A Journey in the mind of the Salafis in Egypt

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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The word "Salafi" in Arabic means a Muslim who harks back more than 1400 years ago to the way he or she thinks Islam was practised in Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.  "Salaf" means "ancestor."  The Salafi movement in Egypt and elsewhere encompasses those who believe that progress and justice lie in what they deem the purity of the Muslim faith during its first three centuries.

As an ideology, the Salafis especially in Egypt, a traditionally cosmopolitan country of a Muslim majority and a Coptic (Christian) indigenous minority, has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. In its genesis, Salafism is inward oriented towards Islamic worship in mosques, and fear from secularity.  That anti-secularism lies at the root of their problem both at the time of dictatorship in Egypt (from 1952 to 2011, the year when Mubarak was pushed out of power on February 11) and now in the New Egypt born in Tahrir Square on January 25, 2011.

So what is the problem or problems faced by the Salafis or raised by them? 

During Mubarak's reign, they were brutally suppressed.  Here we should remember that Mubarak on October 6, 1981, was, as Vice President of Egypt, seated next to President Sadat during the military parade from which a band of soldiers, Islamic terrorists, rushed toward the stand and assassinated the Egyptian President.  Their suppression thereafter was brutal, forcing them to go below the radar of Mubarak's security State. 

Then came the Revolution of January 25in which both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, two distinct and at times antagonistic groups, had no leadership role.  The Supreme Council of Egypt's Armed Forces was invited by the representatives of the Revolution to step into the void left by Mubarak; an interim civilian government was formed to transition the 90 million population country to democracy through parliamentary elections (now scheduled for this November); and Al-Azhar (the Glorious), the most important seat of Islamic learning, declared in Cairo on August 17 that:

Islam, in its legislation, civilization, and history does not recognize a "religiously-based" State.  The overall arching principles of Islamic law (Sharia) are the primary source of legislation, providing that the adherents of other religions are guaranteed, in their personal status cases, resort to their own religious laws.

 So in the New Egypt, the principle of "faith and politics do not mix" has been established, and the separation of powers had been affirmed.  The Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere has no place in Egypt.  And the flags which were raised in Tahrir did not proclaim "Islam is the solution."  They proclaimed "Democracy is the solution."

Have I just said, "democracy?"  Yes!!  Now there are 38 political parties and movements to compete in the parliamentary elections.  Amongst those, there are 4 Salafi parties, and one party which was formed by former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Then came a "red line" announcement by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces: "The secularity of Egypt is non-negotiable." 

Note here that the Turkish model of governance is being replicated in Egypt.  These proclamations from Tahrir, from Al-Azhar, and from the Armed Forces, declare loudly and clearly that Egypt shall not become Iran II, a theocracy.  And the Copts, though still worried about the Salafi and other Islamic influences, are beginning to see in the New Egypt the face of traditional Egypt which raised during its revolution against the British occupation its real flag of inclusiveness which shows the Crescent embracing the Cross.

The Salafi parties are "Al-Fadhilah" (Virtue); "Al-Noor" (Light); "Salamah and Tanmiyah" (Security and Development); and "Islah and Tanmiyah" (Reform and Development).  Now that the Salafis have resurfaced after the Revolution toppled their tormentor Mubarak, they want primarily to preserve in the new Egyptian Constitution which shall be drafted in 2012 by a constituent assembly, Article II of the present Constitution.

That Article provides that no bill shall be legislated into law if it contravenes Islamic Law (Sharia) principles.  The fact of the matter is that Sharia, whose two primary sources are the Quran and the Sunna (Muhammad's utterances and conduct) has, over 1432 years evolved.  Its evolution has been through ijtihad (interpretation).  The result has been summed up in Al-Azhar's Declaration of August 17 as follows:

Democratic rule is based on free and direct elections, which encapsulate the modern formulation of the application of the Islamic precepts of Shura (consultation).

The  Salafi concern for the future role of Islam in a democratic Egypt is being alleviated.  In the mosque, Muslims pray and sermonize; in the Church, the Copts do the same; and in Parliament, the people's representatives legislate for a secular New Egypt. 

In the newly-born Egypt, faith is not separated from life; it is separated from the politics of inclusiveness of Muslims, Copts, and all other beliefs.

The Guns of the Egyptian Army Remain Silent

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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In the Egyptian Revolution of January 25, 2011, the guns of the Egyptian army were not turned on the demonstrators.  And Mubarak, a dictator for 32 years, fell from power.  Why were the guns of the largest Arab army did not mow down the Tahrir Square revolutionaries?  After all, Mubarak, like his predecessors, Nasser and Sadat, were members of that nearly one million man strong army establishment.

When we pose the question of why did Egypt's armed forces, by its silence on January 25 and beyond, did not turn on that historic rebellion?  The answer lies in the history, background, and make-up of those armed forces sitting on their tanks by the banks of the Nile.

The Egyptian army is a nationalist army.  In 1805, an Albanian tobacconist, by the name of Muhammad Aly, became the Ottoman Sultan's Viceroy in Egypt.  The Ottoman Empire was in decline.  Rebellions against it raged from the Balkans to the north, to the Sudan to the south, to Arabia to the East.  Fires fires everywhere against the far-flung Empire, the locus of the then-Caliphate, with no effective fire brigades.  Muhammad Aly, once Napoleon had withdrawn in 1803 his troops from Egypt, an important province of the Ottomans, saw his chance to pry Egypt loose from the dying Empire.  His tool was the establishment of the mightiest army in the Empire.  Two-hundred thousand man strong, with a navy whose ships were built from the famous cedars of Lebanon.  His trainers were French.  His recruits were Egyptian peasants.

Those peasant soldiers of the great Muhammad Aly, who also industrialized Egypt (and whose sons built later the first girls school in the Muslim world in the 1860's), knew no geographical or sectarian affiliation.  They only knew that they were Egyptians.  Cohesiveness came not from the province or the faith in which they were born.  It came from the flag and the national territory over which it was raised.  Thus, as one, they fought first for the Sultan in the Sudan, in Arabia and in the Balkans, then, for Egypt, against the Sultan, and helped make Egypt a hereditary monarchy, with autonomy, then independence from the Ottomans.

That army, born in Egyptian nationalism, then fought the British occupation which began in 1882 and ended in 1954.  Its sense of onness with the people was first manifested in those late 1880s in the rebellion led by Ahmed Orabi, a native of my village in the Province of Sharkia (the Oriental).  Orabi was exiled to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, but the spirit of nationalism in that army never waned.  It, together with the police engaged the British forces in the Suez Canal in the early 1950s in non-conventional warfare.  Later came several wars with Israel over the question of Palestine, which ended with the Egyptian army crossing into Sinai in October 1973.  That October/Ramadan/or Yom Kippur War during the Sadat presidency led to two results, a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and a huge boost to the reputation of the Egyptian army in the eyes of the Egyptian public.

So when the January 25 Revolution for freedom from dictatorship erupted, the Egyptian army whose conscripts could see their brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts in Tahrir Square, sat smiling on top of their tanks over which children played.

No wonder that the revolutionaries of Tahrir Square, finding that the vacuum left by the collapse of the Mubarak regime was leading to chaos, had no problem calling in their national army to govern in an interim capacity. Simultaneously a civilian government was set up under Dr. Essam Sharaf, as Prime Minister until Egypt could pull itself together through both parliamentary and presidential elections in late 2011.
Now, with Mubarak and his sons being tried before a civilian criminal court in Cairo, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Muhammad Tantawi is expected to testify, together with his Deputy General Sami Anan, before that court which will determine Mubarak's guilt or innocence.

So when the question is asked, "Who owns the Egyptian Revolution?", the response from Tahrir is: the people of Egypt, from whom that proud army sprang.

Libya: What Does the Egyptian Street Say About the "The Tyrant's Family"

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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Headlining about Gaddafi "The End of a Tyrant," the Egyptian media dissects the roles and fortunes (or misfortunes) of his eight sons and two daughters.

• Son #1:  The oldest "Muhammad" was born to the Qaddafis by his first wife.  He became a businessman, in fact one of the most important as he owned the biggest communications network in Libya; owned 40% of the soft drinks industry with a Coca Cola exclusive concession; headed the Libyan Olympic Committee, and presided over the Libyan Commission for postal and telecommunications services.
• Son #2:  "Saif Al-Islam" who prior to the February 17 Revolution, which did away with Gaddafi's 42 year of dictatorship, was being groomed to succeed  his maniacal father.  He was largely the face of Libya to the West.  An engineer by training with supposedly a Ph.D from the London School of Economics; spoke good English (a good entree to the Western mind), he had called for reform through his "Gaddafi World Charitable Organization."  Since 2000, Saif, in spite of the fact that he occupied no formal position in the governmental structure, played a huge role in both internal and external Libyan affairs.  He is credited with "settling the Lockerbie tragedy"; warned of civil war in Libya after the uprising, and has been issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court.
• Son #3: "Al-Saidi" 36 years old; famous (or infamous) for his incendiary temper; a drug user; had several brushes with the law in Europe, especially in Italy.  Al-Saidi, who has fled with his brother, Son #4 (Hanibal) with their mother and several children to Algeria, is said to have an engineering degree.  He is a soccer player and had his own special forces.
• Son #4: "Hanibal", husband of a Lebanese fashion model, Elaine Skaf, with whom he fathered two sons.  Nicknamed "the Trouble Maker," Hanibal was arrested with his wife in Geneva for beating up their maid.  That criminal complaint against them resulted in their arrest by the Swiss police, thus precipitating a diplomatic confrontation between Gaddafi's Libya and Switzerland whose national airline (Swissair) was temporarily denied landing rights in Libyan airports.  With Gaddafi threatening to withdraw all Libyan deposits in Swiss banks, the Swiss suspended their legal action against Hanibal and Elaine.  Yet in 2009, while the couple were at the Claridge Hotel in London, the London police was called to investigate the screams coming out from Hanibal's suite.  Elaine was found to be badly disfigured but she refused to press charges against "the Trouble Maker."
• Son #5: "Al-Motassin" was his father's National Security Advisor.  In that capacity, and in competition with his younger brother, Son #6 Khamis, he demanded $1.2 Billion to establish a military security unit of his own.  The Serbian Ambassador to Tripoli had once characterized him as "possessing no acute intelligence," which may explain why his siblings maneuvered in his absence abroad to gut out his extensive commercial and personal holdings between the years 2001-2005.
• Son #6: "Khamis" established and led the fearsome "Division No. 32" whose personnel were thoroughly trained in modern warfare in the Russian Federation.  Khamis' role, in that regard, was akin to that of the Presidential Guard in Syria or the Islamic Republican Guard in Iran, namely, the protection of the Gaddafi regime.  Khamis spearheaded the brutal suppression of the Revolution which began on March 17, in Benghazi and ended up with NATO's help, vanquishing the Gaddafi army, his mercenaries, his snipers and his informers.
• Son #7: "Saif Al-Arab" The least known among his brothers; was killed, together with 3 Gaddafi grandsons on April 30 in a NATO raid on his house which was suspected of harboring, at that time, Gaddafi himself.
• Daughter Aisha: Child #8, A daughter of 34 years of age, and the one who mediates the family disputes.  A lawyer by training, she was involved with defending Saddam Hussein after the collapse of that Iraqi brutal regime in 2003.  Her father, whose entire honor guard was made up of young Libyan women, gave every girl in that corps the name of "Aisha" followed by a number.  Examples: Aisha #1, Aisha #2 and so on.  A Libyan University gave her an honorary doctorate as a consolation prize for not being able to complete her graduate study in international law in Paris.  News have been confirmed of her flight, together with her children and other members of her family to Algeria after the rebels' conquest of Tripoli in late August.
• Hana: Child #9, an adopted daughter who was reported to have been killed in a US aerial bombardment of Tripoli in 1986. Those bombarded premises were declared by Gaddafi a historic site form which he called for the routing of the rebels when the revolution began in Benghazi in March.
• Milad: Child #10, a boy who was born to a brother of Gaddafi, then later adopted by uncle Muammar.

From that list, only #1 Gaddafi and his son, Saif Al-Islam are named on the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Though news were broadcast worldwide on September 6 regarding a long convoy of cars moving south from Libya to Niger, under Niger army protection, no credible information has yet come out as to whether Gaddafi himself was in that country.

From a House Cleaner to a Cook for the Masses

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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Ghalia Mahmoud, a poor house cleaner, has become on Egyptian TV a celebrated cook for the masses.  The 33-year old gal from "Old Cairo" had cleaned house for the sister of a TV producer at Channel 25 (named in honor of January 25 when Egypt began its uprising which toppled Mubarak on February 11.

Picture this: Egyptian masses live mostly on falafel and beans and over-sweetened tea.  Manhattan pushcart vendors sell a falafel pita sandwich for $3 (equivalent of 18 Egyptian pounds).  This huge underclass had been victimized by the corruption of the Mubarak regime which split 90 million Egyptians in two classes: a thin veneer of the mega-rich and a gigantic poor class.  A middle class of dwindling proportions in between.  The underclass people have been living on an average of $200 a month.

In came the revolution of the masses.  And with that came Ghalia Mahmoud whose father had died when she was too young to remember when.  So Ghalia had to go to work with 8 of her siblings to help the family survive in a land of plenty whose riches were the reserve of the high and mighty.

But in Tahrir Square, the masses (the millions) who shouted to Mubarak IRHAL (Leave) stood as one to reclaim dignity, democracy and development (the new 3Ds of the Arab Spring).  And with the army siding with the people, the 83-year old dictator relinquished his 32-years of one man rule and was then put on trial publicly.

The discovery of Ghalia Mahmoud was made by the man who launched the TV channel "Twenty-Five," Muhammad Jawhar.  Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims was approaching (no food or drink from dawn to sunset), and Jawhar had inspiration for how could poor families cope with soaring food prices.  His inspiration came from Ghalia Mahmoud.  Before he put her on TV, he asked her to prepare a simple meal to feed a hungry family of 8 but would cost no higher than $4.  For Ghalia, that was a test which she had no problem passing with flying colors.

With Ghalia came her pleasing personality, her simple ways, her motherly explanation to urban ladies on TV in how to make their families survive on the little they have.  She stood in her simple kitchen, with pots without handles on a simple stove which she lights with matches, and prepares delicious meals made from vegetables sold on open carts lining up the streets of Old Cairo.

In no time, Ghalia Mahmoud became a huge hit all over Egypt and became known as "the Cook of the 25th January Revolution."  Her long practice in feeding her family of 15 on a monthly budget of $200 paid off.  With a captivating smile, Ghalia talks directly to all of Egypt, if not the entire Arab world, saying, "You, women, are smart and you can cook anything, if you just try."

When she cooks for her TV audiences, her measuring cups are made of plastic.  Her table is laden with all kinds of Egyptian vegetables: eggplant, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, scallions ... etc.  Her stuffed vine leaves, stuffed zucchini, and stuffed cabbage, with cucumber and cheese on the side, are tantalizingly inviting.  As for meat, that expensive item, it is only reserved for a weekly meal on Friday -the Muslim Sabbath.

Ghalia also describes recipes for Copts (Egyptian Christians) for food during the season of lent.  In this regard, she comments: "In poor Egyptian neighborhoods, there is no Muslim/Christian divide.  That divide was of Mubarak's making."

How about Ghalia's hopes for the New Egypt.  "I have lots of hope for Egypt after Mubarak.  Egypt will be vastly different."  Then she picks up a telephone donated to her by the TV station to answer an incoming call.  The call is from a group of young and rich Egyptian girls, calling "the Revolutionary Cook" from their car to ask her "How do you make your delicious lentil soup?"

She also gets calls from children who tell her "Auntie Ghalia , we love you."  One of them put up on a page on the Internet calling for "Ghalia Mahmoud for President!!"

Al-Azhar (The Glorious) As a Lighthouse to the Ship of the New Egypt

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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On August 17, Al-Azhar (The Glorious), a more than a thousand year citadel in the heart of Cairo of Islamic faith, and guidance to all Arab and Muslims issued a historic document. The document enunciated by Al-Azhar Rector, Dr. Ahmed El-Tayeb is billed: "Al-Azhar Document on Egypt's Future." It is the  product of a unique consensus among leaders of various fields of faith, politics, laws, art, literature, history, society, psychology, and other areas of academe.

Out of the turbulence of the Revolution of January 25, 211 which swept aside the military rule of 60 years, emerged a consensual document of guidelines for constitutional formulation. All aspirants to the presidency of Egypt, all leaders of all parties and of various fields of thought, all opinion-makers of various stripes sat at El-Tayeb rectangular table to say, "yes" to those guidelines.

Al-Azhar document whose text was made public at a press conference at Al-Azhar on August 17 took into account those inimitable Egyptian perspectives anchored in Islamic jurisprudence; Al-Azhar's history of struggle for freedom and independence; the civilizational depth which merges physical sciences with social sciences and the arts; the political perspectives whereby future decision -makers of Egypt are nurtured; and the linkage between knowledge, renaissance, and cultural resurgence in the Arab homeland and the Islamic world.

The names of great lights of Al-Azhar, especially in the modern era were cited bringing them back from beyond the grave to historic life, such as: Sheikh Al-Islam Hassan El-Attar; his disciple Sheikh Rifaa El-Tahtawi; Sheikh Muhammad Abdo, the great modern reformer, Sheikh Al-Maraghy, together with other Al-Azhar leaders of reform such as Muhammad Abdullah Diraz, Mustapha Abdel-Razik, and last but not least, the venerable Sheikh Shaltout.

The Al-Azhar document frames the principles which will guide the drafters of Egypt's new constitution within eleven such principles. These, in summary, are:

• First: Egypt as a State is based upon a constitutional democracy with separation of powers, of which the legislative power is to be exercised by the people's representatives.  Islam, in its legislation, civilization, and history does not recognize a "religiously-based" State.  The overall arching principles of Islamic law (Sharia) are the primary source of legislation, providing that the adherents of other religions are guaranteed, in their personal status cases, resort to their own religious laws.
• Second: Democratic rule is based on free and direct elections, which encapsulate the modern formulation of the application of the Islamic precepts of Shura (consultation).  Such rule guarantees diversity, the peaceful transfer of powers, a well-defined exercise of authority whose custodians are accountable to the people's representatives with a view to the provision of public service, subject only to the rule of law.  Corruption is punishable under the law, and transparency and the freedom and transmission of information are to be applied.
• Third: Commitment to basic rights and freedoms with regard to both thought and opinion, including full respect of the rights of the individual, of women and children, and of the principle of diversity.  Citizenship is the primary basis from which emanates obligations to society.
• Fourth: Full respect to the view of the other, which implicates the necessity of avoidance of declaring others to be apostates, traitors, or the abuse of religion for the purposes of sowing divisiveness and hatred among the citizens.  Sectarian conflict and racist advocacy are criminally injurious to the homeland.
• Fifth: Commitment to international covenants (treaties) and decisions (declarations), and to civilizational norms and accomplishments in human (friendly) relationships which accord with the Islamic and Arab traditions of tolerance and with the long experience of the Egyptian people throughout its historical periods which produced luminous examples of peaceful co-existence and the striving towards humanity's benefits as a whole.
• Sixth: Full attention to the dignity of the Egyptian nation and its national pride, and to an assured protection of places of worship of all faiths, and of the freedom of expression and artistic and literary expression.
• Seventh: Education, scientific research, and the embarking upon the age of knowledge (information) are to be regarded the locomotive of Egypt's civilizational progress, including the eradication of illiteracy.
• Eighth: Implementation of the ladder (jurisprudence) of priorities with regard to the achievement of development, social justice, confrontation of oppression (hegemony) and of corruption, elimination of unemployment, all within the recognition of veritable and serious health care as a duty of the State towards all citizens.
• Ninth: The establishment of Egypt's solid relationships with its sister Arab States, as well as States within its Islamic, African and other international spheres, along with support of Palestinian rights, of safe-guarding the independence of Egypt's decision-making (will), and of the re-establishment of Egypt's traditional and historical leadership role as the basis of cooperation for the universal good, and of environmental protection and just peace among nations.
• Tenth: Enhancement of the independence of the instituitoin of Al-Azhar, and the resurrection of the "Commission of Great Ulemas (Islamic Scholars)" endowed with responsibility for the appointment through elections of the Rector of Al-Azhar.
• Eleventh: Recognition of Al-Azhar "Al-Shareef" as the source and focus of responsibility to which reference should be made in all matters of Islam, its disciplines, its traditions, and its jurisdictional interpretation (ijtihad) and modern thought patterns.  This is without the elimination of the right of all to the voicing of opinions on the basis of recognizable and acceptable scientific parameters.

From the above, we could see that the Glorious (Al-Azhar) is back, as a beacon, a lighthouse guiding the ship of the Egyptian State towards a safe harbor. 

Said General Sami Anan, Deputy Chairman of the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in line with the above: "The secularity of the State is a matter of national security which is non-negotiable."

Selmia, Selmia: The Lethal Weapon of "Peaceful, Peaceful"

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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When the January 25, 2011 Revolution broke out in Egypt, its demands were rather modest. Its central demand was for jobs and the elimination of emergency laws. The crowds came out seeking dignity. But they were met with the brutal force of the Mubarak security forces which turned their cries of "Selmia, Selmia" into cries of death and pain. More than 850 were killed in various parts of that beautiful country. Thousands more were injured. The more people were felled by bullets, the more thousands, came out to form a human avalanche which numbered nearly 8 millions.  Only then were the demands upon Mubarak of "IRHAL" - Leave, and "The People Want the Regime to Fall."

The Egyptian armed forces, numbering in all its branches including reservists a million kept their powder dry. The false accusations by the Mubarak media that the throngs were foreign agents who were bent up on chaos and who were destabilizing Egypt sounded very hollow. The armed forces, being made up of conscripted soldiers, represented a true spectrum of the people in Tahrir and elsewhere.

Thus the banners of the "Selmia" throngs were raised proclaiming that "the people and the army are one." The slogans reflected the reality. The tanks went to Tahrir to give credence to those slogans. Flowers were offered to tank crews; children were helped by soldiers atop of those tanks; and tanks, when it rained, which is an infrequent event in Egypt, sheltered the demonstrators from getting wet. And the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces quietly told Mubarak "go away."

So when February 11 came about, there was nowhere for the 83 year old dictator to go but out. The shout of a young Egyptian woman, issuing from Tahrir, upon hearing the news, summed up the feelings of ecstasy of the millions: "No More Fear!! (Mafeesh Khofe Tani!!)."

The wall of fear which came down crashing in Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, was a signal to the whole region, indeed to the whole world, that non-violence has become the weapon of mass reconstruction for the millions of Arab masses everywhere.

In its methods of non-violence, "Selmia, Selmia" was a true vindication of the principles articulated by the scholar Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston in his "From Dictatorship to Democracy - A Conceptual Framework for Liberation." That 76-page booklet was translated into 30 languages including Arabic.  The throngs in Tahrir and in the rest of the Arab world had read it.

Mubarak Behind Bars

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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Why is Mubarak behind bars? The revolutionaries in Egypt who, through peaceful means, have, with the Armed Forces acquiescence, toppled him from power on February 11, have unanimously demanded it. It was not a desire for retribution; it was a desire to firm up the principle that in the new Egypt, nobody was above the law.

Muhammad Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 32 years. During that nearly one-third of a century of dictatorial rule, that President has thoroughly converted Egypt into a fully-fledged Security State.

What is a Security State? It is a State where the ruler denies his people the right to freedoms of speech, assembly and conscience (defined as the moral sense of right and wrong). How does such a dictator do that? Well, through a large body of enforcers (police, secret service and informants) whose number, under Mubarak, was greater than the number of the entire Egyptian armed forces.

The security state of Mr. Mubarak spread fear, showed favors for those who cooperated with it, watched what people did or did not do, and acted above the law by denying the Egyptian people the right to due process and equality before the law.

Mubarak's trial and in public has been a primary demand by his aggrieved people whom he took for granted for nearly 32 years of his unrelenting dictatorship. The trial's delays were a cause for Tahrir becoming again and again full of thousands of protesters.

His poor health proved to be no excuse for transferring him from his hospital in Sharm El-Sheikh by the Red Sea to a Cairo prison and a Cairo court. The pleadings of his lawyer about unfitness to stand trial were to no avail. Finally the newly-restructured Cabinet of Issam Sharaf, supported by the Supreme Military Council, declared that Mubarak, in early August, would be in the dock in Cairo to stand a televised trial, the first of its kinds for a former head of state in the Arab world.

Mubarak's example will surly send shock waves in the entire Middle East. It will scare every Arab dictator, president or monarch in the vast Arab world. The banners have already been raised in Yemen and Syria proclaiming one chilling warning, "Who Is Next?"

The Mubarak case has been joined to the cases of his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, and of his former Interior Minister, El-Adly and other symbols of the former Security State. The charges cover the main areas of abuse of authority, theft of public funds, give-aways of national resources, killing of demonstrators, fomenting sectarian violence, and other forms of repression.

Mubarak's journey from absolute power to absolute humiliation has been both dramatic and historic. Its lessons will not be forgotten anytime soon.