As many may know, the protests against the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, came to the point last week where he had no choice but to step down from his seat in power. Although he was leader for 30 years, the citizens of Egypt had suffered through economic poverty, while Mubarak was living in the luxury that many can only dream of. Mubarak handed over his power to the military which sparked all the protesters to immediately start celebrate, but one overlooked story was the female reporter who was covering the celebration, being sexually assaulted by the few people who were against the revolution.
Anyway, while it's great that democracy was spread to Egypt, or at least the want for it was spread, the one issue that I'm seeing with this situation is the possible election of a terrorist orginization threatening the US, as well as Israel. Of course, one could argue that this may not occur right away. An article that I found entitled Reflections on the Revolution in Egypt said,
"Change in Iraq was imposed from the outside by force, whereas change in Egypt has come from within and has largely been accomplished by consent rather than coercion. But it is too soon to know whether change in Egypt will be far-reaching and lasting, much less positive, and thus too soon to assess its historic impact."
This helps prove that no one really knows what group or who will take power as fair leadership in Egypt, but people were thinking (and hopefully still are) during the actual protests.
I've also heard on the news recently the denial that oil and gas prices will go up. News media such as WBBM have argued that the economy is growing so oil prices should stay stable but this statement may not stay true for long once the continuation of demand for oil increases. This is where I stand up and say that it is time for the US to focus on alternate sources of energy. Unfortunately, people agree with this, but they don't understand how difficult this goal will be to achieve since we are fighting an intense war in Afghanistan. While President Obama wants to see the war end within a year, the US could end up moving to another part of the Middle East to fight the real threat to America: Al Queda. It may be very questionable, however, to continue fighting a war in the Middle East, once we find alternate energy sources. At the same time, it will be difficult to find alternate energy sources when we are still fighting a war. Yes, it will be a problem when prices for fuel WILL go up, but just because the rest of the economy grows doesn't necessarily mean that the country will be able to afford oil.
So let's look into why the protests in Egypt happened. Well, to start off with, the same article that I mentioned earlier, Reflections on the Revolution in Egypt said in the first paragraph,
"Revolutions happen for a reason. In the case of Egypt, there are several reasons: more than 30 years of one-man rule; Hosni Mubarak's plans to pass the presidency on to his son; widespread corruption, patronage, and nepotism; and economic reform that did not benefit most Egyptians, but that nonetheless contrasted sharply with the almost complete absence of political change."
This pretty sums up why protests started in Egypt. I'm curious to know why the protests began just a couple of weeks ago and not sooner, such as maybe ten or five years ago? Were they inspired by President Obama? Did they find out prior to the protests that Mubarak's son was going to become a successor? Of course these questions can't all be answered at once, but I do know that other Middle Eastern countries were inspired by the measures that were taken by the Egyptians. Even protests began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last week, because of a new bill that teachers felt would screw them over during retirment.
These series of protests are not over, but for now, some settling has begun. There will probably be even more protests that turn into revolutions not too long from now in other Middle Eastern countries, but next time could be the fearfully anticipated revoltutions that would make the US look bad.
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