generalspeaking

Deposing and Dethroning a King

In a part of the world where political and social corruption is particularly endemic, part of the social heritage and culture of the countries situated there, sometimes financial gain is not the only measure of what can be accomplished by tyrannical governments that impoverish their own by neglecting state duties, by oppressing their people, by opting to neglect the needs of employment and general social and health benefits to ensure a decent future for the young.

Although corruption leading to personal enrichment is the basis for most societies' elites who avail themselves of any and all opportunities to rob the country of its resources for their personal advantage, there remain autocratic rulers who defy the general rule and who remain rulers through corruption, seeking the reward of power and only power.  With that power they are then capable of using the corruption of their society to reward their supporters, their followers, and their relatives.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak loved his country more than he loved what most in his position strove for; personal endowment of riches available for their acquisition by dint of their impeachable rank as politicians, heads of their countries.  In countries that are the furthest from democracies where the ballot box is a sham, not an effective tool of extracting the best from the worst, it is always feasible that those at the top will retain untold wealth, while those burgeoning masses at the bottom live in a ferment of resentment.

When Mr. Mubarak was sacrificed by the senior members of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces - however reluctantly; and it would have been reluctantly, for he was one of their own - he could have fled the country as others did, in other countries whom the Arab Spring brought to ignominious surrender to the enraged demands of a public no longer willing to endure the unendurable - or so they thought.

He remained where he was, in Egypt, as a deposed majesty, because he never dreamed that he would be accused of murder and of self-availing corruption.  Or that he might be held justicially to account.  He likely never considered the election charades that he indulged the country in that unfailingly returned him as the only choice of the popular vote as corrupt in practise.  He viewed himself as the avuncular 'father' of his people, ruling in their best interests and that of the country.

The ruling military right behind him, were doubtless satisfied with the status quo.  And, together, they ensured that the Muslim Brotherhood was kept tamped down, as a threat to the social order, to the secular nature of their governance in the style of benevolent dictators.  The benevolent mask slipped slightly when it was confronted by opposition, or by activities feared to represent challenges to the administration.

And while Hosni Mubarak could be assured that his former military colleagues would never agree to punish him in a manner that would assuage the frenetic demands of the enraged public that will not be appeased by anything other than death for him, as a symbol of the success of their Arab Spring sacrifices, the forceful rage of the public is hugely unsettling to both him and his former colleagues.

Confronted by the reality, totally unexpected, unanticipated, and brutally occurring, that he would not return to the gentle ministrations of the military hospital that had respected his former position, his service to Egypt, his age and his health condition, but was rendered to a prison where he had himself incarcerated the state's enemies, the total reality of his position has stricken him with horror.

The accusations that he profited personally and hugely to the tune of billions, from his presidency represented a canard, a slander felt as a requirement to justify the rage that his opponents in the Muslim Brotherhood sought to carefully nurture.  Aided and augmented hugely by accusations of having ordered the slaughter of protesters to put a speedy end to the revolt.

Labels: Chaos, Conflict, Corruption, Egypt, Justice

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, June 05, 2012