Tag: Tahrir Square

 February 6, 2011

Neither Logic Nor Reality.  Thursday night’s Christiane Amanpour interview of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak gave us a revealing view of his reasoning about the popular uprising, then in its ninth day. The protests, suddenly rent with the violence of pro-Mubarak forces, brought the President out of hiding to comment. His key responses were to Amanpour’s question about his possible resignation: “If I resign today, there will be chaos. . . I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other. . . I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country.”

In 1927, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities.” In his attempt to shift responsibility, President Mubarak’s comments abuse logic and ignore reality. In fact, it’s a verbal stunner, a soup of distortions that will find its way into the lexicon of modern Egyptian history.

Velvet Words, Burlap Meanings. Yet, on its first hearing, Mubarak arguably sounds resolute, steeped in affection for home and hearth. Likewise, newly minted Vice President Omar Suleiman later told Amanpour that “We always respect our president, respect our father, respect the guy who’s done as well for his country as President Mubarak has done.”  Indeed, there’s truth to Suleiman’s observation: Mubarak has a well-earned reputation for bravery in military service to Egypt; he did at some times – long past – listen to his people’s aspirations; he walked an unenviable path between Israeli mistrust and Islamic resentment. 

Now, though, Mubarak’s apparently sincere words fail to match the reality on the ground, and the regime’s part in it.  He’s ratified the harsher measures we saw on Wednesday, if not actually ordering them himself. He watched the attacks on journalists in the attempt to banish the press and isolate the protesters.  In these activities, the same enabling role is also true of Suleiman. Still and all, here they are avowing their love of all Egyptians. Where have they been the last 48 hours, the last 10 days?  Apparently not in Egypt.

It may be argued that Suleiman’s remarks about Mubarak are the wistful sentiments of a longtime colleague. Mubarak’s words and nonaction, though, throttle the truth and strongly suggest insincerity. Applying the “smell test” fails.  He’s “fed up” with the Presidency?  He just wishes that he could step down? About that, let’s note he’s been hard at work trying to deflate, discredit, and defeat the protesters for at least the past few days.  And to what purpose?  To ease his way out of the office he maintains he’s “fed up” with?  If that’s what he expected to convey during his Amanpour interview – and in his earlier speech to the nation as well – then he’s failed the “logic of realities.” If the reality on the ground is a guide, his tenure is finished (and Suleiman’s), unless he wants to be literally pushed out of office, or reduced to a dying figurehead with little or no power. He knows that. His best bet is to leave, to retirement on a Pharaoh’s pension in Sharm-el-Sheik. 

“Let Them Eat Red Herring” But let’s briefly accept that Mubarak truly is “fed up” with the presidency, then the only reason for holding onto power he’s advanced is his fear of the consequences of his leaving, his concern about “chaos.” This, however, is like throwing a coconut cream pie in a stranger’s face and then complaining that your victim’s anger has caused you emotional damage. 

Let’s face it, the chaos in Cairo, in largest part, was caused by Mubarak and his crony-heavy regime, both in an immediate and a long term sense.  Shifting the blame and changing the question is a shopworn tactic, politicians everywhere use it, it’s the screwdriver in the toolbox. We experienced it, for example, when the Bush II administration put the unprepared and inexperienced Michael Brown in charge of FEMA, and following Hurricane Katrina then asserted, “See, federal government programs don’t work!” Well, Bush and the government-hating GOP/Tea Party set it up to fail, there and elsewhere, to lend credence to their anti-governance rhetoric. A classic red herring. Given Mubarak’s record of late, particularly his collusion with the brute force that is called “pro-Mubarak,” his avowed affection for the people is, it appears, a red herring meant to fool Egyptians into sentimentally adjusting their emotions, and to buy time for Mubarak to retain his power. Hopefully, this red herring rots in the Middle Eastern sun.