comparing two failed heirs apparent

During my time in Egypt, I’ve seen public lectures by both Gamal Mubarak and Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi. And although Gamal did attend our university (way before my time; he’s older than I am) I’d have to say I was more impressed intellectually by the Qaddafi boy.

But how many people have suicided their international reputations as badly as Saif managed to do in the past few weeks? Even if he survives this mess (and I’m not so sure), he’s facing the likelihood of trial and the certainty of social outlaw status and possibly a major financial debacle of frozen assets. Assuming he survives the fighting and also avoids a Dutch prison, what will he spend the rest of his life doing? The LSE is unlikely to invite him back to do anything, I’d say.

By contrast, Gamal will probably settle down and live the good life in London, a place where he feels very comfortable and owns some expensive property that he’ll probably find some way to shield from seizure. Just guessing.

The difference between those two fates (likely death for Saif, probably a decent standard of living for Gamal) emanates directly from the difference in characters between the two fathers. Saif’s dad is the very epitome of crazy, and is dragging his son down with him in his hallucinogenic latter days. Gamal’s dad was a bit out of touch with reality near the end, but he was a fundamentally sane and grounded character before the revolution, despite his glaring faults, and didn’t wish to (or wasn’t allowed to?) pull a Götterdämmrung on Egypt the way Qaddafi is doing on Libya.