Those of my generation get particularly excited at the sight of large crowds making radical political demands. We went through the First Quarter Storm, the Edsa Revolution and Edsa Dos. We lost friends to the turbulence and nurse scars from the skirmishes.
So we watched the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt with particular attentiveness. We cheered as the pro-democracy assemblies refused to be cowed by violent attacks unleashed by pro-Mubarak forces. We shared the joy of the Egyptian people when the tyrant decided, finally, it was time to go.
Over the next few months and years, we will continue to observe how the Egyptians will clear their own path to a democratic order, a strong civil society and a new culture that will appreciate the indispensability of equality between the genders.
This will not be an easy path. There is a complex interplay of forces bearing upon the Egyptian revolution: tradition and modernity, secularism and faith, tribal affinities and big power politics, nationalism and pan-Arabism, the conservatism of institutions and the birth of new social forces.
Forcing Mubarak to go was the easy part. Early in the uprising, the army decided to stand above the fray: neither participating in the repression of the protests nor leading the charge against the unpopular regime.
When Mubarak did go, there was no other option but to hand over government to the army. It was the only institution capable of preventing the descent of Egyptian society into complete chaos.
In most post-colonial societies, the armed forces constituted the bedrock of nationhood. This is particularly true in Egypt. It was the army that rebelled against the British Empire. It was the army that provided all the leaders Egypt had known since independence was won: Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and then Hosni Mubarak.
It was the army that provided the main pillar of the tyrannies that ruled Egypt since independence. Today, it is the army that provides the guarantee that a democratic order will be built on the ruins of dictatorship.
There is no other choice. The political parties are not effective institutions in Egyptian society. Through decades of repressive rule, no other civil society institutions were allowed to develop. Even the media was, until the other day, a tool of tyranny.
The uprising was driven by a consensus that Mubarak must go. With Mubarak gone, the force of consensus also dissipated.
At the historic Tahrir Square, the protestors were divided the morning after the departure. Some wanted to stay camped at the square until full democracy is restored. Others, especially the leaders of the digital social networking campaign that assembled the crowds for the uprising, called for people to return to the ordinary business of living, bringing back Egyptian society to normalcy.
Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who helped mastermind the uprising using social networking sites, put out a Twitter message asking people to go back to work and trust the army to deliver democracy as it committed.
Between the army and the unorganized masses who mounted the uprising, there is a yawning void. None of the old anti-Mubarak politicians are willing to lead the transition to democracy. None of them enjoy the legitimacy to do so. The uprising was not their handiwork. Power was not handed to them by the rebellious middle-class youths who led the protests that, in turn, forced the ouster of Mubarak.
This is the inherent problem of an uprising organized on the basis of the social networking sites. It produces no leaders for the rebellion, much less for the crucial transition. The middle-class activists from the social networking sites have no desire nor aptitude for political leadership.
Having known nothing but dictatorship, Egypt has no political class except those associated with the regime freshly overthrown. The politicians who opposed Mubarak— especially those from the Muslim Brotherhood — are not qualified to lead the transition.
The denizens of Cairo might have made a great show of (literally) cleaning up the streets littered with the trash of rebellion. But the more important task of imagining — and executing — the transition falls squarely on the shoulders of the armed forces.
This is the principal irony of the Egyptian revolution. While the military was the hinge on which dictatorship functioned, it must now lead in thoroughly dismantling that form of regime.
This, of course, opens the danger of a new Mubarak rising from the ranks of the army and reinstituting dictatorship without Mubarak — albeit with a few concession to democratic practice. The tug-of-war between the forces of revolution, that have returned to their usual business of making a living, and the armed forces, which finds power thrust unto them, will continue for years, maybe generations.
Will a visionary rise from the ranks of the army or will the army sit and wait for civil society to gurgle up those visionary leaders?
At the moment, everyone wants an immediate return to normalcy — albeit a “new normal.” The people who manned the barricades are only too eager to return to their jobs and the ordinary business of living.
The Egyptians just had a revolution without a revolutionary vision, much less a revolutionary party. This was an uprising without a plan, a breakthrough without a blueprint for the transition.
More disconcerting: no one now admits to be the father of the revolution. The white-collar professionals who courageously manned the barricades now want only to return to their jobs and catch up on their schedules.
The army wants people off the streets and the citizens are just too happy to oblige. It was a happy revolution but no one want to hold its mantle. The power of new communications technologies obliterated as well the traditional processes for evolving statesmen.