This is the tragedy of the arabs.
No industrialization. No progress. No foresight. No planning. No patience. No hope. When there is stability, it is squandered by a corrupt dictator. When there is no stability, nothing gets done. There is no urge to be better. There is no pride in their nation. How you be proud of a country that has produced cowardly dictator after cowardly dictator? They're trapped in a cycle of overthrowing one US dictator in favor of another. Why? Because they have no choice, they need to import food, they need to import machinery, they need to import everything and their only exports are labor and oil. The worst thing is, they are not ashamed of this. They don't want to improve. They buy luxury boats and gamble their oil money away.
Egypt in 1950 was better than China, India, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea. It had a higher GDP/capita, had more industry, even produced more electricity. Now? Even India has a higher HDI.
When the oil is gone, they'll be back to eating sand.
Every people has to deal with their tragedies. That's the conclusion reached by my parents and I as we watched events in Egypt unfold on TV. I have to admit that we largely discussed the tragedy of China as we watched Egypt. And that was the first time I saw them in months as I came back for Chinese New Years ...
I have a lot of sympathy for the Egyptians. I used to hang out with a group of Egyptian Canadians in college practically
every night ... you know, shooting the unusual breeze for 3 hours while "studying" for half.
But since I made sure I "studied" old exams, I didn't end up paying too terribly for this inefficiency ...
AFAIAC, one chief reason the PRC is "less f^cked ^p" today on economical terms (even that's a shaky statement but we won't contest it for now) has less to do with China's own "effort" as much as owing to the examples set by China's "regional mentors".
Who were/are China's regional mentors in development? We would have to give credit to the four "tigers" of yore and big bad ol' Nippon, who in more ways than one was the "mentor" to the "Tigers".
All CCP bosses managed to do was to rent out the labour to these "mentors" while keeping a lid on things.
But for how long will people endure the corruptions?
Anyways, I realize that my above view is as partial as yours.
BTW, speaking of gamblers, have you seen Atlantic City? I am convinced that modern casinos are nothing but re-incarnations of opium dens for the average Chinese.
Anyways, back to the topic of "tragedy". The real tragedy for the Egyptians, or Arabs in general, is IMHO the "Custodians", or rather the "Maliks" and the "Emirs" masquerading as their "custodians".
The tragedy is in the examples they set.
BTW, I worked with many of the fine folks from the "Kingdom" and the "Emirates" during a significant portion of my professional career. I have nothing but the best things to say about many of them.
My best wish to Egypt.