After more eighteen days of protests, Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down from the presidency of Egypt. The former president left Cairo the morning of Friday, February 11th, 2011 for his summer home, and in a statement by Vice President Omar Suleiman, it was communicated that he had stepped down. Suleiman also said that Mubarak had decided to place power with the higher council of the armed forces. Crowds in Cairo were overjoyed by the news that their weeks of protests had been successful, but Egypt likely has a long road ahead. I am certainly no expert on the Egyptian military, but I can’t think of a worse way to throw off iron-fisted rule than to put the people with the tanks in charge.
Egypt is not the only country in turmoil. Just as Egyptians were inspired to take to the streets by the protests in Tunisia, Italians saw the measure of success attained by Egyptians and tried to get in on the game themselves last week. The Italian protests are not quite on the same scale as their Egyptian counterparts, but they gain points for originality and hilarity.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been unpopular for a very long time, and currently does not hold a wide enough margin in the country’s parliament to be able to govern. To add to his troubles, Berlusconi was recently accused of soliciting sex from underage girls, and is said to hold frequent ‘bunga bunga’ parties (whatever that means) at his home. Sticking with the theme, hundreds of Italian women gathered outside Berlusconi’s residence last week and their tossed panties over the fence in protest. I think we should all pause now and imagine what Hilary Clinton would have done if American women had gathered to throw stained dresses over the fence of the White House in 1998 – I think it’s safe to say it would not have been pretty. Notwithstanding the fact that it is almost impossible to take something called a panty protest seriously, Berlusconi faces real trouble in court and in the electorate. Hundreds of thousands of Italians have signed petitions aiming to end his term as Prime Minister, and early elections are being considered.
Not to be outdone (although, really, they’re all being outdone by Egypt at this point) discontent Syrians scheduled a protest called Day of Rage for February 5th. Apparently there weren’t very many enraged people in Syria, though. Cold weather, rain, and heavy intimidation from the government kept protesters at home. The Algerian government has also faced troubles as of late. There are fairly regular ‘bread riots’ in the country inspired by the trying economic times, and there were more widespread and politically motivated protests and riots last month. The situation in Algeria is under control for now, but with so much unrest in the region no one seems quite willing to rule out further protests in the country.
Despite the fact that these protests are destabilizing and dangerous and really freak the international community out, I find it almost comforting that people still have a political breaking point. Maybe it’s just the red-blooded American in me, but I have a hard time not rooting for people who are fighting for their rights. Even if “you’ve got to fight for your right to be free from oppressive dictatorships” doesn’t roll of the tongue quite as well as “you’ve got to fight for your right to party.”
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