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And The Difference Is You

Tank CartoonA miserable start to the day yesterday, finding that what I’d described as the worst-case scenario was precisely what had happened. Not only did Nokia go into partnership with Microsoft, but they’re surrendering – discarding – their own OS development. But by the early afternoon, Egypt had been liberated from tyranny.

Kind of puts the demise of Symbian in perspective.

Well, it’s the transitional military government type of liberation, but I don’t want to talk about the walls left to climb just yet. I just want to congratulate the people in Egypt on their new country. And on having the incredible determination and patience and bravery to face down their dictator, and do it without violence.

As someone said – on Twitter – don’t call it the Twitter revolution, or the Facebook revolution, or the internet revolution. People did it.

Congratulations.

2 replies on “And The Difference Is You”

The military says a democratic outcome will come, but they don’t want to be rushed. At present I’m hopeful that those measures will help to have a decent outcome and no power grabs are in the works.

I think now comes the part where history typically delivers its most cynical surprises. That is, free elections are held and the old establishment does well in the elections, leaving the nation with almost the same regime with just a few cosmetic changes.

There is a lot to happen first though, not least the drawing up of the rules of play. Will the Islamists be allowed to stand? There will be hell to pay if they’re not. Can the people who want democracy actually form credible parties? It would be sadly ironic if they can’t. I hope idealistic protesters are able to learn the much less idealistic game of winning democratic elections.

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