Viewpoint: Too early to celebrate in Egypt?

From Shashank Joshi, BBC

There is every possibility that [Defence Minister Mohamed Tantawi] will simply rebuild the apparatus of autocracy by dispersing superficial powers to a fractured opposition, while restoring the army to its Cold War standing.[..] Some optimists have invoked the “Turkish model” for Egypt, but recall that the Turkish army has toppled four governments since 1960 and still lurks just under the surface of that country’s democratic institutions.

I agree Turkey should not be a model; it has too much of that Ottoman filth in its past, just like Egypt, another country unlucky enough to have lived under every version of barbaric Roman Empire as possible. And Pharaohs before that! I cannot imagine a worse history to draw good lessons from in 21st century.

I would look to Europe for example, even South Africa, anywhere but a Middle Eastern country.

On “rebuilding the apparatus of autocracy”: most analysts who are educated in their subject areas are in the danger of seeing developments too “ruler, state centric”. 3rd wave changed the equation completely. People now have actual power in their hands through the use of technology. No state denies them this communication completely either, because then, they are seen as backward, camel-humping, Eastern “peoples” in the eyes of their Western counterparts. They’re shamed into allowing open communication, and when they do, there goes information, and there goes all the power associated with it. So I see no danger of such an autocracy forming.

There is however a danger of stalled economic development, and the cure for that is liberalization “at warp speed.”