Governing Egypt

"I was certain from the beginning that the man who served his country and fought for it for 30 years could never kill his people."
"Today's release proves he is an icon and that the Egyptian people are smart ... Mubarak is not a killer, but a respectable man."
Samir Abdulaziz Al-Aswany, 47, bank employee, co-founder, Mubarak support group

"I feel a little pain in my heart, but it will not interrupt my day any more."
"I no longer have hope in this judicial system and I am not waiting for it to prosecute any criminals or those who have ruled or committed crimes in their names."
Mona Sief, Egyptian activist

"Whether Mubarak is at home or in prison, the revolution continues to be part of the hearts and minds and consciousness of millions of the young people of Egypt."
"And they cannot change this."
Ahmed Abdallah head, Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms

Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, seen in this 2016 file photo, is said to be resting at home with his family. (Amr Nabil/Associated Press) 

What the secular and leftist activists in Egypt seem to have lost sight of is that their successful protests and demonstrations that brought out so many ordinary Egyptians supporting their campaign for greater freedom and for Egypt to become a democracy with free and fair elections succeeded in overturning the government of the day, but at the same time, they lost the campaign they had embarked upon, to the opportunistic Muslim Brotherhood.

The democracy-inclined, autocracy-defying protesters had no viable political structure. They relied upon social support from among Egyptians and it was, more or less, forthcoming to a degree. But it was the well-organized, and disciplined structure of the Muslim Brotherhood that took advantage of the downfall of the government of Hosni Mubarak and the interim leadership that stepped in to plan for a free election that just happened to privilege the Brotherhood.

Thousands of protesters called for the ouster of Mubarak during a 2011 uprising. (Ben Curtis/Associated Press)

This, in a country whose succession of governments since the early 20th Century struggled to channel the Islamist Brotherhood away from government. The Brotherhood, held as a criminal organization by that succession of governments, was instrumental in the assassination of Mr. Mubarak's predecessor and fellow military officer, Anwar Sadat, targeted for signing a peace treaty with Israel. Its offshoot, Hamas, now controls Gaza, a terrorist group dedicated to destroying Israel.

In the 80-some-odd years of its existence and its underground activities, appealing to the greater collective of Egyptian poverty-stricken rural dwellers, fundamentalist in their Islamic devotion, the Brotherhood branched out to launch Brotherhood franchises in other countries of the Middle East and North Africa, installing itself to become the global manifestation of fundamentalist Islam, alongside Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist funding of madrasses everywhere Muslims exist.

When Mohammad Morsi, a prison escapee and elite of the Brotherhood, won the presidential election, he, like Hamas was elected in a free, democratic vote by a majority of voters and Morsi, like the Hamas executive became a theocratic autocrat, imposing on the country aspects of fundamentalist Islam upending the expectation of the originators of the protests in Tahrir Square in 2011 envisioning that Egypt would become a free and democratic country.

When Morsi's government failed to aid the faltering economy, targeted Egyptian Copts, imposed shariah, ruled over an increasingly violent and crime-ridden society impervious to complaints by Egyptians, his chief of the military Abdel Fatah al-Sissi warned him, but Morsi ignored that warning, leading to his ouster and the rise of another military government under President al-Sissi, who has done the unthinkable; criticized Islamist jihad and dysfunctional Islam, urging Al Azhar university to help bring about a modernization of Islam.

The Brotherhood, declared along with Hamas, a terrorist organization, incited violence, and supported terrorism in the Sinai peninsula. Egypt's population, the largest Arab population in the Middle East with over 80-million people, appears like most other Arab countries, to respond best to the firm control of a autocratic leader prepared to put down revolts, respond forcefully against violent tendencies in Islamists, and balance the needs of an economy lacking large oil resources.

Giving former President Hosni Mubarak his freedom at age 88, after years of incarceration in a military hospital simply represents justice reflective of the region. He did serve his country for three decades, as a man who was loyal to and loved his native land. President al-Sissi would have seen no reason to continue to detain his predecessor, and nor did the Egyptian court that released him from detention.

As for charges of corruption and repression, what is viewed as detestable in the West appears to be a way of political life in a tribal-based society of religious imperialism.