From the day that President Ben Ali bowed to the inevitable and fled his homeland for exile in Saudi Arabia, the question was never just what would happen next in Tunisia, but whether the popular uprising there would become a catalyst for discontent elsewhere. It is less than two weeks since the Tunisian President was toppled, but already there are the beginnings of an answer – from neighbouring Algeria, from Jordan, but most eloquently and defiantly from Egypt.
The protests in central Cairo, that continued as Tuesday evening became Wednesday morning and were rejoined more sporadically yesterday, were without recent precedent in their scale and overtly political demands. Nor were they limited to the Egyptian capital; there were demonstrations, too, in other cities, including the fast-growing Delta towns and Asyut in the south. One of the four fatalities was in Suez. Like the demonstrations in Tunisia, those in Egypt brought together many interests and many strands of anger; as in Tunisia, the protesters were prominently male and young, and to the extent that their action was co-ordinated, it was by the internet and mobile phone. They did not hang around apologetically; they marched and demanded an end to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year long rule, citing tThe response of the authorities was no different from that of any other repressive regime under threat. They deployed riot police and special forces. A ban was announced on further protests. Emergency powers were invoked. It remains to be seen how effective these measures will be. What cannot be changed, however, is that a taboo – challenging Mr Mubarak's rule – has been broken and the message from Tunisia has been heard loud and clear from the top to the bottom of Egyptian society.
The acknowledged regional leader, Egypt has a population of 80 million, and suffers from the same demographic and economic problems that afflict the region as a whole. If this proud, but troubled, country is on the move, even tentatively, it is not just North Africa that is on the threshold of profound change, but the whole of the Middle East and beyond.he Tunisian precedent.Mubarak's whereabouts questioned
Rumours that Mubarak's son, Gamal, had fled the country have swirled in Egypt since Tuesday, the "day of anger" that ignited the protests. But Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan, reporting from Cairo, said that Gamal remained in Cairo and was attending a meeting of the ruling National Democratic Party. Footage from that meeting were to be broadcast on television later on Thursday.
But little was known about President Mubarak's whereabouts, and a senior government official was unable to confirm whether he was in Cairo or the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula.
"You would imagine, with what we've been seeing here - these are unprecedented protests, certainly unprecedented under President Mubarak's rule - that perhaps it might be a good time to address the nation in a televised broadcast or something like that," our correspondent said.
"There's been no indication that he's going to do that. Not even a televised address by the prime minister, only a brief prime ministerial press statement."
In the statement, Ahmed Nazif, the Egyptian prime minister, said that while people were free to express themselves in a peaceful manner, "there will be swift and strong intervention by police to protect national security".
In protests that some activists have explicitly connected with the uprising in Tunisia, Egyptians have defied a government ban on political rallies and taken to the streets in the thousands across several cities to vent their anger against Mubarak's 30-year rule an the emergency national-security laws that have been in place during his entire tenure.
Since the street protests erupted on Tuesday, police have confronted protesters with rubber-coated bullets, tear gas, water cannons and batons, and arrested more than 860 people.
An independent coalition of lawyers said that at least 1,200 people had been detained. At least six people have also been killed.
The turmoil on the streets affected even the country's stock exchange, where trading had to be temporarily suspended on Thursday after stocks dropped more than six per cent.
US response
Washington, which views Mubarak as a vital ally and bulwark of Middle Eastern peace, has called for calm and urged Egypt to make reforms to meet the protesters' demands.
"We believe strongly that the Egyptian government has an important opportunity at this moment in time to implement political, economic and social reforms to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people," Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, said.
Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane said that the US must strike a delicate balance.
"Egypt is by far one of the biggest beneficiaries of US foreign aid when it comes to military financing," our Washington DC correspondent said, adding that Egypt received $1.3bn a year from the US, second only to Israel in that respect.
"It would seem then, that the US has some leverage to push the Egyptian government to not crackdown on the protesters," Culhane said. Whether the US choses to exercise that leverage remains to be seen.
Like Tunisians, Egyptians complain about surging prices, lack of jobs, and authoritarian rulers who have relied on heavy-handed security to keep dissenting voices quiet.
Egypt's population of about 80 million is growing by 2 per cent a year. Two thirds of the population is under 30, and that age group accounts for 90 per cent of the jobless. About 40 per cent live on less than $2 a day, and a third are illiterate.
A presidential election is due in September. Egyptians assume that the 82-year-old Mubarak plans either to remain in control or hand power to his son. Father and son both deny that Gamal, 47, is being groomed for the job.
Uprisings that may not presage democracy
The riots in Egypt, as those in Tunisia and Algeria, have given rise to all sorts of hopes that finally the corrupt and authoritarian regimes of North Africa will be overthrown and that democracy and freedom will come in their stead. If only it would happen like that.
Anyone concerned with the Middle East and the wider Arab world must have long despaired of the way that the nationalist revolutions of the Nasser era have only ended in a western-supported gerontocracy which has locked up their opponents, lined their own and their families' pockets, and reduced their countries to a state of permanently suspended animation
Yet you can make a fair bet that the latest popular uprisings in Tunisia and its neighbours are more likely than not to lead to a new and even worse form of tyranny. Food and unemployment riots are not new, after all. We've seen them right across Africa and the Middle East in the post-war period.
Each time the uprisings occur, the West, and liberal opinion within the countries, hopes for a moderate replacement, an opposition leadership that will rise to the occasion and introduce liberty and an open economy. Almost invariably it fails to happen. The Shah is replaced by the rule of the Ayatollahs, King Idris by Colonel Gaddafi. The government is blamed. The regime is attacked but power is eventually taken by those with the organisation to wield it, usually the army.
This may not happen in Egypt or Tunisia (with oil revenues and a small population, the Libyan President can buy off trouble in a way other nations can't). One hopes not. Both have an educated middle class and the basis at least of a bureaucracy that can operate. But in both cases the existing presidents have used their time to wipe out most of their opponents, including the more responsible leaders of Muslim movements.
Precisely because President Mubarak has proved so effective in stilling opposition, it is difficult to envision just who or what could replace him if there were to be real regime change. Unions, parties, and government bureaucracy have all been nullified and corrupted. The only non-governmental network of grass-roots organisation that really works is the mosque and the madrassa.
Something is stirring in North Africa, right across the Arab world indeed. But it's not necessarily what we would wish for nor, given what we have done to support the old regimes, do we have any right to try and influence it.
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