Many observers are comparing what's happening in Egypt to how things turned from a people's revolution in Iran to a brutal theocracy in 1979. First, the comparison misses an important and critical difference. That revolution had a distinctly religious figure behind it. Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile in France and was at the heart of that popular uprising. He managed to stir up passions through his religious sermons famously distributed on audio cassettes throughout Iran. One of the most striking characteristics of the current uprising in Egypt is that it's leaderless, and we know that the Muslim Brotherhood has played a very minor role in instigating it. In fact, the MB has been taken by surprise much like anybody else because they thought very little of any secular youth opposition and slighted their political prowess by labeling them the Facebook generation. In the face of a political void for more than 30 years with no credible opposition, many Egyptians voted for MB candidates (as independents because MB is not recognized as a legal party) because there was no other option. Any reasonable observer of Egyptian politics knows this quite well. It's hard to know for sure how much support the MB has among Egyptians, but if elections were held tomorrow and other opposition groups were allowed to run, the MB would get much lower numbers. What part of lack of democracy for 30 years do these observers not understand? Egyptians, much like Arabs in general, have not had any experience with democracy for reasons that are well known. Even if the MB is part of a new Egyptian hybrid government, let them get to power, which will be submitted to people's consensus and judgment. Stop raising the Muslim specter even when events on the ground indicate this is not a religious revolution. We need to let this uprising take its course with much interference. This is for the Egyptian people to decide. Don't repeat the same mistake of Algeria in the 1990s. The only important thing now is for Western regimes to be on the side of the people and respect their will. Mubarak is no longer viable and the will of Egyptians will ultimately determine how this revolution goes and what government replaces this dictatorship. I'm listening to many ordinary and eloquent Egyptians on Aljazeera Arabic as I'm writing this post and they all say that people are afraid we're the Ikhwan (MB) or the lost generation. We're just Egyptians and all we want is democracy and dignity. We want Mubarak to leave right now. We finally awoke from a 30-year-old coma and we're ready lead now. Even Al-Baradei will have to present his agenda of how he will run Egypt and it's up to us to elect him or not. This is quite unprecedented to hear ordinary Egyptians use this language freely to address their leaders. People now want nothing short of a genuine democracy that will represent their true will and anything else will simply not suffice.

The latest news indicate that Egyptian authorities have decided to close down Aljazeera and retrieve their press passes indefinitely. This is how all Arabs are following the news in Egypt. You wouldn't know much if you read newspapers in the region and much less if you watched national tv stations as they continue their coverage of soccer tournaments and film festivals.