Hosni Mubarak has no future. He has reached the end. The presidency has escaped him, and many days have gone by. The question is about the future of Egypt, not his. The trial is valuable inasmuch as it avoids the future the calamities of the past, and returns Egypt to Egypt, and to its role, so that it becomes a pioneer and a model that rejects injustice and does not surrender to darkness. Arabs are involved in Egypt, and they are monitoring the goings-on of the Egyptian test. Arabs rub their eyes; they doubt what they see, and almost cannot believe it. In fact, they were never prepared to face such a scene. Experience shows that a president lasts for a long time if he is not killed by a bullet or a bomb. He only leaves the presidential palace to go to his grave, basking in respect, wrapped in his country's flag, carried in a hearse. The official news agency issues a tearful eulogy, and news anchors appear on TV covered in black. It does not occur to the president to have mercy on himself or his people and content himself with one or two mandates. The fallen president's name is completely hateful; just like that of his predecessor. Power is a lesson in gluttony; its banquets increase hunger. Also, a leader is not accountable to anyone, as he was appointed by history. The people's approval on this appointment came at a later stage. It is why the leader moves from history to history. Neither the opposition scares him nor does the threat of a trial go through his mind. The people are happy and wish him a long life, according to the reports and the advisors. A ruler's weakness is the praise found in reports. Arabs rub their eyes. A few years ago, they saw jailers put a rope around a man's neck. They saw the man give them a look of contempt before he was hanged. The man's name was Saddam Hussein, and he covered his country and the region with blood. The Arabs thought at the time that such a scene was just an exception, and that without the US occupation, the man would not have been uprooted along with his regime and his statues. Arabs have been rubbing their eyes for months now. They are seeing unprecedented scenes, which border on the unbelievable. The rivers of fury have overflowed, fortresses have fallen, and halos have been dismantled. Yesterday, the Arabs saw a man being led on a bed to the dock, where he joined his two sons. He is Hosni Mubarak, who has become known as the fallen president on TV. Arabs looked on, aghast. They were never prepared for such a scene: there are judges, lawyers, and accused people. There are accusations for giving orders to kill and accusations of oppression and corruption. There is tension and clashes outside the courtroom. A man demands justice; another demands execution; and a third reminds the judges that Mubarak played a role in the October War and the return of Egypt to the Arab world. A fourth man would have preferred to avoid seeing the octogenarian humiliated. A fifth man says that the trial confirms the revolution's success, the separation with the past, and the opening of a new page. It is most probable that Hosni Mubarak miscalculated the storm at its beginnings. He misinterpreted the shouts in the squares. Staying too long in power isolates rulers from the pulse of the Street. Perhaps the reports lied to him. He did not make the right conclusions. He did not believe that those who were born during his mandate would not stop before his regime was ousted. When he admitted defeat, it did not occur to him to leave, perhaps because he felt that by merely stepping down, the feelings of anger would be appeased. Mubarak might have wagered on the abilities of those who rose during his mandate and whom he showered with stars and medals. This is Egypt, whose incidents involve it as well as others. Both its mistakes and its achievements are contagious. It is in the revolution's interest for justice to be its concern and to offer Mubarak a fair trial, and for the trial of the past to represent a guarantee of a future that is different – one that is built on the values of democracy, justice, pluralism, and the respect of the other's opinion. Any moving away from these values will make the court of history annul the judgment of the Egyptian court.
