Is the violence in the streets of Cairo destined to worsen? Rafiq Khoury of Yemen’s Al-Wahdawi warns that – whatever the outcome – there is little doubt that those protesting against Hosni Mubarak are about to confront a far more harsh reaction than they have until now.
Explaining why Egypt is no Tunisia, for Al-Wahdawi, Rafiq Khoury writes in part:
No noise is louder than the sound of change – even the sound of bullets. The Tunisian revolution isn’t the only thing that has filled the calendar of the Arab world with days of rage. Some of it is the monstrous rage in the street. Another is repressed anger – no one knows in which capital it might explode next. For example, in Cairo and other Egyptian cities and provinces, a regime that took over 30 years ago has generated massive protests calling for its head. In Yemen, demonstrators in the capital are demanding the head of our leader, who has held the presidency for 32 years.
In terms of Middle East strategic calculations, Egypt is of the highest geopolitical importance. One can’t compare Egypt’s situation to that of Tunisia, because change in Tunisia isn’t of a kind that has an impact on such calculations. While change in Egypt is having an impact on the entire Arab world, it also affects the situation in Israel and its peace treaty with Egypt, as well as American influence in the region, and the positions of certain forces (Arab moderates) in countering Iranian influence.
Violence is the first answer of the system, and so the danger to the population is fated to escalate, whether the situation is to end with reform, the president stepping down, or the cessation of hereditary rule.
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