This is not how the Egyptians had hoped to mark the third anniversary of the Tahrir revolution. They had thought about much nicer things, namely a brighter future, renewed growth, welfare and democracy. Mostly they thought about democracy.
The entire world celebrated with Egypt in 2011. The entire world was thrilled at the model Egypt was formulating. The global media watched in wonderment at the rapid changes unfolding in the Arab country of 85 million people. There were many reasons for concern, but the world always prefers celebrating over worrying.
Yet after Hosni Mubarak was removed, this dream of a rosy future ran amuck and chaos gripped the land of the Nile. Since then, Egypt has searched for a direction, any direction. The promised democracy was replaced with ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's Islamist government, which lasted less than a year.
The embarrassed Egyptians understood that their salvation would not come from the fragile liberals, who lack support and infrastructure, and certainly not from the heavy-handed Muslim Brotherhood, and therefore returned to the tried and true formula from the good old days -- the army. Who could have thought that Tahrir Square, where I had heard repeated chants calling for Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi to step down, would now be filled with chants calling for another general, Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, to be Egypt's next president-
In its worst nightmare, Egypt never imagined the three-year anniversary of the Tahrir revolution would bear witness to a series of terrorist bombings perpetrated by Salafist groups and to bloody rioting across the country. The Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood, the heroes of Egypt's first free elections (for parliament and president), are clearly demanding what they are owed -- the government. The people demanded democracy and the people received elections. The vote, however, thrust Egypt back to the seventh century, without stopping along the way in the Enlightenment.
Egyptians today are no longer dreaming about democracy, but rather about stability. They hope Sissi will manage to pull Egypt out of the dire situation in which it finds itself, with a crumbling economy, dwindling investments and almost nonexistent tourism.
The Tahrir revolution was twice stolen from the Egyptian people. It is not surprising that these days the word "democracy" amuses the masses -- what they want is stability. And who is more capable than the Egyptian army of providing that to the people-
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