FREE MUBARAK

FREE MUBARAK

Unless you have been living in a cave or in the U.S.A, then you would by now be familiar with the Egypt and generally the Arab's uprising. So we are on the same page and to get some context, I will recap it for you.

The uprising began on the 25th of January 2011 with a largely peaceful protest. Different sectors of the country all rose against the Mubarak's regime demanding, free and fair elections, abolition of the emergency law, employment, end of police brutality and corruption, but most of all, an end to the regime itself. Mubarak reacted like a true soldier, squashing the protests by violence but the people did not rise up to the bait, they did not take arms but instead used the effectiveness of strikes. Eventually, on 11th of February 2011 Mubarak gave in and announced his resignation. This was his last resort, after failing to compromise with the people by barely breaking up his government. Three months after that,  however, he was ordered to stand trial for numerous counts of illegal activities, the most serious being the premediated murders on peaceful protestors. He was convicted of this on 2nd June 2012 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

This is the part that I think Egypt went wrong. Not because I think that Mubarak is innocent or does not deserve to rot (forgive my strong language) in jail, but its because I think the gesture would do more common goods towards ending wars in the Arab world. It should be remembered that the Egyptian uprising was influenced by the Tunisian protests, and in turn it encouraged the uprisings in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Syria.

Imprisoning Mubarak, or yet still as the people want, killing Mubarak would only send the wrong message to the remaining dictators. Here was a man that heed the call of the people, albeit two weeks later, and stepped down relatively peaceful. On the other hand, we have the down right civil wars that happened in Libya and are happening in Syria. In Libya, till the death of Colonel Gaddaffi, it is estimated that the death toll was 30,000. The Syrian death toll on the other hand, has reached about 42,000, with about 100,000 refugees with no place to call home.

I feel that, hanging Mubarak only sends panic to the likes of Assad that are convinced of that fate. Yes Assad might not just be fearing of a death penalty, and is really that power hungry and a monster, but sending Mubarak to prison that fast, and call for his head would not reassure him either. At the moment he is acting like a very panicked man. He is killing people left right and center, and yet still clinging on to his story of terrorists. Only a madman would assume that still holds. Worst still he does feel assured of his position by Russia and China's backing , or else he wouldn't hold on to such a feeble tale. If they won't help us, then maybe freeing Mubarak as a gesture of amnesty would do the trick. I am not naive enough to think that this would be the answer to all the dictatorship problems, but I am submitting an alternative... A more logical one than Annan's 'cease fire agreement'. I am inviting more radical ideas into ending the tyranny and at best suggesting that not all monsters are the same, certainly, Mubarak (no matter how unrelenting he looks) shouldn't share the same fate with Charles Taylor, seasoned masochist.

The Illogical Thinker

Most must wonder on the title, but it all makes when I do explain. 

I recently read the most amazing and insightful book on earth, for me that is, and realised I was wasting my life just drifting by. The book was called the art of creative thinking, and just to surmise, the author talked about how logical thinking trapped us from becoming exceptional. He talked of the brain as a pattern recognisition software and how that connected the dots and limited what we thought we could do.

There were a lot of examples written on there about exceptional, illogical (my word not his) people that became great men. The two that caught my attention and forever imprinted themselves to memory was Richard Branson and Mahtma Gandhi.

He told of a story of a young Richard Branson on his first start up business. Richard aspired to start a school magazine. He did not have a large capital or a network to begin with but that didnt stop him. What he did was use his school's call box to call up potential investors, after the head master rightfully declined having to install a private one for him. The most amazing parts was the strategies he used. This was a 19 year old who had not attended a business school but could come up with the best business strategies that could shame AIG. The first one was how to maximise on his capital, that is on the coins used for the calls. What he discovered was that, if he called the operator and said that the machine ate his money and he still did not make that call, the operator would then punch him through. Not only does he get a free phone call but the operator also acts as a secretary for him. That tone that says "I have Mr. Branson on the line for you...." Second, was piting competitors against each other. A good example he said was how he could call Pepsi and say "Would you like to advertise before or after Coca-cola?" Anyways, you do get the jist.

The second amazing story was that of Mahtma Gandhi. Yes, everyone does know how exceptional he was, but this I saw as way and beyond wisdom. It is said that one day Mr. Gandhi was getting on a train when his shoe fell on to the platform. When he tried to retrieve it and failed, he took off the second one and threw it where the other one fell. His fellow commuters were puzzled,  he turned and said "The poor person that would find the first one would have no use for one shoe, better he finds two"

It is simple reasoning that would be difficult for a logical mind to arrive to, for reasons you have already deduced by now. But that inspired me to have a vent of feelings, to think of all current news that come in with a critical eye and a way that I can improve on them. So here I am, willing to be the illogical thinker, for what use is there to live if you just pass on by?