Fareed Zakaria wrote in Time magazine (4/16/12) that “the Arab Spring is looking less appealing by the week.” The problem is a “messier reality,” and he zeroes in on Egypt:
And now, as Egypt’s presidential election approaches, we see the rise of two candidates from Islamic parties, Khairat al-Shater and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail. The former is often described as a moderate, the latter as a radical. Much of what we’re seeing might well be the tumult that accompanies the end of decades of tyranny and the rise of long-suppressed forces, but it raises the question, Why does it seem that democracy has such a hard time taking root in the Arab world?
It’s a staple of corporate media commentary to lament democracies that might produce leaders that we find disagreeable (and yet somehow it’s their commitment to democracy that is deemed questionable). And this is tough to take from someone like Zakaria, who spent much of the George W. Bush years extolling his pro-democratic credentials, going so far as to argue that Bush’s ignorance was strength: “Bush’s capacity to imagine a different Middle East may actually be related to his relative ignorance of the region. Had he traveled to the Middle East and seen its many dysfunctions, he might have been disheartened.”
In any event, the news over the weekend was that both candidates Zakaria singled out above have been disqualified from the election. This raises a question for Zakaria: Since their candidacies were a sign that democracy is having a hard time taking root in Egypt, is that country’s decision to bar them mean they are now moving closer to democracy, or further from it?
The main difference between US elites and others is that ours have learned to replace “his majesty” with “the people” when going about lining their pockets with government money, or suggesting it as an ideal as Zakaria does. He has all the qualifications of someone who is too afraid to admit he doesn’t have anything to say — playing with averages, no specific examples to back up the historical claims, and only looking at the vices of a foreigner. These are all signs that it’s not facts, but ideology driving him.
Zakaria is disciplined enough to just quote some people without bothering to check other sources. He neglects to mention Syria had a taste of imperialism when France invaded to “restore order and justice” after a treaty had been defeated by their military and commercial elites. This order consisted of the establishment of martial law.
He also plants his historical origins of imperialism in a really ethnocentric way in considering Egypt. Egypt was conquered several times before the Muslims, first internally by Upper Egypt to suppress revolts (using foreign mercenaries), then by the Hyksos, then Greeks. But you don’t have to go back thousands of years to find Britain buying slaves from them, and you don’t have to go back a decade to find the US supporting the military, Suliman etc. Anyway, the invasions weren’t spontaneous, they were about controlling what was then a very profitable agricultural center, so Zakaria is doing himself a disservice not to consider that merely having today’s wealth (oil) tends to give you off the charts lack of democracy, a conscious policy of the US (see the state record frequently cited by Noam Chomsky).
He wants the problem to look just like the opposite of his solution. The fear of democracy combined with a weird fetish of seeing the state and country as an organic whole is easily more the seed of a fascist doctrine than a liberal one.
“Democracy” is a euphemism for US directed international capitalism, that hierarchy ordered by the Multinational State/Chamber of Commerce operating out of Washington, D.C.
Popular democracy, as prescribed for the ills of the world by the US, is merely a tool used to subvert non-compliant governments; and, as with every tool, it is put down when its usefulness ends.
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick05242011.html
Copts Demand End to Post-Revolution Sectarianism
Church Burning in Egypt
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Cairo
“I shouldn’t have told them I am a Copt,” says Hani Armanius Agib, recalling how his admission, as he tried to join a Coptic demonstration, that he is a Christian to a crowd of Muslims led to him being beaten up and his wallet and mobile phone stolen. Taken to hospital, he was arrested as he lay in a hospital bed and was held for hours in a military detention centre without food or water.
Egypt’s 10 million Copts, the largest Christian population in the Middle East, are demanding that they no longer be treated as second-class citizens in post-revolutionary Egypt. But they are fearful that they are in danger of anti-Christian violence after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak because the police are weak and anti-Christian Islamic preachers are free to whip up sectarian hate.
“I am feeling threatened, as does my community. I don’t feel safe as a Christian at home,” says Michael, a 25-year-old pharmacist who is Hani’s brother. “But I also want to know if, after the revolution, I have rights in this country and if we are still going to be targeted by the government and extremist organizations.”
So far the weakening of the police state, which ruled Egypt for 60 years, has enhanced opportunities for Egypt’s Copts but has also led to more attacks on them. Issad Ibrahim of the human rights group Egyptians for Personal Rights says, “there definitely has been a rise in hostility between the two communities and, for the first time, you are having churches burnt out. The army doesn’t want to interfere and extremist Muslims and criminals feel free to break the law.”
The last couple of months since the revolution have seen several explosions of anti-Coptic violence. In the grim, run-down, religiously mixed district of Imbaba in central Cairo, construction workers are busily rebuilding the Virgin Church on el-Wahda street, which was set alight by petrol bombs on May 8 in riots in which 15 people were killed and 242 injured.
The origin of the attack on the church was a rumor that a Muslim woman called Abeer Talat, who was a supposedly a Christian convert to Islam, was being held prisoner by Christians in another Imbaba church called St Mena. Angry crowds of Muslims gathered outside and rock throwing and shooting started. It is easy to stir up a sectarian riot in Imbaba which is a poor, tough district of narrow alleys, drug dealers, and a reputation for being an Islamic fundamentalist stronghold.
The story of the Christian girl converted to Islam is one incident in a long-running dispute between the two communities The Copts say that hundreds of Christian girls disappear every year and, when they are seen again, they have converted to Islam. They agree that some may have run away from arranged marriages, but that most have been coerced or raped and then forcibly converted. If they return to their families, Issad Ibrahim says “the government makes it impossible to convert back to Christianity.”
Copts point to many forms of discrimination against them in getting jobs, particularly top jobs. When a Copt was appointed for the first time as a provincial governor several months ago there were mass demonstrations by Muslims who blocked railway lines in protest. Christians are also trying to open 53 churches, which have been built but the Interior Ministry has previously forbidden them to open. It was an attempt to open one of these churches in the working-class Cairo district of Ain Shams that led to further violence.
Copts have taken to the streets to demand their rights, including protection for their churches and the arrest of fundamentalist preachers who provoke riots by claiming that weapons are being hidden in churches or girls converted to Islam are being held captive. Father Filobater Gamiel, a middle-aged Coptic priest, organized a two week-long mass protest, which became a focus for the Coptic community outside the Media Ministry in central Cairo that has just ended.
“It isn’t so hard to bring Copts out to demonstrate after the churches are burnt,” says Father Gabriel, a mild-mannered man, who proved to be an effective organizer. He wants discrimination against Copts to be made illegal and the state to be neutral between religions so schools don’t force Copts to learn parts of the Koran.
> Why does it seem that democracy has such a hard time taking root in the Arab world?
Indeed, why does it – and why does it always have to be ugly? The reality of the Arab consciousness is so much different than the west and the interaction between the two seems to have a retrograde effect on us rather than a progressive effect on them.
When I was a kid the US seemed to be a classless society, not in reality, but the ideal, far as we were away from it was taken seriously. Now that seems to be the thing – to push whatever advantage one has to the level of domination and even abuse – at least what we see in the new and entertainment media.
Democracy is not faring very well in the United States either.
Now corporations are people, money is speech, people turn out in large numbers only to be ignored by those in power, beaten by police and/or arrested. Obama lauds NYC police for their surveillance of peaceful citizens…..and so on.
If Americans want to see democracy in the Arab world, they should persuade their government to stop installing and sustaining dictators there. This is the main complaint of those un-people over there. They are not jealous of our deteriorating democracy or our ever-shrinking freedom, and most of them do not want 72 virgins in heaven. All they want is a chance to have democracy and freedom too. This is why polls show that they consider the US (and Israel) the #1 threat to them, a conclusion that any reasonable person would arive at empirically.
The people of Egypt made the foolish mistake of not going far enough with their revolution. Leaving the military intact allowed it to buy time and regroup and also I’m sure be briefed by the CIA how to regain power. Muslim Brotherhood (MB) stayed out of the revolution but betrayed the people by running candidates in an election boycotted by those who actually did the revolting. But then again, the masses are easily appeased.
BTW, something that the westerners should know is that petty-dictatorships in the so-called 3rd world cannot manufacture weapons. They would not last a month without support from war-profiteering neo-imperialist “democracies” in the west. If the US for example stops giving military aid to Egypt, the people can win the country back.
Well no one is taking the bull by the horns so I will.The question is this.Is todays muslim faith ,in the middle east- compatible with the Democratic principles of freedom like that which we enjoy?
Is todays muslim faith ,in the middle east- compatible with the Democratic principles of freedom like that which we enjoy?
michael e, you know nothing about Islam but you ask an incendiary and disrespectful question. Assuming that you were serious and didn’t mean to spew hate, the question, prima facie, is a bigoted one and deserves no answer.
BTW, what democracy? Half the people in this country have given up voting because they know it’s a sham!
I think the question is a good one.The middle east is muslim.Muslim countries tend not to be Democratic.Is their a connection?Alright Freespirit i will re word it along your lines.All things being equal,why has Democracy not broken out in the middle east,as a reaction to the Arab spring?
Thanks for pointing that out, FreeSpirit. Redstart’s right–democracy’s not faring very well here. I’ll bet those folks in Egypt and elsewhere have a much better idea of what Democracy might or should be like. They’re tired of having the boot (often our boot) on their neck. In places like France, when the powers that be push through draconian or anti-democratic measures, riots occur. The boot comes of the neck, and the jack-booted thugs think twice before doing it again. Here, tea-baggers and other fools, feeling that old boot on their neck (or seeing it on the neck of their fellow citizens), beg, “Yes, press down harder please–I (we, they) deserve it.” Such is our “democracy.”
michael, the reason why the Arab world (only a small proportion of Muslims worldwide are in the Arab world) doesn’t have democracy is due to its oil and the geopolitical situation. Because of this the West has been overthrowing democratically elected governments and/or creating countries and/or installing and sustaining dictatorships in order to have control. They have shown callous disregard for the will of the people. The US is the guiltiest country.
The people of the M.E. and S. Asia know this all too well. That’s why they resent the US and consider it the biggest threat to them (along with Israel). This sentiment was partly the impetus for the 911 attacks (blowback).
In a sense Freespirit (without arguing your points )……THAT you even have beliefs along these lines is to show the wide space between right and left.You may want to join Obama on his apologize for America tours. You may believe we need to REMAKE this country.You may believe America deserves whatever is thrown against her.You may be like michelle ma belle Obama who said on the day her husband won a primary “for the first time in my adult life,Im really proud of my country.You may be part of the blame America first crowd.All well and good in a free country.But my God man don’t expect us to listen.Or to give you the presidency again.Your words betray you.The mark you as unfit to lead, or even understand this great country of ours.In November we will change that.We will re acquaint our people with the greatness of this land.Listen to the speech given by Australia’s leader to Congress where she speaks with amazing love for the wonder that is America.It is the way our president should speak but never does.Never can.He simply does not believe it.He will do less damage as a common citizen.Soon we will help him with that.
Michael – I think it’s time for your pill. Would you please take it and relax. Until you start reading intelligent information about the Middle East, Arabs and Islam (it isn’t as black and white as you and the right wing media assume) you need to resist the temptation to speak out. Truth be known, there is as much disscent, variety, desire for democracy (or not) and confusion in the Arab World as in the US (yes, Michael, we are a very confused nation).
I’m trying to think of a US political leader or commentator who really has a grasp on what’s going on (me included). There seems to be no one reality. Why? Because the goals, dreams and beliefs of the masses are so varied.
Also, Please define what you mean by democracy.
The majority of people in the US, including myself, do not understand the Islamic religion, nor do we seem to understand that every Muslim does not believe the same thing. Each country in the Middle East have different cultures. Does every Christian believe the same thing? Look at our, and, NATO’s, idiocy at arming psychotic “rebels” in Libya, who were listed on our terror lists. These rebels now want to establish an Islamic state that is hostile to its own people. Everyone can find info on why Libya, after decades of no news reports, became an international crisis.