Cold War policy wonks, young Arabs, and how different mindsets create the future

When writing scenarios, you must come to terms with the fact that the people in your scenarios will not think like you. Their assumptions on society, technology, economics and politics will come from a completely different set of data than your own. The only way to understand how the future might go, then, is to put yourself in their shoes. This is not easy, but it is the only way.

That said, this is what I heard on TV and in meetings over the last week on the subject of the future of Egyptian democracy:

Sixty-something Cold War-era Policy Guy:

Well, the "fun days" of this so-called revolution are, I'm afraid to say, now over. Now comes the real work, which the people of Egypt are scarcely accustomed to. The Muslim Brotherhood looms in the background, and who knows what the eventual policy toward Israel will be. You know, if you remember the last fifty years, these "democratic revolutions" are usually dangerous and can lead to even worse despotism. And what about regional stability? And what about the Domino Effect?

Yes, the United States has a lot to think about in the coming days.

Thirty-something Egyptian:

I was born in 1980, the year before Mubarak came to power. I have never known any other ruler but he and his secret police. My parents were always in favor of his stability and the initial promise of economic opportunity, but over time things never got any better. My parents generation, if they were lucky, had the opportunity to study in London or Paris, but we seem to be stuck with our lot here.

The only people who have opportunity are those with family connections. Between the police and the bureaucrats, nobody can afford the "baksheesh" require to start a business or find a job. We're stuck with catering to tourists.

And if you want to speak up? My cousin spent a very, very bad weekend in the basement of the police station for daring to hand out pamphlets about a meeting where they were going to discuss a new political opposition party. He never walked the same again. And you know, he got off relatively light.

Now, fuel and food prices are increasing. The only people who don't feel it are behind locked gates in million-dollar houses. We had very little, and now we're losing it.

The only common denominator is Mubarak. He has to go if we are to have a future. I don't know what lay on the other side, but I know it is time for him to go. We need to a future to live.

The kids in Egypt were not alive for the war in '67. They weren't present when the allegiances of Egypt went from Russia to the United States during the Cold War. They know what they know, what they have experienced, and will act from that.

Those making strategic scenarios about what happens next in the geopolitical balance would do well to ask what their assumptions would be if they were born in 1982.