The West Fiddles, Egypt Burns

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

President Hosni Mubarak's curfew does not appear to be making much of an impression on Egyptians determined to hold their government to account for its unrelenting stranglehold on the country's social and political progress. They do have the government to thank for keeping the Muslim Brotherhood in a state of suspended animation, although that has not resulted in a more quiescent Islamist group, but rather a more careful, yet still bold one.

One that has successfully established ties throughout the world, including Europe and North America. Where they have stealthily and successfully presented themselves as reasonable alternatives to the prevailing political (and religious/secular-oriented) governments historically and currently in place in the Middle East. Familiarity breeds acceptance in many quarters, quieting suspicion, proving that patience is a great virtue.

And whose sibling-organization in Gaza, is carrying on the fundamentalist message of Sharia and strengthening the region's ever-expanding net of Islamism whose first target is Israel. Sectarian differences may separate Shiite from Sunni, but Hamas and Hezbollah recognize certain indivisible loyalties and aspirations more achievable in a state of convenient concert than discordant divisiveness. Once the goal of destroying Israel is achieved, and Sharia more accepted, the sheathed knives of dissent can be once more drawn.

For the moment, all can bask in the happenstance of collective pan-Arab-populations' discontent with their status quo as socially backward, politically constrained, religiously restive resulting in poverty, inequality and ignorance. The Arab Street, sharing much of the fundamental message of the Islamists have, independent of that fact, awakened from their slumber of acquiescent bondage to tyrannical regimes.

Riot police walk past burning tires placed to form a barricade during clashes with protesters in Cairo.Photograph by: Goran Tomasev, REUTERS

The first-responder police, hated by the public, representing the government's implacable will that they will implement at the cost of lives and injuries, are doing their utmost to ensure the protests become becalmed, before they break out another day on the rough seas of fiercely renewed determination. The patrician former head of the UN's IAEA, Mohamed el Baradei, a long-time critic of President Mubarak, is joining with the youthful protesters, portraying himself as a potential, (albeit another elderly), compromise candidate for president.

But the estimable Dr. el Baradei, Nobel prize aside, has no political network working on his behalf. He may be esteemed for his former work as head of the IAEA, but he has been absent from Egypt for far too long to be recognized as a politician, rather than a diplomat. It remains the precinct of the Muslim Brotherhood to present as an alternative to the current government, as the single most organized and longest-existing challenge to the governing NDP party of President Mubarak.

There's a balancing act evident on the part of the United States, Egypt's generous financial supporter to the tune of one and a half billion yearly, most of which supports the country's armed forces. The status quo, while crushing the aspirations of ordinary Egyptians to overcome their desperate state of poverty and ignorance, has been one of stability. Egypt, traditionally the elder statesman of the Middle East, has supported the West's struggle to contain fundamentalist political Islam, and its peace accord with Israel is vital.

President Mubarak has the grudging respect of those who know him as a political ally, while his coercive use of the police and the army on dissidents within the country - his mock-democratic display of elections where conventionally his ruling party is elected by acclaim, and he by a margin excluding any challengers, who may post-election find themselves incarcerated on trumped-up charges - greatly perturb his Western allies.

Which, inconveniently for those who wish to uphold universal freedoms and human rights, leads to the paradox of urging democratic reforms on the country; honouring peoples' rights to free and fair and open elections which may, as was done with Hamas, end up elevating the Muslim Brotherhood to the status of elected majority and administrative rule of the country.
Yet change is manifestly in the charred air of an Egypt rent with anger at the status quo.

What and how that change will result in is a worrisome matter of much speculation. Tunisia's future is far more predictable than is Egypt's; one a small country of more educated and urbane people more given to secularity than the religious fixation of the far more populous, socially downtrodden, uneducated Egyptians. As goes Egypt will eventually go other Arab and Muslim countries teetering on the brink of social/political revolution.

The world can only wait with bated breath.