In the quiet times after the revolution; beware democratisers and structural adjusters

@alaa comments: "south africa taught me big struggle is the one after democracy, but that's still premature we are not at democracy yet in egypt."  This is quite true.  Forces of status quo, apathy, indifference and oppression have many tools in the toolkit.  Mubarak may be gone.  However, even as Mandela assumed his rightful place as leader of South Africa, the democratisers and structural adjusters were already at work with the alternative plan, where people would "participate," be "empowered" and take "ownership" over "their" development.  In reality, as Naomi Klein writes eloquently in The Shock Doctrine, South African elites were shocked into going along with a program of neoliberal restructuring and debt that left ordinary South African people mired in debt and isolation.

Edward Said wrote that "The fabric of as thick a discourse as Orientalism has survived and functioned in Western society because of its richness."  As @3arabawy and @alaa among others emphasize, the struggle continues.