STARGATE TROOPERS

NOW THAT MUHAMMAD HOSNI SAYYID MUBARAK, the best friend to the United States of America until last night, when his decision to stay on for a “little bit longer” made Muhammad Barack Hussein Obama look a bit of a tool after having given a prepared speech to dumbfounded university students about how “change had come” when it hadn’t come yet, has finally stepped down and gone on holiday, Egypt can get on with a bit of democracy.

IT HAS BEEN EXTREMELY INTERESTING to listen to the outpourings throughout the day by the six-journalist-strong Sky News team in Cairo, Heliopolis and Alexandria, all desperately trying to hide their bitter disappointment today about the fact that they had had to spend nearly three weeks in the dismal, alcohol-free surroundings of a lifeless desert without getting the chance to see any serious terrorist attacks and thus win themselves some journalistic awards.

YET, KNOWING EGYPT, ONE DOES TEND TO SUSPECT that there may be some high jinks, if not jinx, to come in the not too distant future.

SCIENCE FICTION FANS, IT SEEMS, are already predicting new twists in the coming episodes of Stargate, the bizarre US TV series which suggests that ancient Egyptians came from outer space, built pyramids and organized our society into something sensible ten thousand years ago. This race was called the “Ra”, and its evil, despotic leader was banished to outer space by the overpowering popular uprising of “a simple desert-dwelling race”, with help from America in the figure of Richard Dean “MacGyver” Anderson.

THE REST, AS THEY SOMETIMES SAY, is history; or, rather, science-fictional futurology, which on American TV and in American politics is more or less the same thing. In order to see just how a-gley the whole shebang gangs after “liberation”, one would have to watch countless confusing episodes of Stargate. But anyone intelligent can imagine that no one really feels any better after the dust and hashish smoke have died down on the social upheaval.

I AM, AS USUAL, RACKED with questions and doubts. If Mr Mubarak was so horrendous, why did it take thirty years for a relatively insignificant group of students to come into the town square and complain? If the ancient Egyptians could fly through hyperspace, presumably having learnt how to move faster than the speed of sound, why was their writing made up of pigeons, cats, football boots, people with the heads of hyenas, and beetles? Was that the best they could do?