Revolution in Egypt?

I can't pull myself away from the newsfeeds of CNN, BBC, and the NY Times. Watching the mass protests on the streets Egypt, dodging tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, all in Tahrir Square and the bridges over the Nile, it's hard to believe we were in Cairo less than a month ago, trying to dodge cars as we crossed the street.

It's not a surprise that the Egyptians are unhappy with their government. That was evident from within our first hour in the country, as our airport pick-up was acidly describing his "perfect president."  Egypt is a police state. I've never really been somewhere like that before.  You can't drive anywhere in the country without stopping at many police checkpoints. It seems to require about 20 police at any checkpoint: one to look at the driver's papers, one to keep an eye on the guy checking the papers, and 18 guys standing around looking bored and vaguely trigger-happy.  Every town has a billboard or mural welcoming you to town and praising the beneficence of 30-year president Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak is often wearing awesome aviator glasses, and sometimes has a bit of a halo in his rendering. I wanted to get a picture of these signs, but they were often at police checkpoints, and it seemed foolish to wave my camera around too much here. This is the only shot I've got, and it's not great (surreptitiously taken from the back of our van as we were stopped at a checkpoint).

"Welcome to Dahab!" This is a less-ridiculous picture of Mubarak than most, as I think it is probably only a few years old.  But it is clear from the propaganda that all good things must start with the President.

Egypt is one of the top recipients of US aid money, over $1.5 billion a year. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe most of this is an obligation arising out of the Camp David accords to bring peace between Israel and Egypt, as the US apparently bribes both countries to play nice. We also have supported Egypt as one of our key allies in the region in the nothing-is-more-important "global war on terror."  The occasional  repression of the Egyptian people was seen as acceptable collateral damage to keep Islamic Fundamentalists out of power (The conservative Muslim Brotherhood, though outlawed in Egypt, is the most organized political opposition, and would probably win any fair elections in the country. "He may be an S.O.B, but he's our S.O.B"  as the saying goes. To be fair, life would probably be even harder for the Coptic Christian minority if the current regime falls. To also be fair, the fear of terrorism is real. Bombings at the Coptic Church in Alexandria on New Year's 2011, bombings at Dahab in 2006, attacks in Sharm el-Sheik in 2005, and the chilling sniper attacks from the hills around the Queen Hatsepshut temple in Luxor in 1997, among others, show that there is a significant violent minority.

Egpyt has problems. It has a young, educated, under-employed population (80 million) that is growing much too fast for any reasonable hope of providing jobs for the populace. The import half their food. The only fundamental solutions are to "create more land, or fewer Egyptians" as an analyst once said (95% of the population lives in the Nile Valley and Delta, which is only 3% of the land area...there is no more arable land.)  The per-capita GDP is $2270, but because of the rich few at the top, that number is fairly skewed; most people get by on the equivalent of $2 a day or less.  There have been more or less only 3 leaders since Egypt became a republic: Nasser (adored), Sadat (mixed), and Mubarak (reviled, if current protests are any indication). Mubarak has been in power since 1981, and the general consensus in Egypt was that this old man is getting ready to hand off power to his son.
UPDATE: This NY Times article that I found after I originally posted this actually has a very nice summary of most of these problems, and backs me up with data. :)

Our tour guide Ahmed and I had some interesting discussions comparing Bulgaria and Egypt while we were sailing down the Nile. There was a study recently that compared "average national happiness" (measured using some supposedly objective survey) to per-capita GDP. In general, richer countries are happier than poorer ones, on a logarithmic scale.  There are outliers...the US is not nearly as happy as other countries with similar wealth; Denmark is much happier than expected. Bulgaria earned a shout out for being by far the unhappiest country in the survey when income level is considered. People here are about as happy as people in Haiti and Iraq. Ouch.  But that actually seems about right...there is a national depression that things are terrible and will never get better. It's the hopelessness that really is infectious here, unfortunately.
Ahmed seemed to think Egypt was just like Bulgaria in this way, hopeless.

Ahmed is about my age, high-strung, and frustrated. I can't begin to tell you exactly why he's frustrated, but there are many reasons.  I think you'll hear/read the same thing from the protesters taking the streets across the country right now. They are frustrated by being poor.  They are sick of sham elections (last fall the President's party "won" 100% of the seats in the parliamentary elections).  Many young couples can't even get married, as the traditional costs associated with marriage (dowry, etc) are beyond the reach of more and more people.  Interestingly, Ahmed thought things would never change in Egypt. "There have been all these problems, but never enough to push us to revolt. I don't think anything could." He said himself he probably wouldn't join in protests if they ever happened, because he would lose his tourism license and then wouldn't be able to eat and support his father (he sends much of his earnings back to his father, as most traditional Egyptians do). I wonder what he's doing now, now that there are actually people in the streets, fighting, marching, getting killed. I wonder if he's with them? (I can't write and find out, as the government has effectively shut down the entire phone/internet service to Egypt, trying to suppress protesters and keep the story from the media as well.)

So when a newscaster tries to explain how significant it is that people are destroying murals of Mubarak, it really is. People have been imprisoned and/or tortured for much less in Egypt.
To my new Egyptian friends: I'm sorry that much of the tear gas and many of the armored personnel carriers being used to crush protests right now were probably paid for with US tax dollars. But I hope you know that the American people (at least this American person) supports your fight for freedom, for a chance at a better life.
I don't really have any wise insight...we were only there for 2 weeks, mostly enjoying the tourist wonders, mostly taking in ancient Egypt. But modern Egypt is interesting too, and I wish them the best.  Egypt has many likely intractable problems that are unlikely to be solved by any government, democratic or not, and a democratically elected government is quite likely to be less friendly to "US Interests" (whatever those are) than the current one, but Egypt needs the chance to solve Egypt's problems, without meddling from us.  Good luck, and stay safe.