The Egyptian intifada

  If one week is a long time in politics, one month can bring a generation’s worth of change. The sudden and unexpected collapse of authoritarian rule in Tunisia has breathed new hope into opponents of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who have struggled for years to muster mass support for their democratic agenda. Now hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have risen up alongside them, challenging the conventional wisdom that autocrats in the Arab world have mastered the dark arts of political survival more successfully than anywhere else around the globe. One way or the other, the Middle East will never be the same again. Egypt and Tunisia had much in common — high youth unemployment, brutal repression by police, economic growth that never trickled down and stagnant political systems centered around crony-capitalist ruling parties. The Tunisian opposition that helped drive Ben Ali into exile on January 14 has made great progress