"I Will Die On Its Land"

"Egypt is the country I have lived in, defended and fought for. I will die on its land - and history will judge what is for and what is against us." President Hosni Mubarak

That statement, a small portion of the speech President Mubarak addressed to his people, is a moving one. He did rule as an autocrat, and there have most certainly been countless human rights abuses carried out within the country against many of its people. Within the geography of the Middle East he has acted no worse than all the other dictators and tyrants, and in some ways he has been been more moderate, courageous and wiser.

What began in Tunisia, a wealthier country with a far more educated population - a smaller population with a historically well-integrated population - as a public protest against rising food scarcity and high prices for both food and other commodities, escalated into a popular demand for a change in governance which caused the government there to collapse. Not entirely; the president fled, and his party still functions at its helm.

But there is political flux and insecurity, and there is the lingering possibility that an Islamist faction will eventually begin to challenge the still-legitimate remaining government. Those signs are beginning to evidence themselves, as gangs have begun to flex their muscles. In 2002, al-Qaeda was responsible for the deaths of 21 Jews outside a synagogue. Now, gangs have set a synagogue on fire and created other acts of sabotage, looting and attacking schools.

An infectious fever of revolutionary zeal anxious to topple the governments that have sat upon power in the Arab and Muslim world has begun its inexorable spread. In Iran and in Lebanon, the fractious power of fanatical Shiism has triumphed, and Syria is looking fairly nervous. Jordan is facing its own problem of growing Muslim Brotherhood influence. Yemen and Algeria are similarly threatened.

And Egypt has former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradai, once a friendly colleague of President Mubarak, turning ferociously against him, offering himself up as an alternate candidate for transitional president, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Whom Mr. ElBaradai denies has any intention of moving Egypt toward its destiny as the Islamist Republic of Egypt. He is appealing to the youth of Egypt who have dominated Tahrir Square.

The young ardently adore anarchy and the freedoms they see in its unstructured state of chaotic confusion. The old assiduously seek the comfort of orderly security. Those who are young, educated, unemployed and idle, seek distraction, employ distortion, and call for change to the existing order. Those who work frantically to support a family, have no time to spare for idleness and protest.

There lie the polarizing ideologies that are now meeting face to face in the camps of the disaffected and the demanding. The demanding hang an effigy of President Mubarak in Tahrir square, howling for his quick departure. The employed and those loyal to their president may also be disaffected by his mandate, but he has redeemed himself by his pledge to leave and help transform the government and their beloved country.

They aver their love for and trust in their president. They have the patience to wait out the transformative events that they believe will now take place, with their president at the helm, fully prepared to step down and quiescently retire. Determined before that, to ensure that an orderly and responsible government does take its place with the intention to honour and implement the democratic changes the public wishes.

He would prefer not to entertain the potential of the Muslim Brotherhood taking the initiative to assert their well-organized presence and implement their ideology in the process. And nor do many of those who trust their departing president wish to have him replaced with the Muslim Brotherhood. They are fully prepared to allow their president what he well deserves, a respected place in memory after he has fulfilled his promise to die on Egypt's hallowed land.

There has always been turmoil, unrest and misery in the Middle East. It is an especial place in history, in culture, in the arts and sciences and the international imagination. There the first idea of monotheism was imagined. A great civilization existed there for aeons, before the rest of the world eventually caught up, and that great civilization declined. But its memory lives on, treasured.

While that will not change, it is interesting to note in passing that Egyptians themselves have among them those who think nothing of their heritage, tradition and priceless archaeological treasures. Tragically, looting and smashing the irreplaceable.

But this too is the way of the world.