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10 February 2011 By Saeed
Qureshi The
first step towards
democratization and opening up the Egyptian society is
to lift the sordid emergency imposed in Egypt since
1967. Short of that, any measure to respond to the
momentous uprising would be meaningless. For two weeks
the Egyptian people are going through the most
traumatic phase marked by grievous sufferings,
sacrificing their lives and mundane comforts. The old
and young, the children and adults, the women and men
and in fact a diverse cross section of society all
have come out against a notorious outfit. The beleaguered clique that has
been in power for thirty years, is not prepared to
lift the
state of emergency, rewrite the
constitution, send
Hosni
Mubarak home and hold elections.
The vice president, notorious for his inhuman and
brutal expertise in torture and repression has assumed
the role of the front man for a person who is shorn of
even an iota of self respect. Gen. Omar Suleiman, the hastily
appointed vice president is sheltering a person who is
still audaciously keeping himself in the highest
position in complete disregard and indeed disdain of
what was happening all over Egypt against his
reprehensible rule. Since 1981, the Mubarak dynasty
has let loose a reign of terror on Egyptian nation
through a merciless intelligence network, wicked
secret service, fiendish police and iron fisted army.
That a head of state never thought even for a moment
that his government was entirely totalitarian and the
people of Egypt were being ruled like helpless
subjects, speaks for the apathy and indifference of
the former towards the latter. Despite this dacoity,
he has a desire to perpetuate in his unpardonable
monstrosities without realizing that the Egyptian
nation was up in revolt against him and that a grass
root revolution was in the offing. The superficial and perfunctory
announcements that emanate from the echelons of power
are mere cosmetic window dressing, absolutely rejected
by the Egyptian nation, yearning and striving for a
civil society
and for a government that should be of the people, by
the people and for the people. What legitimacy
Hosni
Mubarak and his bunch of accursed
cohorts are left with to be still sitting in the power
citadels and turn the whole country into a torture
cell and an enslaved enclave, cut off from the
civilized world. If Hosni Mubarak had the
slightest impulse of self -respect, he should have
taken a lesson from the Tunisian dictator Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali and left his country with remorseful
apologies. Is he still under the illusion that he can
hang on to power by crushing the will of the Egyptian
people by using brute force and employing the,
repressive, insidious and dirty machinations? Is he still banking upon the
unqualified support from his overseas abettors and
mentors that would still help him in his maloevlent
and tottering grip over the country? Is it not still
enough for him and his mendacious and rapacious
coterie to have milked this magnificent country,
enriching themselves at the cost his poor and
impoverished countrymen? Does this diabolic cabal of
self seekers want to keep the people under their
ruthless dictatorship forever? The United States must shed its
ambivalence and stop taking consolation and shelter
behind deceptive statements of the Egyptian vice
president and his farcical overreach to the leaders of
the people's uprising. Immediately after meeting the
revolution leaders, he discarded the principal demands
of lifting the state of emergency and announcing
elections. Under no circumstances should this group of
hardened thugs be allowed to beguile America and the
world at large for remaining in power. The rulers in Egypt are the
rejected felons and highway robbers of civil, human
and
fundamental rights, the culture
of democracy, the openness and freedom. It would be an
historic betrayal towards the people of Egypt waging
an epic struggle for their dignity, if United States
and the free world do not firmly and unequivocally
demand of the disgraced ruler to quit. The revolution now underway in
Egypt is going to fructify and there are irrefutable
indications that the people in Tahrir Square would not
retreat until the villainous gang of kleptomaniacs and
oligarchs are forced to run. The struggle of the
Egyptian masses would go down in history as a monument
and epitome of a nation that finally awakened from its
docility and captivity and fought for their
emancipation and for the right to live with dignity,
freedom, liberty, equality and openness. The
civilized world must support their urge for a
democratic, humane and civil society. The writer is a Dallas-based
journalist and a former diplomat. Email:
qureshisa2003@yahoo.com |
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