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Special Report
The Failure of Secular and Liberal Egyptians
Before this is over, they’ll wish they still had Mubarak to kick around again.
Contrary to the expectations of many analysts, both the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist al-Nour coalition trounced the secular Egyptian Bloc and the Wafd Party in the first stage of voting for the parliamentary elections. Indeed, whereas Wafd received 7.1% of the vote and the Egyptian Bloc 13.4%, al-Nour alone took 24.4% of votes and the Brotherhood’s party 36.6%.
Even more discouraging, this round of voting took place in areas where Egyptian liberals and secularists can most count on support. One can only wonder how much wider the margin will be as the second round of voting commenced on Wednesday.
That said, it should not necessarily be thought that the Brotherhood will form some sort of an alliance with Salafist parties. Deep tensions between the two Islamist factions have already become apparent with reports of attacks by members of Gamaa Islamiyya on Brotherhood campaign workers in the southern province of Assiut, where there was a local run-off election as part of the first round of voting.
The animosity exists not because the Brotherhood is somehow actually more moderate, but rather because the Salafists are against the idea of forming coalitions and being pragmatic in trying to implement Sharia. For the Brotherhood, unlike the al-Nour coalition, believes that it is better to apply Islamic law in gradual stages. The rivalry will almost certainly become more evident in the next stages of voting that will take place in the more rural areas of Upper Egypt, where the popularity of Salafists could well outstrip support for the Brotherhood.
Yet the more urgent question arises of why the secularists and liberals have fared so poorly in these elections. After all, were they not dominant in the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square back in January and February that culminated in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak? Did not numerous pundits speak of the “Twitter and Facebook” generation of secularists and liberals — primarily youth activists — that would supposedly prevent the Islamists from gaining ascendancy in the post-Mubarak political scene?
Before turning to recent developments for explanation, it is worth pointing out that the military regime that overthrew the constitutional monarchy in 1952 and has been ruling Egypt since has always had a love-hate relationship with the Islamists.
While Islamists were formally snubbed in the upper ranks of government and those who openly came out in opposition to the regime were subject to brutal crackdowns (particularly during Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule), they were granted numerous concessions at the ground level and tolerated in the promotion of Islamist ideals. This de facto arrangement included, for example, the teaching and glorification of jihad in school textbooks, and the promotion of Islamist discourse on Egyptian TV channels. That Islamism consequently has a significant degree of appeal should not come as a surprise.
Coming back to the present day, it is of course true that the Islamists were in general conspicuously absent from the initial protests against Mubarak’s regime, but many pundits made the mistake of assuming that mass demonstrations expressing a particular opinion or ideology are representative of the population at large. Indeed, as the intelligence group STRATFOR estimated, the protests in Tahrir Square probably never exceeded 300,000 people. Given that Egypt has a population of over 80 million, it would be absurd to extrapolate the liberal and secular sentiments of the protesters in those anti-Mubarak demonstrations to the people at large.
In the protests last month where the military attacked and killed numerous demonstrators, the Islamists’ absence was again notable. Yet this observation easily links to an inherent problem with the performance of liberals and secularists in Egypt. The Islamists’ decision not to attend the more recent demonstrations was a very clever move on their part.
The Islamists and the military realize that the continuing anarchy produced by these protests and clashes is only aggravating the disastrous situation for Egypt’s economy, which was improving significantly under Mubarak’s reforms in the ex-president’s last few years in power.
As the Wall Street Journal notes, foreign exchange reserves at Egypt’s central bank have halved to around $22 billion, while the projected deficit for the current fiscal year is thought to be around 9% of GDP, which “would not be sustainable even if Egypt’s economy were growing at robust rates.” The Brotherhood has some idea that a key problem here is the subsidy system, even as the group does not offer specific policy initiatives on the issue, but the liberals and secularists seem to be completely oblivious to the economic problems at hand.
Meanwhile, tourism revenues have decreased by a third this year, and it is likely that many tourists will be deterred from traveling to Egypt over the coming years in light of prominent calls from Islamists for a ban on alcohol and segregation on beaches. Given that sexual harassment is already a problem widely noted by tourists, the feeling of intimidation is only likely to increase.
Perhaps most importantly, instead of trying to offer comprehensive alternative policy programs to voters, prominent, Western-educated Egyptians like Mona Eltahawy have become enthralled with spectacles like that of an Egyptian female blogger’s stripping completely naked (this was a problem first drawn to my attention by the owner of the “Happy Arab News Service” blog).
Writing in the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” site, Eltahawy hailed Aliaa Mahdy for posing nude on her blog site, claiming that she is “the Molotov cocktail thrown at the Mubaraks in our heads — the dictators of our mind.”
The idea that baring one’s breasts and genitalia will somehow reduce support for the Brotherhood, Salafists, and other Egyptian misogynists is misguided, to put it mildly. In fact, given the high prevalence of female genital mutilation in Egypt (because the prominent Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence in Egypt affirms that the practice is mandatory in accordance with Muslim tradition), it is hardly as though the Islamists in particular are going to be scared away by a blogger’s posing nude. No, they have probably seen much worse than that.
About the Author
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (73) | Leave a comment
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Kenny| 12.16.11 @ 6:45AM
Egypt is going Islamic.
The only question is how fast.
Jack in Wi.| 12.16.11 @ 9:08AM
Leave Egypt alone. It is none of our business and never has been. sure the most anti Mubarek forces have won the elections. The Brotherhood was his oldest and largest opponent. Egypt is a backward basically peaceful country that just wants to get on with life. The more the reigious right pushes an islamic agenda, the more all the sinners will react. If we leave Egypt alome to it's own divices it will soon fall into the same corruption the rest of us have. Our money and our presence are only making us more enemies. If we end all foreign aid to the region, including Israel, perhaps the hatred that is felt toward us will disapate. Heavens knows most Egyptians want to left alone. They never have had a history of invading other countries or starting wars.
Paul Kotik| 12.16.11 @ 10:01AM
Hey, Jack, you know, maybe you're right. If only we'd stopped foriegn aid to Israel back in 1798, Jefferson wouldn't have had to send the Marines over there in 1803 to stop the Islamic pirates from attacking American shipping. Dang it all, why didn't you write to President Jefferson and advise him to cut foriegn aid to Israel? In fact, why don't you do it now, send the letter back through your time warp device?
Ed| 12.16.11 @ 10:40AM
He's a paultard. Careful what you say. He will start looking in his basement for the time machine you mentioned. And we shouldn't have started the Crusades that led to Muslims invading Europe either (sarc intended-most paultards are historically ignorant).
Ed| 12.16.11 @ 10:43AM
And it's also funny how ME rulers manage to wage war on each other (Iran/Iraq anyone?) even without the presence of jews.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 1:56AM
Hey Mister Ed,
Have you forgotten? Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 when Saddam was our SOB. He was a good pal of Rumsfeld in those days, so he got help from the USA because it was pissed because the Shah got the heave ho.
old white guy| 12.17.11 @ 9:10AM
the shah got the heave ho. didn't that work out well for all concerned.
Doctor Right| 12.16.11 @ 1:27PM
Ron Paul is a moronic appeaser who made a complete fool of himself last night AND repeated hard-left lies about "1 million dead in Iraq."
Paul is currently getting ridiculed on Limbaugh's program...the program that 20 million people listen to...so the toothpaste is out of the tube.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 2:01AM
So Ron Paul is up on the stage with the likes of Bachmann and Perry and HE'S the moron?! Lol!
Steve| 12.16.11 @ 1:44PM
They never have had a history of invading other countries or starting wars.
Really? You sure you want to stay with this argument? Post WWII wars fought with Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and of course 4 with Israel.
If you want we can go back farther in history
As for it being none of our business. The world has become a much smaller more interconnected place. The days of isolationism being a valid policy are long gone...if they ever existed.
A.J.| 12.16.11 @ 9:12PM
Egypt NEVER had a history of invading other countries?
Really? Never? An historically assinine statement if you know the Middle and New Kingdom period of ancient Egyptian history let alone other periods. If your going to make ignorant statements like that do some research first.
old white guy| 12.17.11 @ 9:13AM
the tribes in these countries, before they were countries, have been warring for thousands of years and will continue to do so. they have now brought their war to all parts of the globe it is now called jihad. it will never end .
JP| 12.16.11 @ 3:22PM
The US left Iran alone in 1979 and look how that turned out. Thirty one years later we're still paying the price.
Quartermaster| 12.16.11 @ 7:36PM
JP, that's a retarded retort. We didn't leave Iran alone. In fact, Carter actively supported the Kohmeinist faction against the Shah.
Kotik and Ed, you are acting like a couple of 6th graders, and demonstrating an IQ the level of the OWS types.
Paul Kotik| 12.18.11 @ 10:38AM
Uh, any substantive criticism there, Chief?
Alan Brooks| 12.17.11 @ 5:06PM
Demonizing and scapegoating Islam doesn't cut it after 10 years of war, eight years of nothingburger, and a John McCain candidacy.
The GOP is on its way out- and you guys are the last to know.
Alan Brooks| 12.17.11 @ 5:11PM
The clueless GOP is as of now a greater threat to America than radical Islam!
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.16.11 @ 7:23AM
Wow. Look at all those guys. I don't see any chicks. Does anyone see any chicks? Hmmm.
Welcome to the NEW EGYPT. (No. Not the one in New Jersey)
Was their ever a Truer axiom than: "Careful what you wish for. You just might get it."
Egypt has just become Afghanistan. The Jewel of the Nile, has become just one more Arab Sh*thole, that deserves what its' about to get.
Somebody, help me out. The #1 Export for Egypt is what, exactly? Cab Drivers? Falafel Cart Vendors? Tell me. As far as I know, Tourism is all they've got, and they just KILLED that. Now, they want to turn the Library at Alexandria, in to a Mosque. Why not. These idiots can't read, and anyone who can, can read the Tea Leaves about where this place is headed.
Egypt is going Islamist, and Obama helped. Libya is going Islamist, and Obama helped. Syria seeks Freedom, and Obama does NOTHING. The Iranians sought Freedom, and Obama did NOTHING.
Hamas believes that Obama has been sent by Allah, to DELIVER them. They believe that his Ascension to Power, marks the END of the JEWS. Look around. Islamic Extremism is on the rise. One by one, the number of Countries they control, is growing. The calls for WAR against Israel, are now coming from Countries that, BEFORE OBAMA, were Agnostic, where Israel was concerned.
Hamas has given him the name: ABU HUSSAIN. "Son Of The Father'. They believe that he is their Moses. They believe that he is their CHRIST. And, so do I.
What about Egypt?
As Scottie said to Capt. Kirk, as Kirk pleaded for Spock's life in "The Wrath Of Khan".
They're Dead Already.
Paul Kotik| 12.16.11 @ 10:27AM
No chicks for you, one year!!
Paul McGrath| 12.16.11 @ 12:55PM
Heyyyyyy, Pennell!!!!! Nice job! You discovered the paragraph, or, more accurately, putting a space between paragraphs! And you know what? I read your piece! How about that! Congratulations!
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.16.11 @ 4:39PM
Who are you?
Quartermaster| 12.16.11 @ 7:39PM
Iran wasn't a bad place to live even with the Shah's Savak. The only people that had to worry were the Kohmeinists. Carter supported the Kohmeinists and we got the regime in power now.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 2:22AM
The LIBRARY at Alexandria?!
Say, would that be the SAME library with its 400,000 irreplacable volumes recording the progress of western civilization? The same one destroyed by the Christians in the 3rd Century shortly after they brutally murdered the scholar Hypatia and helped create a golden age which lasted until the Renaissance.
Oh, THAT library.
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.17.11 @ 7:19AM
Actually it's NOT that Library of Alexandria, IDIOT.
It's the one that's there, now. Do your research.
And, you can stop running, now. It would seem that you've already WON, that race_to_the_bottom.
PJ| 12.17.11 @ 8:11AM
"Hamas believes that Obama has been sent by Allah, to DELIVER them....Hamas has given him the name: ABU HUSSAIN. "Son Of The Father'. They believe that he is their Moses. They believe that he is their CHRIST."
Where did you get that information from? I'm interested in Islamic eschatology & would appreciate knowing your reference.
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.18.11 @ 8:53AM
You want the reference?
GO TO THEIR WEB SITE! And, while you're there, buy yourself a Drinking Mug with Abu Hussain's FACE on it.
PJ| 12.19.11 @ 3:44PM
If you can't produce your reference than you're 1 big fat liar!
John| 12.16.11 @ 7:44AM
"They'll wish they still had Mubarak." Believe it or not ditto Gaddafi. In spite of what hordes of liberal pundits and "Arab experts" have reported, the Middle East has begun its rapid descent into Islamic fundamentalism. See "Vox populi, vox Mohammad?"
Jacob R| 12.16.11 @ 10:31AM
Good. Hopefully they'll sufficiently provoke us again and then we can rid ourselves of more heathens.
It is absolutely breathtaking the restraint and kindness the West has shown to the East. Had those lands of other religions gotten as far ahead of us as we have of them, we would all be their slaves!
I know it's not that simple, but it almost is! Islam took the West to the brink between 1000-1500. Then miraculously within a few centuries we had the ability to wipe their societies off the face of the earth--to do to them what they tried to do to us. And we didn't!
So please spare me from hearing another enlightened Muslim who wouldn't be alive past thirty if it weren't for western technology tell me how I am a part of the great Satan. And the same goes for African Americans and Africans. No one is saying colonialism was anywhere near perfect and obviously slavery is the most glaring example of the tragic side of that era. But can we not be honest that Africans everywhere would be living far more miserable lives if not for colonialism. Don't let Hollywood fool you, there was no pre technology utopia. The people were tougher, but by our standards absolutely wretched and miserable.
John Daniel| 12.16.11 @ 7:47AM
The left there, as the left here, is clueless. Difference is that it'll get you killed there and but get you tenure here....
Quartermaster| 12.16.11 @ 7:39PM
Liberals are the same everywhere. Unrealistic and naive.
VonMisesJr| 12.16.11 @ 7:52AM
To find out how this story ends, read "The Psychology of Revolution" by Gustav Le Bon. The French Revolution was a "Jacobin" Mystic revolution, while Egypt is simply a "Mystic" or religious powder keg.
But it is sure to turn out similar, save the military victories by Napoleon. After 10 years of Reformation-like religious purification, the French people begged for a dictator. Perhaps we can save them time and pain, and give them ours. We don't want or need him anyway, and he will be out a job in just over a year.
Steve| 12.16.11 @ 1:49PM
I hope you are wrong (as should all people of good will) but I suspect you are correct.
The history of revolutions does not lend itself to optimism.
"Meet the new boss...same as the old boss."
Pete Townsend
VonMisesJr| 12.16.11 @ 3:23PM
Merry Christmas Steve.
I have been on a tear reading about the French Revolution and the period in Continental Europe 1760-1800. I don't expect another anarchist scene will happen as France 1789-1799. But in this revolution, inflation increased by 100 times. We also seen collapse in Weimar Germany, Argentina and Zimbabwe. Those who understand and prepare will be better off.
But people who are intelligent and wish to accept the situation understand that the "fundamental transformation" and "redistribution of wealth" are happening. The rich in government and Wall Street got bailed out, and the people who could not afford the sub-primie loans are mostly in their homes collecting food stamps. Who do people think is paying the price?
If Obama and Reid survive 2012, there will be the ruling class and the serfs.
VonMisesJr| 12.16.11 @ 3:49PM
Of course I am talking about the peril to America from revolutionary leftist. Egyptian Hamas is already slaughtering the Coptic Christians, Libyian al Queda rebels are killing the blacks brought in by Gaddafi and the Islamic turmoil is already occurring in Syria. That train has left the station.
But we are heading in the same direction with Obama's leftist class warfare and Bernanke bailing out banks worldwide to the tune of $7.2 to $7.7 trillion.
I wish the best for the Middle East for many reasons, but the Islamic parties are winning elections, and we cannot hope to change the outcome much. Europe is also on fire. Let's pray the American people understand that fundamental transformation and revolution does not turn out well for virtually anyone except the usurpers of wealth.
nathan| 12.16.11 @ 8:18AM
Once again and I get oh so weary of telling you all this, but let me try ONE MORE TIME, Mubarak was a kletomananiac human rights violating dictator. By some accounts he stole 20/30/40? billion dollars, a lot of your tax dollars. Egypt, uder his "excellent" stewardship, ranked in the bottom five percent, if not bottom five whatver economically of the countries of the world? And the Christians were already being abused during his rule. And we know his security forces were systematically torturing people. Didn't we send a few detainees like the Canadian (or did we send him to Morocco?) to be tortured on our behalf so we can say that "we" don't torture people? But again Egypt's human rights record under Mubarak was ghastly. HE was ghastly. Let's quit acting like he was some nice guy deserving of a better fate than he got.
Now dust off your copies of the Declaration of Independence since most of you seem not to have read it since you were in what, elementary school? and go back and pay close attention to what Jefferson said. When you are reduced to a state of despotism, and if by the time those one million demostrators were in the streets of Cairo, Egypt didn't meet that definition, the word has no meaning, Jefferson said what? You have not only the right but the obligation to act against the despot in question. You have absolutely no repeat no obligation to continue to be abused by such people, Mubarak included.
So any of you/all of you @ Timothy for one, tell us all what the man you all despise President Obama should have said/could have said to those one million demostrators in Cairo who were doing exactly what one of our Founders said they had not only a right but an obligation to do that would have made any difference at all. Any/all of you tell us what you would have said/done instead of what the president said/did that would have gotten those million demonstrators to say "umm, man's got a point, getting rid of this human rights violating kleptomaniac dictator who has oppressed us for decades is just plain WRONG! LONG LIVE MUBARAK!"
And if you can't come up with something that would have made a difference to those people in the street, then the criticism of the president, and similar criticism of Carter regarding the shah (almost identical circumstances) needs to stop now.
And we need to get out of the business of supporting such people. We need to stop excusing such behavior. We need to stand by OUR principles and insist that the people we sleep around with don't mistreat people based on some "good intentions" which means that we tell Israel for example as a starting point that once and for all, no more Kelo VS New London on the West Bank against law abiding "people" (who cares what name we give them?) whose families have lived on the land longer than the vast majority of the Jews in the region, most of whom are descendants of immigrants after the war. We can start there.
Merry Christmas to you all. And try not to forget the real meaning of the holiday.
Paul Kotik| 12.16.11 @ 10:06AM
Mubarak was our man. He was the least bad solution to a serious geopolitical problem. He kept the Canal open, and refrained from launching the kind of catastrophic regional wars his predecessors and Arab colleagues had for decades.
What's none of our business is his style of rule, what's none of our business is the welfare of the residents of Egypt. As Third World dictators go, Hosni wasn't so bad at all. As will become clear, however bad he was, all alternatives to him are even worse.
Adults choose the least-bad possible solution. Children and lunatics choose the ideal, impossible solution.
Good luck with that, Nate.
nathan| 12.16.11 @ 1:22PM
Mr. Kotik, with all due respect I hear this all time, and I'm sorry I respectfully disagree. Because people like Mubarak and the shah, "our boys" sooner or later end up leaving, being overthrown, and then what? What do folks like you, advocates of the "least bad" solution, do then? Because now we have a people that, given our support for this kleptomaniac human rights dictator, really aren't all that favorably disposed towards us and won't play along with us anymore.
And besides, have you and others considered that had we just stayed out of it, stayed neutral, maybe, that the person that would have replaced Mubarak years ago might have been equally good about keeping the peace? I am not going to accept that only ghastly dictators are the solution to our problems abroad.
But also, we either have principles or we don't, we stand for what we believe or we don't. We either walk it the way we talk it or we don't. Sean and others talk about American exceptionalism. Well we don't look all that "exceptional" when we're in bed with people like Mubarak. We don't look all that exceptional when Sharon lets the Phalangists massacre hundreds if not thousands of women and children in those two refugee camps in Lebanon and we said little or nothing. We don't look all that exceptional when we torture people in Abu Ghraib or turn detainees over to be tortured in 124 in Kabul. It has to be more than words, and insisting that we meet the standards we established at Nuremburg and Tokyo isn't being childish or insane. It's an attempt to be American in every sense of the word and the Americans the Founders hoped we would be even if they fell short of that standard now and then.
Quartermaster| 12.16.11 @ 7:46PM
Iran is now orders of magnitude worse off than they were under the Shah. Egypt will be orders of magnitude worse off than they were under Mubarak.
You may disagree, and that';s your right, but you are being incredibly naive about what's going on, and the actual consequences we can already see in Egypt, and have seen in Iran. Liberals, as they always do, think they have everything sewn up, so they act and get burned because they really have no idea what a transfer of power requires. The founders of the US knew what it took, and took the only orderly manner available to do it. The rest, with the French Revolution as typical, ended up in deep trouble and lost everything.
That's just the way of liberals. Christians in Syria are far more realistic. Assad may be a tyrant, but he is all that stands between them and Islamist terror and anarchy.
VonMisesJr| 12.17.11 @ 8:49AM
Bingo, Quartermaster. And the world was much better off without the Mullahs and "I'm-on-a-jihad" Hitler Jr.
Nathan seems like a honest broker, but he should read about the French Revolution. They toppled Louis XVI and got ten years of tyranny like they never conceived under the several Assemblies. And once the Monarchy was undone they had a decade of anarchy including two "Reigns of Terror." The Monarchy was actually reforming and then they appeared weak and revolution ensued. So Nathan should read "Alice in Wonderland" again and realize "Who are You?," "Sentance first, verdict later," and "off with their heads" were not wholly fictional.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 12:02PM
I don't think that Iranians are worse off than under the Shah, but they would be a lot better off if the US and Britain had not conspired to overthrow the government of Mosaddegh in 1953. Likewise, Afghanistan would be much better off if the US had not helped to overthrow the government there starting in 1979 by supporting the Muslim fanatics. All through the post WWII period, the US supported dictators and Muslim fundamentalists against left/liberal political forces throughout the greater Middle East, because they were fanatically anticommunist. The US sponsored dictatorships of the region killed or imprisoned all secular opposition, but couldn't touch the mosques. Israel encouraged Hamas as a counterweight to the secular PLO.
It is likely that the Muslim Brotherhood will dominate the next Egyptian government, but that is purely a matter for Egyptians. They are voting in elections which are much freer than our own. Whichever government they elect is THEIR BUSINESS ONLY. People in the US, even those on the bottom rungs of society, have absorbed an imperialist mindset (like the British), which somehow leads them to believe they have the right to pass judgment on everyone on the planet. Well guess what: you don't. The US, Britain, et.al. should just STFU!
Nick| 12.18.11 @ 3:08AM
As to your last sentence, physician, heal thyself.
Paul Kotik| 12.18.11 @ 10:47AM
Here's why what happens in Egypt is OUR business, too:
The Egyptian military is now an American-trained, American-equipped and American-subsidized force.
American -designed Abrams M1A1 main battle tank is now manufactured in Egypt, by the ETP, for the Egyptian military, under licence.
The force we have equipped, trained and subsidize has also deployed a substantial intermediate range ( SCUD B, among others) missile force with chemical warheads.
The vital Suez Canal passes through Egyptian territory.
So, sir, how is a coup d'etat in Egypt by a movement overtly and vigorously hostile to US and Western interests THEIR BUSINESS ONLY?
Nick| 12.17.11 @ 12:59AM
Nathan,
Take your bleeding heart liberal clap-trap somewhere else, okay?
c. j. acworth| 12.16.11 @ 8:27AM
Wasn't I just reading somewhere about some mullah in Egypt talking about leveling the Sphinx and other "pagan" monuments? They already blew up some Hindu statues in Afganistan. What other reason is there to go to Egypt? But please, let's not send in the 82nd Airborne to "save" them from their fate.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 2:27PM
They weren't Hindu statues; they were Buddhist.
Oh, who cares. All those ragheads and camel jockeys are all Muslims or sumpin. Why can't all these heathens just accept Jesus?
Ryan| 12.16.11 @ 8:28AM
The problem of Mubarak should have been dealt with no later than the Clinton administration. We - the Western world - should have removed our support of the tinpot dictators shortly after the Cold War ended, and pushed for favorable governments in the region rather than letting things happen.
al222| 12.16.11 @ 8:58AM
"Given that Egypt has a population of over 80 million, it would be absurd to extrapolate the liberal and secular sentiments of the protesters in those anti-Mubarak demonstrations to the people at large."
Kinda like the OWS movement claiming they represent 99% of America.
Seek| 12.16.11 @ 11:44AM
What I would like to know is how Egypt got to 80 million people so quickly. Yes, I know. The people had sex. But any nation allowing its population to grow exponentially can expect this sort of disaster.
Much as I abjure China's tyrannical one child per family law, it's actually preferable to population growth run amok, with a restive and explosive male population easily "hijacked" by religious fervor at its most virulent. China has grown prosperous. Egypt is descending into further poverty and chaos.
JP| 12.16.11 @ 3:29PM
Egypt's population grew because of improvements in nutrition and sanitation. But, don't worry; it's fertility rate has fallen from a high of 6.5 children per female in 1965 to 1.8 children per female in 2010.
John786| 12.16.11 @ 9:49AM
Egypt becoming salafist: the closest Arab allies of America in the ME are all authoritarian salafist states: aka the magical kingdom. So that shouldn't be a problem. Ironically the many wars instigated by America in the ME - have been aimed on the whole against the secular Arab states-( non arab Iran being the exception). The common theme in all the interventions is a deep seated islamophobia. Hopefully, the small issue of the economy will bring to an end American meddling in ME. Maybe it's time America spent the few valuable dollars feeding, housing it's people. Please support any candidate who will cut off all aid of any kind to Muslim states. And if you don't want to help Americans please pass it on to Isreal. Democracy is a real bummer: people voting for things we don't like. The things are a changing. Ethnic cleansers everywhere be afraid.
Quartermaster| 12.16.11 @ 7:49PM
A phobia is an irrational fear. The burden of proof falls on your ilk to show that there is no such thing as a reasonable fear of a tyrannical ideology masquerading as a religion.
I wish you a great deal of luck in your efforts, given Islam's 12 century record.
cicero| 12.16.11 @ 11:05AM
The "Arab Spring" is only another in the unending series of regime changes in the Muslim/Arab world. Only this tiime, they got the West to help them. The folks on the ground were only changing one set of kleptomaniacs for another. So it has always been since the 7th century.
We keep looking for a liberal, Jeffersonian democrat to rise from the sands and lead the people of the middle east to the promised land of the Enlightenment. The funny thing is that we are always suprised when it ends up with the some old same old.
Maybe we need to elect some leaders with a sense and knowledge of history, (not necessarily Newt), who will stop throwing away our blood and treasure on what can only be seen as a Groundhog Day version of hope and change.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 2:38PM
"Only this tiime, they got the West to help them"
Nonsense.
"We keep looking for a liberal, Jeffersonian democrat"
Who is "we", white man, and why are "we" looking? Why don't "we" just mind our own fu**ing business and stay the f**k out of other peoples' business? Stop thinking like an imperialist!
gary siebel| 12.16.11 @ 3:13PM
The American Revolution was an oddity in the history of revolutions in general. Egypt is following the more traditional model: those who start and lead the revolutions usually prove, for various reasons, incompetent to govern.
You are basically correct in regards to your main point -- the eventual regret thing. The so-called Arab spring is really the first step in a very long, perhaps multigenerational, process. It took almost 100 years for the Russian middle class to form AND get the nerve to march into Red Square to object to the corruption. I doubt it will take as long for Muslims because technology has a way of speeding up processes -- but all the same, don't hold your breath waiting.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 2:50PM
The Anerican Revolution was not a revolution; it was a war of independence. Revolutions overturn the existing social order. For the vast majority of people living in the colonies, life went on pretty much as before. In fact, if you had been a slave or an Indian, the American "Revolution" was a disaster. The British Empire abolished slavery in 1820. Furthermore, the British had treaties with the Indians which allowed them to live more or less in peace. After the "Revolution", the invasion of the Indian lands began almost immediately and their populations were mostly wiped out . Yeah. Great "Revolution".
The REAL revolution began in 1860 and overthrew the slaveocracy AND confiscated their property! This is what we should be doing to the finance capitalist class. People on this blog should stop trying to help their own enemy. Talk about useful idiots.
ABNCP| 12.16.11 @ 3:18PM
The real hope for an Egypt not to become another Iran, Syria etc is the Egyptian Military. One would think that what happened to the Military in Iran after the Shah would be in the front of their minds. I mean they already saw that movie. Of course it will depend on how much their Military has been infiltrated by the radical Islamists in Egypt. The Saudi's and Gulf Emerits really do not want Egypt to go radical and become another Shite power who would be an Iran stooge just like Syria. It will be interesting watching this cess pool in the middle east.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 4:37PM
How could the Shia take power in Egypt? They are less than 1% of the population.
No! Wait! The 1% control the US, so I guess it is possible. My apologies.
Tony in Central PA| 12.16.11 @ 9:31PM
What a surprise. The fools in our media have only other liberals for friends, so of course they assumed they had a scientific survey of the Egyptian population's political leanings. Never mind a survey came out a few months back reporting that 80% of Egyptians wanted capital punishment by stoning for adulterers.
I guess same - sex marriage might have to go on the back burner in Cairo for a few years. At least until after the military revises its " Don't tell, don't hang " policy.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 4:46PM
Well, that just proves that the Egyptians are just good Jews or fundamentalist Christians who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Leviticus 20:10
If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
DaveS| 12.17.11 @ 10:02AM
95% of the above comments are of the Monday Morning Quarterback types.
It was obvious from the first unrest in the square that the liberals and 'students' would carry water for the Brotherhood - and worse. Another duping.
God help Egypt - with the military council's help. When the Islamists take over, its only weeks before they start trial balloons to disavow the Sadat deal with Israel.
Democracy to the average Muslim in Egypt means being free to do what the 'mosque' tells you to do.
race_to_the_bottom| 12.17.11 @ 4:56PM
Unless you live in Egypt or Israel, why do you care? If you live in Egypt, you should dial Beijing to get some advice on reorganizing the economy. If you are a Israeli squatter in the West Bank, you ought to start thinking about packing up your gear and schlepping it back to Brooklyn or Russia, or wherever. If you live in the US, you might want to tell your government to stop pouring our money into the sand over there and get going taking care of business here in the good old USA.
DaveS| 12.17.11 @ 8:28PM
You have won the race to the 'bottom.'
DaveS| 12.17.11 @ 8:28PM
You have won the race to the 'bottom.'
Sonny119| 12.18.11 @ 12:52AM
I completely agreee with the author.
If you look the arab islamic muslim middle eastern nations, they are not, and do not, run their governing system as democracies, but of either old world cultural shiek heirarchy, like an Italian Mafia Godfather, in the family would rule, or in the strict islamic muslim shria law, with religious leaders dictating the rules, policies, and laws to the people and nation. And in the case of the latter, the more radical extremist hard line elements will always eat the more civilized moderate good people.. It's like having piranha's in a lake or pond full of trout.. and we know how that would end up..
Look at what what happened to Iran, after the Shaw was deposed.. Before that, the shaw allowed the nation to be open and free, as much as could be expected in arab islamic muslim nation, even though he was standard dictator in the middle east, but one where women were not only allowed, but encouraged to be highly educated and free, just like any Western European Democratic nation, and not foreced into veils of enslavement, under strict oppressive religious laws, where they were considered second class citizens, and subject to stoning to death, let alone 99 lashes with a whip, just for looking at someone the wrong way, or being seen out in public, without a male relative like a master and slave.
No, these elements are the most radical and dangerous elements, that has ever existed to modern western free civilizations, on earth.
Ruebacca| 12.18.11 @ 10:22AM
The Chinese and Indians will be sending people to Mars and the Muslim world will stuck in the 7th century. Egypt is still ruled by the military and will still be in 20 years. It's the Mamluks all over again.
john dubose| 12.18.11 @ 9:13PM
It is probably too soon to be sure, but the Islamists will probably do such a poor job of supporting science, technology and industry that their countries will get even poorer and more miserable than they are even now. Theocracy does not work. Then the people there will have another revolution.
nathan| 12.19.11 @ 9:40AM
The fact that not every effort to deal with despots results in ideal solutions does not obligate those reduced to a state of despotism to remain in that state of despotism folks. In the case of the French Revolution (yes, we all have read Dickens "A Tale Of Two Cities" thank you) then when the follow on government turns despotic, remove it too until you get it right. In the case of Iran,the shah who was put there by us in what was arguably an act of war when we engineered a coup against the Mossadegh government who had not attacked us, done nothing to us in any manner, the Iranians being subject to a kleptomaniac human rights dictator had no obligation to remain in a state of despotism just because it served OUR interests that they do so. (Sorry folks.) If the follow on government, the mullahs, turned out to be less than ideal, then they could at that point pledge lives. fortunes, and sacred honor to try and get it right the second time with hopefully us staying out of it and avoiding making it worse like we did in 1953. Now if you all quote conservatives unquote don't understand the principles on which your "conservatism" is based, I'm really sorry, that is your problem, it isn't mine. But I still think Washington is still right about entangling alliances, and while a lot of you seem to want to paraphrase Stephen Decatur (Israel right or wrong) I would just as soon leave the Middle East to Middle Easterners and focus on our own affairs than you.
Oh and by the way, I find it so marvelously amusing that a number of you call ME a bleeding heart liberal although I'm the one throwing one quote after another from the Founders while those of you calling me a "liberal" never offer quotes from the Founders to counter me. What pray tell is wrong with this picture? Orwellian newspeak indeed! LOL
POST American| 12.19.11 @ 11:22PM
--------------------BOTTOM LINE----------------------
Oxford-Fabian turmoil in Egypt.
MEANWHILE, 'Nile---ism', 'PYRE-amid'
worship, and USURY plunder runs worldwide.
----Even as those in the know take in the
scene while resting on the shadey BANKS.
--------------------E--jipped one and all.
bruce108| 12.20.11 @ 8:45PM
These moon-worshipers are all a bunch of pagan savages. We should bomb them into a stupor and take their oil, cut off the Russkies and Chinx and keep ours in the ground for a reserve.
bruce108| 12.20.11 @ 8:50PM
These moon-worshipers are all a bunch of pagan savages. We should bomb them into a stupor and take their oil, cut off the Russkies and Chinx and keep ours in the ground for a reserve.
ral | 12.21.11 @ 7:09AM
Thanks for the article.
Libertarians and Liberals have indeed been working for years and developed the effective demonstrations. At the same time many are aware that Cairo will not be rebuilt in a day and a move towards conservatism is to be expected after such changes. The fact that democracy is there is the point--not cause for handwringing--and shows the Libs are winning, and must now continue to build the tolerant, secular middle class over the next generation.
For info on people using voluntary Libertarian tools on similar and other issues, please see http://www.LibertarianInternational.org
, the non-partisan Libertarian International Organization
john dubose| 12.29.11 @ 11:42PM
It appears that Egypt and a lot of other countries of the middle east will go through a phase of "Islamization". It may well take a while, but that too shall pass for the simple reason that theocratic countries can not compete in the long run with secular nations with decent governmental and cultural norms. We should simply chill and wait them out while letting them know that we will not let them wipe out Israel.