![reign second life flickr reign second life flickr](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2857/33178348555_48910ceda5_b.jpg)
There have long been rumors that the World Bank kept two sets of books on Egypt - one for public consumption, statistics that backed claims that Egypt was at the economic takeoff stage, and another that revealed a far more complicated and challenged country. The World Bank's surveys used data provided by Egyptian officials, whose methods and rigor were subject to politics. According to the World Bank, life expectancy, child immunizations, household expenditures, and the number of telephones per household all rose, suggesting that Mubarak's reign made Egyptians healthier and wealthier.Īny vindication the former first lady might find in the raw numbers, however, would be profoundly hollow. Between October 14, 1981, when Mubarak first assumed the Egyptian presidency, and February 11, 2011, when he stepped down, the country ostensibly made progress. But the despot's wife might be forgiven for thinking that the numbers were on her side. Hence Suzanne Mubarak's furtive phone calls to her courtiers, reportedly asking, "Doesn't anyone see the good we did?" According to their circular logic, Mubarak's progressive politics brought about his demise: had Mubarak not been a modernizer and democratizer, the protests never would have been permitted in the first place.
![reign second life flickr reign second life flickr](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P_i27glbwts/WNbpAGoIwGI/AAAAAAAAFIc/syUmUg9zFGsHaGpi91YR0zA87I39RAJ1ACLcB/s1600/Reign%2Bof%2Bthe%2BGargoyles%2BIIc.png)
They cannot understand how their fellow Egyptians failed to grasp how good Mubarak was. They still believe the refrain that was so familiar on the eve of the uprising - that Egypt was an emerging democracy with an emerging economy. The falool remain convinced that Mubarak's fall was a tragic error that will bring lasting ruin to their country. With its manicured lawns, pristine infinity pools, and towpaths to the beach, Ain Sukhna couldn't be more different from the threadbare and creaking Egypt that former President Hosni Mubarak bequeathed to his people. This is where the falool - the former officials, businessmen, and intellectuals who, for almost three decades, rationalized for the Mubarak regime - fled when their leader fell. Nestled beneath ocher-colored hills, the town is a string of industrial buildings, ramshackle half-built structures, and the weekend villas of Cairo's well-heeled.
![reign second life flickr reign second life flickr](https://live.staticflickr.com/7165/6557001351_08e97f86ae_b.jpg)
After a two-hour drive east from Cairo through the featureless desert, the road rolls toward the steel blue waters of the Gulf of Suez.