Saturday, June 23, 2012

Egyptians don't care about Hosni Mubarak's health scares

Mubarak might be on his back but his regime is very much on its legs, upright and determined to crush our revolution

By Mona Eltahawy
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 June 2012

"Hosni Mubarak, our 84-year old ousted dictator, has spent another night outside the prison cell where he's been sentenced to spend whatever remains of his life. A health scare that began as a stroke, according to state-controlled media, but ended up being attributed by his lawyer to a "slip in the bathroom", ensured that he was moved into the welcoming environs of a military hospital.

It was not the first time that Mubarak has supposedly suffered a stroke, fallen into a coma, been on life support or all of the above. Ever since street protests forced the ruling military junta to put him on trial last year, he has been on the verge of death so many times that once he actually does die it is easy to imagine that the news will be greeted in much the same way as this latest health scare: we don't care......

It is not just Mubarak who is supposedly fighting for his life; that military rule too is determined to hold on. A series of blatant power grabs over the past couple of weeks that have dissolved parliament and attempt to curb the powers of whoever is our next president, are also reminders that the military junta feels the need to remind us that it's in charge.

The Muslim Brotherhood movement – whose heart, let's be honest, was never fully into the revolution but whose candidate Mohamed Morsi might be that next president – has since Mubarak's ouster been busy with its own power grabbing and on-again-off-again ability or willingness to stand up to the military junta and for the goals of our revolution: bread, liberty and social justice.

So you'll excuse us if Mubarak's health "scares" are less significant to most people here in Egypt than they are to the foreign media....."

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