ICG: "Nostalgia for the days of repressive regimes has surged"

"... Change in itself is now seen as a risk not worth taking while stability and security have become the number one goal. But, this, the only thing the old order had to offer, is now unattainable: Egypt continues to impose a curfew in the Sinai as its army deals with a low-level insurgency. Libya is growing more lawless by the day, as the recent kidnapping of the prime minister and deadly clashes in the centre of Tripoli and Benghazi showed. Nostalgia for the days of repressive regimes has surged, nowhere more so than in Cairo where general Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief and minister of defence, is heralded as the demi-god of “a Pharoahnic people”. In other places such as Saudi Arabia, Gaza or Jordan, citizens resign themselves to their current rulers.
This has led the Arab people’s desire for dignity and feeling of empowerment to turn into a sense of apathy..."