Egypt, America and "Democracy"
Egypt, America and "Democracy"
Borstalboy
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/9/04
#1Egypt, America and "Democracy"
Posted: 8/17/13 at 5:12pm
When will we learn? Seriously, when?
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
#2Egypt, America and
Posted: 8/18/13 at 1:34am
Interesting that Niall Ferguson is seen as an enabler of permanent government. When he first started to appear in the media he seemed more like a critic of US foreign policy-I'm surprised he's even found a career move in the US, let alone that it has been successful.
But he is also another person whose personal weaknesses reveal him to be an opportunist rather than someone with a deep sense of personal integrity.
#2Egypt, America and
Posted: 8/18/13 at 6:36am
Ultimately, that's a simplistic and non-nuanced article, the same it's-all-our-fault article that's written and rewritten over and over again with no real understanding of the forces at work and at war in those countries.
The civil war raging in Egypt is one that may soon rage through every country in the Middle East and North Africa: the battle of Islamic fundamentalism to install theocracies across the Muslim world, a battle the participants are willing to shed blood over.
When the Brotherhood won the election by a tiny majority, they failed to create a coalition government. Instead, they created the theocracy that had always intended to create if they ever gained power. Their constitution had no checks and balances or hope for justice for minorities. Like many American presidents, Morsi assumed he had a "mandate," and was taken by surprise when people objected. In America, when a president oversteps his authority, there are courts and two houses of Congress and a media to rein him in, to some degree. We just grumble about it and wait till the next congressional or presidential election.
But in Egypt, the people objecting to the Brotherhood's constitution, saw a permanent oppressive theocracy about to take root, with no real courts or legislative branch or media to protect them. The army was more palatable to them than the Brotherhood...which says a lot right there. And the Brotherhood decided that chance at power was worth shedding blood over.
Our presidents and media and Salon.com should stop implying to the world we are exporting a democracy that means rule by a simple majority. That gets us in trouble every time. Especially in a country like Egypt where the Brotherhood won the tiniest of majorities and then proceeded to put in place an oppressive majoritarian system of laws. Then they say, "We were democratically elected. We can do whatever we want."
The struggle of America has always been to soften majoritarianism and create a representative democracy in which the majority actually has to protect the rights of the minorities. It's an ongoing and unfolding struggle but it never was and never should have been presented that a simple majority rule = democracy.
At any rate, in my equally simplistic and equally non-nuanced view, it's not our fault if people kill each other. If we were to leave tomorrow, which I believe we should, the bloodshed would go on without us, funded by other evil countries who can make client-states quietly, beneath the radar, without criticism from Salon.com.
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