Jesse Willms: Egypt Shows That Freedom Is In The Air

For more than 40 years, it has been the goal of the western world to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. For far too long, these millions of people have lived under tyranny. Most of their citizens are just scraping by in near poverty, while their leaders become rich from oil revenue.

Over the years the west has tried to impose democracy on these regimes. Sometimes we have done so through legal sanctions; at other times we have tried to bring democracy through military force. Neither of these methods has produced any real, lasting results. But now, that is starting to change.

It’s not happening because of anything we’ve been doing. Instead, it’s coming from the inside. People have grown tired of the limited opportunities tyrants have brought them. They have decided that the time has come for democracy to grace their land.

It started in Tunisia, where a popular revolt quickly ousted unpopular dictatorial rule. Seeing this tremendous success, the Egyptian people have taken to the streets to end the 30-year unchallenged reign of Hosni Mubarak.

For days now, people have been protesting and Mubarak has barely been hanging onto power. He fired his entire cabinet. Then, for the first time since he has been in office, he appointed a vice-president. Most recently, he announced that he wouldn’t stand for re-election.

Still, this is not enough for the people. They are going to continue to put pressure on the government until he finally steps down.

There is little to stop the protestors. Many police officers have already defected to their side. And the Egyptian army has announced they will not shoot or arrest any of the protestors, no matter what their orders are. This means the power is now in the hands of the people – and their will needs to be satisfied.

Already, their efforts are beginning to spread through the Arab world. The King of Jordan has started to put more democratic policies into place, and other Arab rulers are considering the same. The result is that there may soon be a domino effect of emerging democracy throughout the Middle East.

What’s interesting is the lesson it teaches us: You can’t impose democracy from the outside. Democracy happens because eventually people get tired of tyrants and then take care of business themselves.