in Egypt exposed vicious state police barbarism and the growing awareness of what few economic reforms there were, trickled down to only a handful of Egyptians.

He appeared to move toward democratic reform in 2005 by allowing the first contested presidential election since he had assumed power, but quickly changed his mind when it appeared that his opponents were actually going to win. So instead of allowing democracy to flourish, he imprisoned his main secular opponent, Ayman Nour as well as leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, who today are one of the driving forces behind the street rebellion.

Yet throughout his reign, he oversaw the decline of Egypt’s influence in the Middle East as the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah armed and supported by their patron Iran, gained popularity, momentum and most importantly, followers. Through all this, Mubarak remained a strong ally of the United States but hopes for broader reform dimmed, as over the years, Hosni Mubarak remained in power due to crooked and staged one-candidate (him) referendums in which he always managed to garner more than 90 percent of the “vote.”

Reporters and pundits seem to delight in making the point that Tweeter, Facebook and what’s left of the internet in Egypt is driving this revolution. That is only partly true. The real heroes of this uprising are the Egyptian people who at great risk to themselves and their families have stood up against tyranny in the only way that is left to them and that because of that, are effecting real change and reform.

I have been extremely grateful these past couple of weeks that with all of our challenges here in America, and all the angry political rhetoric of the past four years, all I had to do in November of 2008 to effect real change and reform was to go to the ballot box and all I will have to do to continue the hope ignited on November 2, 2008, will be to go to back the ballot box in November of next year. I will not have to smash any sidewalks into rocks and throw them at anybody. There is something beautiful about that.