The Economic Mummification of Egypt

There’s a fantastic op-ed by Amir Taheri in the New York Post today about how Hosni Mubarak effectively mummified the entire country of Egypt beginning with himself.  This mummification especially did a number on the economy.  It all began with the primping and pulling at his own physical appearance to disguise the decaying inside…

For years, whenever I saw Mubarak, he reminded me of a mummy. He spent a considerable time each day to “prepare” himself. That meant dying his hair and eyebrows jet black, and applying rouge to his cheeks to make them look rosy, in more or less the same way Egyptian mummy makers did with dead pharaohs.

He also wore heels to look taller and used a corset to keep his belly in. Despite declining eyesight, he shunned glasses in public. Even in his 80s, he wanted to appear alive and young, just as pharaohs had done.

Mubarak’s attempts at securing eternal youth were faintly comical and ultimately harmless.

What was not comical and certainly harmless was the mummification of his regime.

This is the story of what happens when old people refuse to release their grip on power for too long.  Read on for an interesting look at how a country was mummified.

Source:

Curse of the Mummy (NYP)