blessed day

I'm going out on a limb here, but the connections in this little story are just too good to ignore. I hope not everything I write will be proven complete rubbish by people more knowledgeable than me. Here it goes.

One of the basic concepts of Arabic syntax is the idafa, which literally means addition but should rather be translated as genitive (or even possessive) construction. When, in a succession of two nouns, the first belongs to the second, only the second gets a definite article. The first one is formally indefinite but becomes definite by association. Whereas in English one says the book of the boy, in Arabic it literally translates to book the boy. Short and sweet, and not nearly as confusing as it sounds.

Let me try to elucidate the concept by contrasting it with similar but different constructs. Al-youm is the day, al being the definite article. Mubarak means blessed or the blessed one. You can probably guess where I'm headed, but indulge me kindly.

I can come up with four ways of combining these two words. Youm al-mubarak – the day of the blessed one. This is the idafa I mentioned earlier. If one strips the single definite article, one is left with youm mubarak – a blessed day. Nothing special here. Saturating the phrase with articles, one gets al-youm al-mubarak – the blessed day. Note the counterintuitive article duplication. The final permutation in this set is al-youm mubarak – the day is blessed. The verb to be is implied.

If you're really creative, you could come up with a fifth way of combining these two words, but only if I tell you that the second word in an idafa doesn't get a definite article if it's a word that just doesn't do articles. That's names for the most part. Youm Mubarak could thus also be the day of Mubarak. Except, today it wasn't. It's probably too early to count blessings but Mubarak's day it certainly wasn't.

For the last three weeks, I've been following the development in Egypt with amazement and incredulity. When Tunisians gave their dictator the boot, it was already beyond imagination. But who would have thought that the political system of the most populous Arabic country, a system tuned over decades for efficient oppression, would fall without much of a fight and despite unquestioning support from the US and European countries?

One person could have told us. Vaclav Havel, a Czech hero who went from dissident to president, once said that the power of the powerful derives from the resignation of the powerless. Oppression is a contract that requires both sides to stick to it. When the powerless rise up, there's no holding them back. All it takes is a change of the collective mind. In East Germany in 1989, the floodgates burst when people took to the streets with the simple slogan We are the people, which was deadly because the country was nominally a democracy.

In Egypt, the dynamics feel very similar. A large majority of the people had enough and wants change. A few pithy demands galvanized them. The state of emergency must go. Mubarak must go. After a few weeks of doing little more than courageously loitering on the impossible to pronounce Tahrir square, the people got what they wanted. Where they're going from now, where the country is headed, is anyone's guess. The idea of democracy is sailing joyfully at the moment, but the will of the people is not sufficient for that if the underpinnings haven't been developed, as Gaza has shown. Similarly and in contrast to what the US likes to think, free elections don't bring about democracy. On the contrary, free elections can only work when democratic structures are established, when speech and the press are free, when parties argue honestly, when losing is seen as a valid option.

Anyway, it's early days, and there's reason to be excited, enthusiastic even. The will of the people has rid two countries of grim autocrats. There are many more to go in the region, but for Tunisia (which faded from the headlines faster than it got in) and Egypt, the future looks auspicious. Today might turn out to be a blessed day after all. Youm mubarak.