Egypt’s dictator for nearly three decades, Hosni Mubarak once said, “My aim was never to seek a force and take power. ” Just like most dictators, Hosni Mubarak’s desire was to appeal to the Egyptian citizens, which he did at first. He never intended on obtaining enough power to be considered a dictator. Dictatorship is the ruling of a country with little or no help at all from the government or society. A dictator disregards checks and balances between the branches of governments and seizes most of the power.
Another prevalent characteristic of a dictator is that they were once loved by society, but as they got ahold of more and more power, their main priority was to seize complete authority. Hosni Mubarak was a strong leader during his early years as the president of Egypt. He made good political decisions and was responsible for assembling Egypt into an economically strong country. Then in his later years the power went to his head. Poverty and famine broke out in Egypt, causing the citizens to revolt and ultimately remove Mubarak from office. He came into power because of his dedication and courage to his country.
Mubarak joined the air force which later led to him successfully becoming the commander of multiple air forces along with many other rewarding accomplishments. His dictatorship affected the employment of the citizens of Cairo who responded by protesting for Mubarak to leave office. Those responses were not immediately effective, however they did have an influence on Mubarak’s leadership. Hosni Mubarak was “the son of an inspector from the Ministry of Justice (ABC CLIO). ” In his adolescence, he joined a military academy where he graduated early because of his accomplishments.
Up until his final years in the military before he became vice president and soon enough, president, he proved to Egypt that he was willing to fight at all costs. He gained trust from the citizens of Egypt because he was seen as a hero even before he became president. Mubarak was an extremely successful individual before his presidency. He showed signs of this since his early days in his military academy. Taking the throne after Anwar Sadat’s tragic assassination, Mubarak tried not to emulate his presidential strategies.
Sadat was indirectly responsible for his own death because Egypt and Israel had been going through some political conflicts. Around the time of peace agreements with Israel, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by a group of Muslim Fundamentalists leading up to Hosni Mubarak’s reign. On the day of his assassination, Sadat was celebrating Egypt’s surprise attack on Israel. Mubarak was threatened several times by the same muslim group that assassinated Anwar Sadat During Anwar Sadat’s presidency, Egypt faced a lot of economic instability. This caused him to propose an open door policy, in 1973.
His endeavor was to attract foreign trade and investment that would boost the economy and equally distribute wealth to Egypt. However, this did not go according to plan. The wealth did not distribute equally all over Egypt, which induced a distinct separation between the rich and poor. Despair fled the country later resulting in food riots that would soon occur in 1977. Mubarak also faced economic instability during his reign. Because of the increasing population, it was difficult to provide jobs and food for the citizens of Egypt. Birth control programs were key factors to keeping a stable rate of a growing population.
Egypt had a crucial alliance with the unites states. The United States loaned Egypt money for its military during Mubarak’s presidency. Because the US and Egypt were in each other’s debt, Mubarak payed his respects to the former president of the United States, George W. Bush immediately after 9/11. He blamed this on terrorism and cut off all ties with Israel in regards to America. He believed that Israel would get in the way of the alliances Egypt had with the US. Hosni Mubarak had the right intentions, he wanted the best for Egypt, however, this got out of control when he received too much power.
He did not consult his government and made all of Egypt’s political, social and economic decisions himself. Long before his presidency, Mubarak entered a military academy, where he showed great success, allowing him to graduate a year earlier than expected. All of his hard work did not go to waste, he proved to be extremely successful which accounted for him to rapidly move through the ranks until he finally made it up to deputy minister of war where he appealed to Sadat. Mubarak successfully planned an airborne attack on Israel in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War. Victory on the Sinai Peninsula accounted for Mubarak’s heroicness.
Almost two years after this, Sadat appointed Mubarak as his Vice president. Sadat has a major influence on Mubarak when he took over Sadat’s position when he was assassinated in October of 2006, by preparing him. As the population increased, the economy decreased which put Mubarak in a tough position. He enticed people to use birth control. Hosni tried finding solutions to conflicts although they may have not been the right answer. Hosni Mubarak reigned for almost three decades. He made most of Egypt’s decisions himself. He started off as a good leader, however once he got his hands on enough power, he made himself the dictator of Egypt.
After a little less than thirty years, society came to the realization that the sooner they acted, the faster they would get Mubarak to leave office. Towards the end of his rule, protesters were protesting enough to make Mubarak take a violent action. He was responsible for indirectly injuring approximately 900 protesters with the aid of government officials, police officers and his loyalists. He not only brainwashed all of Egypt for nearly three decades, but even the people of his cabinet. Although not all of his actions were poor, they were more negative than positive.
Towards the beginning of his reign, Hosni did not show any signs of a dictator. He generally listened to his people, however as time went on and nobody decided to run against him as president, Mubarak’s arrogance and dictatorship made an appearance. Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship was violent in some ways. When he was worried about being overthrown from his position in office, he risked civilians lives in order to save his job as the president, along with his and Egypt’s reputation. Mubarak thought the best thing for him to do was fight back with the help of police officers, government officials and his loyalists.
People protested for some time until they had enough of Hosni’s dictatorship. The rest of the world needed to comprehend that Hosni Mubarak was not the right leader for Egypt, he was bringing the country down economically, politically and socially. As soon as this became a bigger issue, Egyptians fled the streets of Cairo protesting for Hosni Mubarak to leave office. These responses were not effective until there was proof that Mubarak called for help from police officers, government officials and his loyalists to violently fight the protesters back.
Mubarak could have prevented the 900 protesters who were injured during the rally. After this, Mubarak was tried and sent to prison and removed from office. Lucky for him, he got out of having to stay in prison and was granted the chance to stay under house arrest. Mubarak was first looked upon as a heroic figure that Egypt was fortunate enough to have. Eventually, the more power he received, the more he was thought of as a dictator. People were not thrilled with his leadership, so a dramatic result was protesting.
This was not immediately effective, however, it did remove Mubarak from office. Towards the end of his presidency, Mubarak was responsible for the violent action he called for which led to his impeachment. Government officials and police officers violently attacked protesters, which uncovered Mubarak’s secret orders. Since the time of Mubarak’s sovereignty, society has learned to stand up to oppression. Although it is not an obsolete thing, people know how to stand up for themselves and how to take care of these issues as they look back on oppressive rulers in history.
