- The fall of Egypt's leader and his political party is
because he learned the wrong lessons from his patrons. Will Americans learn
something from Egyptians, asks Eric Walberg
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- The Supreme Administrative Court order to disband the
National Democratic Party and confiscate its properties last week was based
on the NDP's violation of the constitution; namely, monopolising power,
preventing legitimate competition from other parties, and allowing corruption
by the marriage of business and politics. As the only political force in
control of the administration of the country, the NDP allowed powerful
businessmen to rise through its ranks and then enact laws and run the country
in their personal and corporate interests.
-
- What is this scenario but the Western electoral system,
governed in the US by what is increasingly known as the Republicrats? Albeit
minus the need by corporations and other lobbyists to divide their donations
between two look-alike NDPs. It is impossible for a genuine alternative
party to gain any traction in this polyarchy, defined by Noam Chomsky as
"a system of elite decision-making and public ratification",
where elections are rigged, but indirectly -- by media control and their
huge cost.
-
- Constitutions are mere words on pieces of paper, which
real world actors twist to meet their needs. Revolutions ignore these pieces
of papers when they no longer reflect the underlying reality. America's
constitution, treated with great reverence, long ago lost all relevance
to what it really going on in the US, with the president declaring multiple
wars, serving "corporate persons" not citizens, conspiring with
foreign powers and individuals to undermine American life -- all in violation
of the real meaning of the constitution. The very idea of revolution, as
enshrined in the US constitution itself, is now outlawed as "terrorism".
-
- As a North American living in Cairo, I wake up every
day not quite believing that the revolution actually happened here. That
the threadbare constitution was swept aside, and in a matter of days, revised
to meet people's demands and affirmed in a referendum. That leading politicians
and businessmen are being driven to court in their Mercedes and driven
away in a Black Marias, as was reported about the ineffectual former prime
minister Ahmed Nazif.
-
- Nazif was perhaps the least odious of the lot, convicted
for colluding with NDP head and Shura Council (upper house) speaker Safwat
El-Sherif and Popular Council speaker Fathi Sorour, who amassed huge tracts
of land, dozens of villas and apartments, and amended the constitution
in 2007 to pave the way for Gamal Mubarak's ascension. They have been joined
by Mubarak's chief of staff Zakariya Azmi, ex-minister of health Hatem
El-Gabaly, ex-minister of tourism Zuheir Garana, ex-minister of culture
Farouk Hosni and ex-minister of finance Youssef Boutros Ghali.
-
- Nazif can now reconvene his cabinet at the Tora prison
and hold regular cabinet meetings, so the popular anecdote goes. He, business
tycoon Ahmed Ezz and ex-minister of interior Habib El-Adly greeted Gamal
Mubarak when he arrived at Tora with the NDP election slogan, "We
are here for you," another anecdote has it. Even the first lady Suzanne
has not been spared, called for questioning about embezzlement from the
Alexandria Library and the annual Reading-for-All festival.
-
- And the prospect of ex-president Hosni Mubarak being
helicoptered to a military hospital, after defiantly broadcasting a speech
on a foreign satellite channel denying the obvious -- that he presided
over a police state indulging in an orgy of graft and corruption -- who
needs sensational soap operas? I am reminded of some of these soap operas
and popular movies, which during the past decade, as corruption ran wild,
provided an outlet for the frustrations -- and education -- of Egyptians.
-
- To watch once pompous remote leaders being paraded before
the mainstream media as criminals is both shocking and inspiring. For who
are the role models for the Mubaraks and their Sherifs, but the Bushes
and Cheneys? Not so much the slick Clinton or Obama -- these are peculiarly
American phenomena, who act masterfully to distract Americans from reality.
But who can deny that the Bush dynasty, from banker Prescott through master
Cold War intriguer Herbert Walker to the borderline illiterate George W
-- all crowned by political high office, the latter with his terrifying
Dr Strangelove adviser -- cynically soaked the American people of untold
wealth and are responsible for the deaths and/or torture of millions of
innocent people?
-
- While in office, Mubarak befriended five US presidents
from Reagan on and saw how they intrigued, lied, betrayed, stole and emerged
unharmed. How they colluded with big corporations to enrich themselves
and their families, how the Zionist and military lobbies held them in a
vice-like grip, preventing any honest policy of peace, especially in the
Middle East. How they denied any wrong-doing, indeed, how arguably the
worst offender politically -- Reagan -- is now worshipped as a great president,
second in some polls only to John F Kennedy.
-
- Is it any wonder he was misled so disastrously by his
henchmen to dally in office long past his due-date, confident that his
people could be brainwashed by media saturation of stories of his military
heroism, impressed by his pharaonic large-than-life royal image? Why shouldn't
his son inherit the mantle of power, just as the ex-CIA Bush more or less
handed his power on to his offspring?
-
- That business cronies like Ezz moved into parliament
via a political party that prevented any possibility of honest elections
is only to emulate the Republicrats. Unblinkered North Americans look on
longingly at the spectacle now being acted out in Cairo, for Mubarak is
an angel compared to his colleagues in Washington.
-
- Even the squeaky-clean Obama has helped his bankers and
businessmen continue their economic rape of Americans, and stained his
record with the murder of thousands of innocents in Afghanistan, Iraq and
elsewhere. When he leaves office (next year or in five years -- what difference
does it make?), he will move, as did his predecessors Clinton and Bush,
into a world of feel-good preaching, cocktail parties and corporate boardrooms,
turning everything he touches into gold.
-
- Mubarak's fatal error was to ignore the highly sophisticated
nature of US politics, where graft and violence are arts carefully honed
over many years of electoral slugging matches. It is this sophistication
that Egypt lacks, not any innate sense of real democracy, in the sense
of respect for others and acknowledgment by rulers of their responsibility
to their subjects. It turns out that the so-called undemocratic Egyptian
political system, and the supposedly unsophisticated Egyptian people, are
in fact light-years ahead of Americans in their political savvy, their
sense of moral outrage, their courage in facing down evil and putting a
stop to it.
-
- Already, Hillary has been seen in Tahrir Square glad-handing
hijab-clad mothers, and generously announcing new millions of dollars to
support Egyptian democracy, as if the last 30 years hadn't happened at
all. Pentagon officials are in daily contact with Egyptian officials. But
it won't necessarily be smooth sailing for corporate democracy to reimpose
its stranglehold on Egypt.
-
- IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn got a rude awakening
at a forum in Cairo last week. The revolutionary most feted by the West,
Wael Ghonim, invited to appear on a panel in the IMF's Egypt headquarters,
called the world's financial hatchetman and the "elites" of the
world "partners in crime" for supporting Mubarak's regime. "To
me what was happening was a crime, not a mistake. A lot of people knew
that things were going wrong." The implication being that it was the
height of hypocrisy for the IMF to pretend it had any concern for Egypt's
real needs.
-
- Egypt's Google marketing chief's savvy, comparing his
attack to Joe-the-plumber's grilling of US presidential candidate Barack
Obama in 2008, is a yellow flag for the bad guys, whose game might be up.
Revolutionary youth refused to meet with Clinton when she came on her pilgrimage
to Tahrir. Another storm signal for the empire is the fact that Bush, Rumsfeld
and others have had to cancel visits to Europe, fearing arrest for their
war crimes. Egypt's revolution gives succour to citizens everywhere struggling
to return morality to politics.
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- ***
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- Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly <http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/>http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
You can reach him at <http://ericwalberg.com/>http://ericwalberg.com
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