Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s ousted president, is a mere symbol of the past. He’s never represented a threat to the new regime considering he has no social power and no real political movement.
His political career died in February 2011, even before his detention, as the result of opposing powers’ consensus against him, beginning with the military institution. His exit was final and no one was even under the illusion that he could return to power. This is why there were expectations that he would be released as soon as he was arrested. However, he remained in detention and he might die in jail if the court does not approve his release, along with the release of his two sons.
Even during the popular movement to have him tried, there were voices urging political reconciliation during the period of transitional governance. However, at the time they said there must be a legitimate president to decide that. But when Egypt’s first elected President Muhammad Mursi came to power, the decision was the other way around. Instead of granting general amnesty and launching a new era devoid of vengeance and opening the door to reconciliation, Mursi rejected these calls and only pardoned detainees from among his party, the Muslim Brotherhood. Mursi’s rule, which lasted for one year, was focused on the struggle to control the judiciary and the general prosecution. His time in power was also marred with the pursuing of rivals in the judiciary and security fields. As a result, Mursi’s regime collapsed, exhausted by the rivalries it accumulated and preoccupied with enmities instead of running the state’s affairs.
It’s natural for a faction of Egyptians to condemn the acquittal of Mubarak and to condemn his release and it’s also natural for another faction to reject his continued detention because the struggle is over the recent history and what it means of legitimacy or of depriving of it.
However, the question is not whether to exonerate him or release him but why Mubarak was detained in the first place when he announced that he would step down and that he did not wish to defy revolutionaries after the army turned against him. Why are we asking such questions when his prompt exit prevented the country from sliding into chaos?
Most regimes, which began their eras with reprisals failed to achieve stability in the long run. This has been the case since the French to the Bolshevik revolutions to the Arab military coups. The most recent case is the fighting in Iraq, which came as a result of the eradication of former President Saddam Hussein and those who stood beside him. Nelson Mandela, however, was not only able to remove the white fascist racial regime in South Africa, but he was also able to achieve something greater and that is co-existence among different social categories by sending guilty individuals to a court where they confessed to their crimes and apologized. Mursi, who pursued Mubarak’s regime, made it easy for his rivals and competitors to do the same to him during the second revolution. I think that his only concern was vengeance during his time as president and this is what destroyed the Brotherhood’s rule.
It is not likely that Mubarak will live long to enjoy his freedom if he is released. This is because he has been sick since the last decade and his long-term illness led, in part, to the collapse of the state, which was centered around him and his son Gamal. He wasn’t a bloody man as the rumors dictate. However, he was unable to realize the historical moments, which he could have seized to take Egypt toward a democratic civil regime to immortalize his name and achieve what three presidents before him failed to achieve.
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