Trying Mubarak

Putting tyranny on trial poses a dilemma. How to strike a balance between the desire to humiliate and the impulse to safely circumscribe proceedings within a show? Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt with an iron hand for 30 years and is accused,among other things,of complicity in the killing of 850-odd protesters at Cairos Tahrir Square during the demonstrations earlier this year which finally unseated him in February. Reportedly ill,the former dictator was wheeled into court on a stretcher and placed inside a cage,even as Egypt dropped everything it was doing to watch the trial on television. For most Egyptians,the hitherto unimaginable sight of Mubarak in court,as a defendant,may look like poetic justice. However,for Egypt to understand and retain the significance of this trial,something more than the merely spectacular is needed.

Egypt is a country in transition,with the possibility of real elections soon that will mark its democratic crossover. It is different from Tunisia,which had to try Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in absentia,or Libya,which is crumbling under a civil war compounded by intervention,or Yemen,whose president,Ali Abdullah Saleh,wounded in an attack and undergoing treatment abroad,is being offered immunity from prosecution. Egypt could put in place an interim administration,albeit a military one,that made this trial happen. The world,and the Arab world in particular,is keeping a close watch on how Cairo goes about the difficult task of building credible systems and institutions. In that sense,Egypt and the conduct of this trial are at the heart of the persisting hopes of the Arab Spring. Thats why,neither public rage nor the militarys anxiety is the answer.

In other words,the means employed in this trial is important,just as the event and conduct of elections promised to the people of Egypt later will matter. But the optimism about that election depends on how Egypt fast-tracks the strengthening of its institutions. Failure to proceed on the democratic aspiration uttered at Tahrir Square could damage the course of the Arab Spring,which has a stake in this trial but no more than it does in the Egyptian example as a whole.