Comment: Don’t walk like a Maldivian – what Egyptians can learn from us

Let us hope though, for the sake of the Egyptian people, that once they manage to remove Mubarak and replace his regime with democratic rule, we part ways – the Egyptians and the Maldivians. If not, what we see when we look at us now, is what they will see happening to them in the next few years. Seen in the hindsight we can offer as foresight to our Egyptian counterparts, their future bears very little resemblance to the ideals motivating their present:

The dictator will be gone from office, but his old regime will retain power by occupying a majority of both the legislature and the judiciary, as well as other positions of influence within society. Having negotiated immunity as a condition of departure from office, the dictator, his assets, and that of his family and cronies, will remain untouchable by law. Not satisfied, he will keep trying to return to office, his fists feeling the absence of power like an amputee feels the missing limb.

It is not he, however, who will ultimately succeed in diverting the winds of change. That will be accomplished by the remaining elite of his regime – the businessmen, politicians, family members, and civil servants in the gigantic public sector he built – who benefitted [and benefits still] from the structures he left in his wake. They will deliberately and systematically murder the hopes that lived and breathed in those clamouring for democracy.