Seventeen Days that Shook the World? Not so fast, my friend! Hosni Mubarak’s speech this evening was many things but it wasn’t much of a resignation statement. Mostly, it was a nationalist plea for Middle Egypt’s sympathy vote. Presenting himself as father of the nation – including his “children” gathered in Tahrir Square and in cities across the country – Mubarak’s pitch seemed more likely to appeal to that generation’s parents.
How many Egyptian youths are really preoccupied with the moment the Egyptian flag was hoisted over the Sinai? How many, surveying their gloomy economic prospects and the lack of political opportunity, care about the past? Precious few. Nor, for that matter, can they buy the notion that the outside world has been interfering in Egypt’s domestic affairs.
So Mubarak isn’t going anywhere. At least not until September.
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