Egypt's unrest

The enlightened world can't help but cheer the sight, so

exhilarating and so hopeful, of sustained protests on the streets

of Cairo and Alexandria. Another authoritarian regime is challenged

in the Mideast, a part of the world where prospects for organized

dissent for so long seemed so daunting. First Tunisia, followed by

Yemen and Jordan. Now Egypt.

In the absence of competitive elections and other essential

trappings of democracy, popular will prevails nonetheless. Hosni

Mubarak shows every sign of being in the final days of his three

decades of heavy-handed rule. Even the Egyptian military

acknowledges the legitimacy of escalating demonstrations calling

for his removal.

This, then, is when the West, so secure in the comfort that its

democracies do function, peacefully and generally free of

oppression, might pause to wonder what it might be like in Egypt

when the euphoria subsides and the reality of the post-Mubarak era

sets in.

The most reasonable of hopes - for a secular government that

reaches out to the rest of the Mideast and the world, rather than

trying to intimidate - won't be realized easily. U.S. Secretary of

State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued an appropriate warning to

Egypt, not to make the sort of cosmetic changes that bring about

democracy for "six months or a year," before "evolving into a

military dictatorship."

An early yet critical test of that will be the free, open and

legitimate elections that Egypt already has scheduled for

September. Egyptians need to end an era of oppression and

corruption, not create another one.

- The Times Union, Albany, N.Y.