Close-ups on Crotches

Short piece commissioned by BBC World Service. Aired on Sunday 7th August.

Whatever comes next, we will always have that moment to hold on to. A moment, an image that will live forever. A moment filled with disbelief, with pride, with hope for our future.

Egypt’s ex-president, Hosni Mubarak, lay on a stretcher in a cage playing the victim and the whole country stopped.

How could such a frail, old man have kept down a whole people for 30 years?

He could have been in a wheelchair – apparently he was in one backstage – but he went for the full recline in an attempt to twist the spectacle to his advantage. But manipulation of his public image has never been Mubarak’s strong suit. His attempts to foster a personality cult, the constant papering of the country with posters of him in various military, administrative, grandfatherly poses – were invariably met with indifference.

And here, lying on his stretcher, this charade of frailty was betrayed by his still-blackened hair, his blinging watch, his occasional smiling comments whispered to his son.

But he was mostly obscured. His sons loyally worked the angles and blocked the cameras, leaving the audience to endure uncomfortable close ups of Alaa Mubarak’s crotch. And giving us constant reminders that it wasn’t just this old man on his own that kept Egypt on her knees for so long. That he was building a dynasty.

Al shaab yureed usqat al-nizam

The people demand the removal of the regime

These are the words that have rung across our world this year. And one man does not make a regime. We have to clean out the whole stable. We have to dismantle decades of local and international chains of corruption and oppression.

In the courtroom’s dock, Mubarak’s son, Gamal, stood with the poise and attitude of a dictator inwaiting. When ex-Minister of the Interior, Habib al-Adly, left the building he was all smiles and handshakes with former associates. The head has been removed but the regime is still very much in place.

The business elites and police state have taken a back seat and the Army are now in control. But the Revolution and Revolutionaries are alive and alert and working every day.  

Whatever comes next, people will never forget what we achieved in January. We filled the streets with millions of living bodies, and those bodies carried a list of demands before them. The demands are difficult and far-reaching. We can’t achieve them all on our own. Our brothers and sisters everywhere – from Wisconsin to Madrid to Kampala - have to work with us in our push to make the world a fairer place.

But we made a great step this week. We won a great victory. Whatever happens next, the whole world has seen that you can bring a dictator to trial in 6 months if you can just put enough bodies with enough determination on the street.

Some people were expecting Hollywood, they wanted a whole season of Law and Order played out in front of them. That’s not how it works in reality. It looked chaotic. But trials here always do if you don’t understand the system. It wasn’t glossy. And that’s good. That means we can believe what we’re seeing is more than just spectacle. 

It means we can believe we have taken another step towards removing the enormous military and security apparatus that - in the name of ‘stability’  - has for so long crushed the will and the needs and the dreams of a people.