Hosni has left the building!

The tweets are in. Egypt is free. Free from what? An oppressive dictatorship that lasted 30 years and took away people's rights and shit. Oh nice. Good for them. Yeah, man, like, it's a wind of change, man. You know, Tunisia, now Egypt. The people have spoken, man. They got rid of the dictators. The people did, yeah.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Let's stop one second and see what happened today. Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat, resigned and handed over power to the military, before leaving Cairo for the seaside resort of Sharm-al-Sheikh. Remember Sharm-al-Sheikh? Never mind. A certain King did something similar in 1952, handing over power to Gamal Nasser, and it was called a coup.

Coup d'etat: (n) the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a government, usually by a small government’s surrender; or the acquiescence of the populace and the non-participant military forces.

Every one in charge of Egypt since that time has been a military leader. Mubarak is a former Air Marshall. The military showed no signs of siding with the people, as happened in Tunisia. Yes, the President still had to have Parliament ratify his bills, and any amendments to the Constitution. Sure, the Establishment rigged the legislative elections well enough to stop that being an issue. The Military now has control over both the legislature and the executive. The head's gone, but the body's thriving.

Mubarak's heir apparent is, of course, is a long trusted CIA man, the man who a Wikileaks cable referred to as "Mubarak's Consigliere." Omar Suleiman is not Gamal Mubarak, Hosni's dear son and heir presumptive thus far. But he's a man the US trusts, as does the military. He was the chief of Egyptian intelligence who helped the US not torture hundreds of terror suspects. He's been cast in the role of peacemaker, and a quasi-democratic leader who will usher in a new era in Egyptian politics. He is their kind of guy.

In 1911, Louis Kuehnle, the Commodore, was in charge of the Republican Party machine in Atlantic City. Then Woodrow Wilson came along, this Virginian who had become Governor of New Jersey and was looking to make a name for himself. He promised to dismantle the party machine and bring proper democracy and law and order to the vice city. He exposed the numerous abuses of the Commodore and his allies. The people were infuriated. That didn't bring down the machine. Deals were made. Kuehnle went to jail for election fraud, but kept getting what Indians would call a hafta until his death. Enoch L. Johnson - played by the excellent Steve Buscemi in the equally excellent Boardwalk Empire - took over and made sure the machine survived, well oiled as it was by Prohibition. Wilson used his popularity to become President. The head was cut off, but the body flourished. Maybe, just maybe, the men in charge decided that Mubarak had become toxic and had to be replaced by a more efficient dictator, so that the Establishment could thrive.

So, I'm sorry I'm not really excited about today's events. I'm sorry I'm not tweeting or buzzing my exuberance. A lot of people believe they changed the world today. Bully for them. I'm not a cynic, really, but I feel it hard to believe that real change took place today.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong. That the military - out of the goodness of its heart - gives the people fair elections and a popular leader emerges, who will safeguard the rights of the Egyptian people and dismantle corruption and part the Red Sea on weekends. Or that the people don't stand for this travesty and manage to pull off a true revolution. It's possible, but I won't be holding my breath.

P.S. It may seem from the tone that I am disparaging of the role the people played, in their continuous protests. On the contrary, I believe that without them, even this change wouldn't have been possible, and Hosniji would have been in charge till kingdom come. What I'm trying to say is that they shouldn't take this as a victory, but as an essential step towards true representative government. The protests shouldn't stop until that is achieved. I'm just skeptical that it will.