So Egypt Wins....So What?

If you've been within eyeshot of a major media outlet in the last two weeks, you probably have clued in that big things are happening in Egypt. If you've been reading this blog, or basically any news anywhere, you probably have also clued in that a) a peaceful, populist democratic revolution has ousted an authoritarian president that has been seated for 30 years, and b) this is unabashedly awesome.

What you might not totally get is why. And that's completely understandable.
So Why the Hell Is This So Important?
The reasons that the success of the Egyptian revolution has everyone atwitter (haha. ha. Ash you're lame.) can be clumsily classed into the following three categories:
Egypt leads the way.
Being the most populous Arab nation, geopolitically centrally located, and generally containing a little bit of everything important about the region, Egypt tends to lead the way in the Middle East. Things they do tend to set standards and precedents on an international level--and they also tend to trend.
The fact that they just overthrew their US-propped-dictator added such crazy burgeoning momentum to the regime-toppling force released by the Tunisian revolution that protests intensified in Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, and the Gabon. It's resulted in a lot of speculation about whether or not this practice of insisting on responsible government was going to keep up--and which world leaders are in trouble if it does.

Democratic Egypt = Irritating Cracks in US Imperialism

stay classy, New York Post. Derp.

The change of the guard means that the US has less control over the region. The now-deposed Mubarak regime received 1.3billion USD in military aid every year, which tended to buy a lot of party-line-toeing on its participation in the war on Iraq, or their shared border with Gaza and the 30-year peace treaty signed with Israel. The lack of US involvement in this Egyptian democracy business makes Israel and the US very nervous, seeing disrupted trade, islamofascist regimes and the spectre of pesky Iran ruining their perfectly stable, if perfectly brutal, middle-Eastern setup. That setup, it's worth mentioning, includes cosy relationships with many of the aforementioned authoritarian world leaders possibly in trouble for political douchebaggery.

Also, it's problematic that the majority of the Western world was seen hmming and hawing about the protests, being diplomatic and shaking fingers without actually coming to the support of the most popular revolution since at least the 70's. This is a problem for two reasons: 1) the aforementioned 1.3 billion in military aid meant that the power that Mubarak had--and abused--for so long was a direct result of the US giving it to him; and 2) the US has spent trillions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to INSTALL democracy in the middle East, so anything less than an unequivocal joygasm of unqualified support for such an overwhelmingly popular democratic movement seems patently spurious to me.

And finally,
A Peaceful Democratic Revolution Just Happened. And that's kind of a miracle.
In Tahrir Square, a functional, unified community sprang up out of the craziness of sectarian violence and a divided population, because of a shared vision for a better Egypt. Within days, the protesters had clinics, sleeping areas, food and water stations, phone and computer charging access, and media screens broadcasting AJE for anyone who needed them. Twentysomethings spontaneously organized the sexy revolutionary duties of trash pickup every morning. When "pro-Mubarak" thugs stormed the square, they set up checkpoints to screen for weapons and welcome people to the demonstrations. They organized local musician and artist showcases. They organized football tournaments in the square for kids. They held Christian mass in the Square, just as they protected each other during Muslim prayers. They protected foreign journalists from angry police during media crackdowns.

They did all of this without central leadership.

That is the most fundamentally inspirational thing about the Egyptian Revolution to me--the fact that I just watched democracy -happen-, in such an unadulterated, people-first way that Western powers barely recognized it as democracy, springing from the grassroots alone.
This matters because it reaffirms, in the eyes of the entire world, that stuff of this incredible calibre CAN  ACTUALLY STILL HAPPEN.
Egypt reminded me that the struggle against power is neither futile nor unreasonable.
And that is absolutely invaluable.

So that's what.