The Egyptian uprising and the West, then and now

Protesters young, old, male, female, Egyptian, Tunisian: all gathered together to protest outside the Egyptian embassy in London on Saturday 30th January 2011. They chanted the popular refrains of the ongoing Egyptian revolution:

"Asha'ab, youreed, esqaat elnezam"/ "The people want to get rid of the regime"
"Taghreer, horreya, adala egtemaiya"/ "Change, freedom, social justice"
"Aish, horreya, karama insaniya"/ "Bread, freedom, human dignity"

Though people were passionately angry, the atmosphere was jubilant. People handed around KitKats and bottles of water "as a celebration of our people's uprising".

Listening to the statements coming from the US, Europe and Israel in reaction to the "unrest", I have an almost dizzying sense of history repeating. I've been reading a little of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, an anti-imperialist writer who lived from 1840-1922. He was a supporter of the Urabi Revolt in Egypt. This uprising took place from 1879-1882. It was led by Colonel Ahmed Urabi against the authoritarian Khedive and European interference in the country.

Blunt supported the Egyptian nationalists, and even travelled to London to try to convince Gladstone that Urabi's revolt was a genuinely popular movement for liberal reform, and that Britain shouldn't interfere. Most British, however, preferred to view the Urabists as a threatening alliance of 'fanatics' - today's equivalent term would be 'extremists'.

Riots of uncertain cause broke out in Alexandria on June 11, 1882. Some say these were engineered by the Khedive to give a pretext for a crackdown - just as, it is alleged, the recent looting in Egypt was initiated by plainclothes policemen at Mubarak's behest. About 50 Europeans and 250 Egyptians died; shops were looted. The British invaded in order to stop the "anarchy". From that day, Egypt remained under British military occupation until 1954.

Of course, all the while the British protested that they were in Egypt against their will. They made various arguments for their presence there: their fear that Urabi's government would default on Egypt's huge debt to European financiers; their need to keep the Suez Canal secure for trade; even a 'philanthropic project' to civilise the Egyptians into rational beings capable of self-rule.

 The Earl of Cromer, the defacto ruler of Egypt from 1883-1907, wrote in his book Modern Egypt (1908):

• "It may be that at some future period the Egyptians may be rendered capable of governing themselves without the presence of a foreign army in their midst, and without foreign guidance in civil and military affairs; but that period is far distant."

... here's Richard Spencer in The Telegraph, 30 January 2011:

• "Do you trust 80 million Egyptians to determine their own foreign policy, in this most vital of regions? It takes a braver superpower than Britain to say yes." 

And here are Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's already infamous comment to Time, 28 January 2011:

• "I'm not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process"

For his 30-year rule, Mubarak has been propped up by $2 billion yearly installments from the US, most of which goes to the military (and is in turn spent on US-built weaponry, including on tear gas canisters, in case the people agitate for bread). This is the price at which the country has been bought. But the US is bankrupt, and reluctant imperialist Barack Obama is in charge (is it going too far to compare his suceeding George Bush to Gladstone's ousting, on an anti-imperialist platform, of Disraeli in 1880?). Could we dare to hope that the "far distant" period when the Egyptians might be allowed to rule themselves could at last be drawing near?