Politics & Power Quote by Hosni Mubarak

Mubarak is doing the tightrope walk of an embattled strongman: conceding just enough to look responsive, then slamming the door on the one accusation that can delegitimize him overnight - being someone else's man. The opening clause, "as a president of the country", is less a formality than a territorial marker. He’s staking ownership of the state itself, implicitly reminding listeners that the channel for change runs through him. "I do not find it a mistake to listen" frames responsiveness as personal discretion, not obligation. Citizens are recast as petitioners; he is the filter.

Then comes the pivot: "shameful" and "will not, nor will ever" is absolutist language meant to sound like principle, not panic. The target is "foreign dictations" - a phrase that does double duty. It rebukes Western pressure (especially American and European calls for reform) while also warning domestic opponents that any alignment with outside actors makes them suspect. The line "whatever the source might be or whatever the context" is deliberately broad, a rhetorical vacuum cleaner that can label almost any external criticism as illegitimate interference.

Context matters: late-era Mubarak faced mounting unrest, a succession question, and intensifying international scrutiny over repression. National sovereignty becomes a defensive weapon when internal consent is fraying. The subtext is transactional: he’ll "respond" to demands he can manage, but the moment those demands threaten the regime’s architecture, he reframes the struggle as patriot versus proxy. It’s not just a refusal; it’s an attempt to rewrite the battlefield.