Hosni Mubarak
© Amr Abdallah DalshHosni Mubarak

Throughout these historic two weeks in Egypt, it has been difficult to know what Hosni Mubarak was thinking. Did he recognize the legitimacy of his people's cry for democracy? Has he known all along that change was nigh, but wanted to make his exit in his own time and his own way?

Mubarak answered all such questions definitively when he sent his thugs to rough up journalists and human rights activists this Thursday and Friday.

That reveals much more than his naming of a vice-president or his talk of "political, social and economic reform" and "constitutional and legislative amendments" in his Tuesday speech.

Institutions maintain democracies; they don't create them. Elections and constitutions have long been used as trappings by dictators. When the people in the street call for democracy, of course they mean the right to choose their president. But they also, and more fundamentally, mean the right to discuss, openly, the merits of candidates and platforms. The right to edit blogs and newspapers critical of the ruling party. The right to assemble. The right to a fair trial and the rule of law.

Mubarak, it's clear, doesn't get it. He and members of his regime have tried to pin this remarkable uprising on foreigners, on the media, on Islamists. It isn't working. The attacks on journalists -- all journalists, from local bloggers to Al-Jazeera to CBC -- demonstrate that the regime has no ideological agenda, beyond making sure the people can't read about the demonstration, hear reports about it, see photos of people in the streets.

Mubarak's desperate attempts to hold on to power have made the choice facing the people of Egypt all the more clear, and have made it obvious -- if it wasn't already -- that incremental reform under the old regime is unlikely.