Airborne Elephant Watch: Egypt

And it's time for another of our irregularly scheduled discussions of things that are undreamt of in Thomas Friedman's philosophy or, as his next book is likely to call them, Flying Elephants.

From Squidoo.com.

Today's case starts with the Egyptian minister of planning and international cooperation, and an old pal of Suzanne Mubarak's, Fayza Abul Naga, who is said to be the person mainly responsible [jump]
for putting those 16 Americans working in (ostensibly) pro-democracy organizations in jail. I'm not going to take any position on her investigation, by the way; in this context I'm one of those stupid Americans who gets enraged when foreigners spend money to influence our elections but not always when Americans spend money on theirs (in my case especially when the Americans are named Soros)—I hope to have a coherent idea some day but I'm not there yet.

The interesting thing about Abul Naga for me is that she has inspired some unusually thoughtful writing in the New York Times, by David Kirkpatrick with reporting by Mayy El Sheikh:

“This is a country of separate islands now,” said Mohamed Anwar el-Sadat, the nephew of former President Anwar el-Sadat and a newly elected lawmaker who recently called Ms. Abul Naga to testify before a parliamentary committee. “The Foreign Ministry, the Justice Ministry, the Parliament, the generals of the military council — everyone is his own island.”

The ruling generals were “surprised” by the actions against the American groups, Mr. Sadat said, recounting what he said were conversations with top military officials. “They had not been informed, and they believed the timing was wrong,” he said. “But she knows that Tantawi is only in charge while the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is there. His time is over, so her time is over.”

Signs abound that the military’s authority is fading fast. Civilian judges have for the first time begun to rule against the military council. The police hesitate to use force or even take action for fear of retribution, and earlier this month their diffidence contributed [to] the deaths of more than 70 soccer fans in a riot in Port Said, a parliamentary inquiry found. 

Lawmakers, in turn, are moving to dismiss the interior minister, but no one yet knows whether Parliament or the military can claim that power.... “Power is in a very fluid state right now,” one American diplomat said, speaking anonymously under diplomatic protocol. “American pressure scares them less than the mob in the street demanding the execution of Tantawi.”

So it's a fascinating picture of a revolutionary society, with the distribution of power among thugs and non-thugs constantly evolving and unpredictable. The anonymous diplomat also said, “It means society is really coming apart at the seams,” but isn't that an awfully limiting way of looking at it? Wasn't Egyptian society already fully apart at the seams a year ago? Isn't that why the revolution took place? What's happening now is the formation of new seams, not a pretty picture, and far from guaranteed to have a happy outcome, but full of marvelous potential as well.

Ancient Egyptian Super Mario. From the Smosh Pit.