Ignoring the representative bit of democracy
Revolutions rejuvenate, and are probably a good thing, except if one happens to belong to those unfortunates who get killed, attacked or have their belongings taken away.
For the conflict in Egypt, there's a lot of international support as well, judging from statements from the US President ("We have seen the people of Egypt...." when what he really means is "We have seen people in Egypt...."), and generally from the western media and online social networking sites.
Mostly in places far away from Egypt.
Saudi Arabia and Israel are not awfully keen on the upcoming change, albeit for very different reasons.
How many Egyptians are there?
Egypt has around 79 million citizens, according to the English Wikipedia. 83 million, if you're reading the German Wikipedia. 75, on the Hindi version of the same website. As I claim to speak all three languages fluently, perhaps I should settle on "ca. 80 million", for the purpose of this little tract.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ägypten, http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0)
And how many of those Egyptians are on the streets, protesting?
Now, how many people did we and Mr. Obama actually see wandering around the now famous Tahrir Square in Cairo? Let's add the people in Alexandria as well.
The (English) Wikipedia seems to suggest a figure of around 40,000
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_protests).
The Telegraph goes with "Hundreds of thousands gather in Cairo and Alexandria..."
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8288167/Egypt-protests-live.html)
The Wall Street Journal has a number of "estimated 250,000".
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703445904576117393514953196.html)
Al Jazeera has "more than a million"
(http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/20112113115442982.html)
The Guardian is more circumspect. "The organisers claim that a million people have joined the protests, al-Jazeera reports.", it says.
So Al Jazeera reports that the organisers claim that......
But what most readers hear is "Million people".
In any case, let's take the figure of a million people actively milling about public squares and performing associated activities (burning cars, throwing stones, chanting, dancing, shouting, giving TV interviews to the New York Times, trying to get into the Sun's camera's view, as they try to interview Sheila, from Herefordshire, blonde mother of two, who has had her holiday plans utterly ruined etc. etc.)
What's the ratio?
1.25% of all Egyptians are protesting.
That doesn't look very salubrious, if one takes the democractic point of view.
But statistics are the devil's work. So let's multiply that by a figure of four, to eliminate error.
That brings us to 5%.
Why should 5% of the people speak for the other 95%?
In Indian terms, 5% is a lot - it would mean 50 million Indians protesting outside parliament. They wouldn't fit in, even if the whole city were leveled into a parched field.
But for countries with lower populations, say, Liechtenstein with 32,000 subjects.
Would the prince abdicate, if 1600 people gathered outside the palace in Vaduz?
More to the point, would the conscience of the world expect him to?
This "revolution" might be a good thing. It might lead to greater personal freedoms and more prosperity. It might lead to war within two years, but that's another thing.
I would only like to make the point that we should not forget how easily we are influenced by the sight and sound of a mob. I do not suggest we ignore it nor imagine that all the people knocking about there are paid to do so, and that most are completely ignorant of politics, social studies, economics, ethics etc., for that would be cynical, but that we evaluate the crowds with a measured eye.
