Is History still over?

In a previous post in this blog, on April 2009, I argued that Fukuyama's famous boutade about the end of history still held true. Recent events in Egypt and Tunisia will confirm - or infirm - whether or not this is so. Personally, I - together with the likes of Barack Obama - still put my faith on Fukuyama's dictum. I know how terribly old fashioned it is to believe in human progress, but who could repress a stirring of hope watching these crowds in Tunes and Cairo claiming their right to freedom? I know that liberal democracy will be hard to implement in the middle east (the "muddle east", as an inspired error put it) but it does seem that this was precisely what this Facebook generation had in mind when it decided that enough was enough. Can anyone really believe that the crazed rantings of religious fanatics hold a greater appeal to egyptian youth than the prospect of free speech, free travel, free voting? Revolutions tend to be messy and bloody affairs and their outcome can be horrible, so it is probably naive to expect that everything will go smoothly in Egypt and Tunisia. But, whatever the outcome will be, the aspiration for freedom and democracy that is being expressed in the streets of Cairo remains a universal one.