Egyptian Mayhem

I have to begin this post by once again thanking my professor, Stuart Schaar, for all he has shared with those of us witnessing the revolution from the Maghreb.  We have decided that instead of having the usual "Islam and the West" course offered by Schaar at Amideast, we will now have 1/2 the history and 1/2 current event discussion each week.  This week we discussed the developments in Egypt which are now affecting us directly.

For those of you who live under a rock, there is a revolution building up in Egypt and which will eventually lead to the dismantling of their 30 year president, Mubarak.  The revolution in Tunisia was the catalyst which led to the upset of Egyptian society.  Although the revolution is still playing out at this very moment, within seven days its fury has been felt all across the Middle East and North Africa.  Last Friday the American Embassy began plans for the evacuation of American citizens in Egypt.  From that decision my study abroad group has doubled in size overnight.  Yesterday we welcomed 11 new students to our program.

The students are from the Amideast and American University programs in Cairo.  They are exhausted and are now in the position to return home with the trauma of having experienced a revolution.  They all seem to be overwhelmed, so I will come back to talking about them once they have adjusted to the drastic changes in their surroundings.

For now, what we know is that Egypt is recovering itself from years of abuse from its unwieldy police force who used sexual abuse and torture to quell the masses, and from a president who paraded a false sense of democracy for 30 years.  The questions still remain of who will rise to lead and how the former police be reformed.  What we do know is that transition must start immediately and that no one will be able to predict the outcome of an unleashed population.

In order to calm your worries, I can tell you that even if there is minor dissatisfaction in Morocco over the existing monarchy, no one wants the military to take over in Morocco.  This fact in itself acts as a shield from revolution.  My observations have been that most Moroccans support the king, (almost all cafes, stores, and homes have a picture of the king on the wall), and have no bone to pick with the revolutions across the region.  Other than reshuffling our program schedule, our lives at Amideast will go on safely for the next three months of adventures.