Hosni Mubarak Resigns; President Obama Sides with Egyptian Protestors

Freedom reigns in Egypt! It took a little over two weeks, 18 days to be exact, for Egyptian demonstrators, hundreds of thousands of them, to force President Mubarak to resign. It is futile to resist the spirit of freedom once that innate force stands up and cries out against tyranny in any form.

It is also refreshing to hear an unambiguous voice from President Obama, now clearly siding with the Egyptian protestors against Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian people have made it easy for the American President not to parse his words any longer. As the President said, Egypt has made the world proud.

Mubarak might have delayed his resignation yesterday to buy time. Or he might have been persuaded or pressured by his military commanders to leave. Thus Mubarak, once he made sure he has evacuated his entire family from harm’s way, finally let Egypt and the world know he is gone after 30 years of psedo-democracy.

Let it not escape our notice that Mubarak handed power over to the Egyptian military. We have heard much about how the Egyptian people trust the military, though that trust was temporarily shaken a few days back, when the military failed to deliver on the promise that all the people’s demands would be met. The suspension of trust happened when Mubarak refused to resign, but that trust, if it had really been there, should now be restored with Mubarak’s departure. The military is looking really good right now.

However, African military leaders are not known for their democratic ways. The Egyptian military could be a rare exception, if their top brads follow the ways of Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings, a military guy who restored democratic rule to Ghana, which has become one of Africa’s most stable and successful democracies.

It is with hope and longing that freedom-loving Africans, and freedom lovers from all around the world, will gaze intensely at what the Egyptian military will do with the trust of the Egyptian people. The expectation is rather simple: The military should begin the orderly path that will result in truly free and fair elections, in which ordinary Egyptians will choose a president who will make their democratic aspirations a national reality.

Conversely, the last thing Egyptians deserve is a long-winded rule by the military, or any form of military governance that chokes liberty. That would be just as unacceptable as the Muslim Brotherhood or a Sharia-type government ascending to power in Egypt.