After Tunisia, Is Egypt Next?
Eric Trager writes at The Atlantic Online:
On Friday evening, within hours of Tunisian ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fleeing the popular uprising against him, approximately one hundred Egyptian activists demonstrated in front of the Tunisian Embassy in Cairo. Though they were ultimately beaten back by security forces, their swift mobilization immediately revived activists' hopes for a region-wide "Arab Spring," in which the "Tunisian scenario" would be replicated in Egypt and beyond.
"What happened in Tunisia is a model," says Amir Salah, a researcher at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. "It shows that can we can do it."
Egypt's liberal activists overwhelmingly come from the wired generation of Twitter and Facebook, and this makes them optimistic that pro-democratic movements can go viral, even in a political environment as traditionally illiberal as the Middle East. Pointing to recent demonstrations in Jordan and Algeria, they insist that Tunisia's "Jasmine Revolution" will be contagious - if only people build off its momentum.
Yet Egyptian activists face tremendous odds - in particular, an entrenched dictatorship that is determined to discredit the very idea of domino-effect democratization. This has been President Hosni Mubarak's specialty throughout his thirty-year rule - which is why, for the moment, his regime is behaving quite confidently.
Despite rampant chatter of protests scheduled for Saturday, the two major thoroughfares of downtown Cairo - Tahrir Square and Talaat Harb Square - were flowing normally and without any visibly heightened security presence. During previous episodes of anticipated anti-regime activity, riot police surrounded these areas preemptively and, in some cases, effectively closed them to traffic. But for the vast majority of Cairenes the day after the Jasmine Revolution felt like any other day - normal, except for the rain. And this sense of normalcy is precisely what the regime hopes to project moving forward, since normal days do not produce popular uprisings. ...
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