Many seem to be wondering what type of 'democracy' will be emerging in Egypt. We, the USA really do not have much influence over this as the administration would like to believe. obama and his minions were caught completely flat footed by what has transpired in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. This next article has to do with what we might see emerging in Egypt and why we should not get too excited.
Any government that includes the muslim brotherhood will not be one that is good for the people of Egypt. Just a few of the reasons are mentioned in this fine essay by Abigail Esman. While we can be extremely concerned, there is not much we can do. obama has already done enough damage early on by calling for Mubarak to step down, yesterday, and then backing the inclusion of the muslim brotherhood in any future government.
"Will Egypt now become a democracy? “Yes,” say some. “No,” say the rest. They’re both right. It just depends on what you mean by the word “democracy.
In any dictionary, “democracy” holds two distinct definitions: “government by the people,” for one – a system in which the people vote in fair and free elections to determine their government leaders; and (per dictionary.com), “a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.” The two concepts are so enormously different I wonder if we don’t even need to come up with a new word for one or the other of them; clearly, at least in our times, calling them by the same name doesn’t work.
What is certainly true is that there has been no democracy in Egypt, at least in terms of “rights and privileges” over the past three decades, and that no new “fair and free” elections are likely to change this very much: was it only weeks ago that Coptic churches and their worshippers were attacked?
Even more horrific than the plight of Egypt’s Christians, however, are the lives of Egyptian women – not, perhaps, most of those you see marching on Tahrir Square, but the tens of millions who are not. According to a 2005 report from the Cairo-based Association of Legal Aid for Women, throughout Egypt, “FGM [female genital mutilation] is universally practiced, veiling is increasingly imposed, and honor crimes are acceptably practiced.” Frequently, those who commit honor killings receive minimal penalties; jail terms can range from none at all to a maximum of four years. Even Egyptian films, the report says, “represent honor killing as part of a highly valued and well respected tradition.”
From Forbes.
Democracy in Egypt? Define “Democracy.”
By Abigail Esman
As the world’s pundits continue to try to read the tea leaves of Egypt’s future, the same question gets rehashed over and over again: Will Egypt now become a democracy? “Yes,” say some. “No,” say the rest. They’re both right. It just depends on what you mean by the word “democracy.”
Five years ago, when a friend was struggling to arrange asylum for a young Iraqi refugee, she ran up against continuing refusal by the US government to open its doors to any of the four million Iraqis displaced by the war in Iraq, many running for their lives simply because they had assisted American journalists or soldiers. “Iraq is a democracy now,” US officials said. “She doesn’t need asylum here.”
If what we saw in Iraq five years ago is what “democracy” really means, then I have, indeed, no doubt: we’ll be seeing democracy in Egypt. But I don’t believe it is.
In any dictionary, “democracy” holds two distinct definitions: “government by the people,” for one – a system in which the people vote in fair and free elections to determine their government leaders; and (per dictionary.com), “a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.” The two concepts are so enormously different I wonder if we don’t even need to come up with a new word for one or the other of them; clearly, at least in our times, calling them by the same name doesn’t work.
What is certainly true is that there has been no democracy in Egypt, at least in terms of “rights and privileges” over the past three decades, and that no new “fair and free” elections are likely to change this very much: was it only weeks ago that Coptic churches and their worshippers were attacked?
Even more horrific than the plight of Egypt’s Christians, however, are the lives of Egyptian women – not, perhaps, most of those you see marching on Tahrir Square, but the tens of millions who are not. According to a 2005 report from the Cairo-based Association of Legal Aid for Women, throughout Egypt, “FGM [female genital mutilation] is universally practiced, veiling is increasingly imposed, and honor crimes are acceptably practiced.” Frequently, those who commit honor killings receive minimal penalties; jail terms can range from none at all to a maximum of four years. Even Egyptian films, the report says, “represent honor killing as part of a highly valued and well respected tradition.”
The fact is that what we’ve been seeing these past two weeks does not speak to the realities of Egypt: just as footage of New Yorkers and Los Angelinos provide no true picture of America, so, too, do the images of urban, educated, English-speaking demonstrators in Alexandria and Cairo tell us little, in fact, about the hearts and dreams of Egypt’s people. Indeed, if a recent Pew study is to be trusted, “democracy” isn’t even part of the equation: according a survey conducted just last spring, only 59 percent of Egyptians “believed democracy was preferable to any other kind of government” – the second-lowest popular support for democracy of any country surveyed (only Pakistan came in lower, at 42 percent). And here’s something else: of those who perceived a conflict between modernizing forces and Islamic fundamentalists, the same 59 percent sided with the fundamentalists – and only 27 percent with “modernizers.”
All of which would explain how it is that the Muslim Brotherhood has managed to galvanize the support of a quarter of the entire Egyptian population despite been officially banned for thirty years. Now that it has joined the latest discussions for the building of a new government – and is likely to take part in any new elections – imagine how that support will grow: in the same Pew poll, an astounding 82 percent of all Egyptians said Islam should have a role in politics.
The Brotherhood,, too, has another advantage – because as is almost always the case, the force behind this latest uprising in Egypt is not so much politics as money. (Yes, it’s still the economy, stupid, even – or especially – in the Middle East. Hamas, after all, won the Palestinian elections based on its promises to stabilize a disastrous economic problem and provide desperately needed aid.) And as David Rieff (who always seems to get it right) points out in The New Republic, it is the Muslim Brotherhood who provide “a huge part of the social safety net in urban Egypt,” earning, as Hans Bader observes in the Washington Examiner, “greater support among the country’s poor than among Egypt’s smaller and more Western-oriented middle-class.”
None of this even touches on the massive backing Egyptians – and the Brotherhood – can anticipate coming from Iran, which has already warned the country against allowing the “secular enemy” to advance.
Muslim Brotherhood support also explains the masses of demonstrators: not everyone who wants Mubarek out wants democracy – in the “equal rights” sense of the term, at least — in his place. United the marchers may be in their short-term goals, but divided they will fight — violently, I fear – over the long-term consequences.
Not that I wasn’t among those who at first optimistically believed otherwise. “It will happen,” I crowed in an e-mail to my friend, the one who had encouraged aid for Iraqi refugees back in 2006, and whose own husband was murdered in Iraq where he, a journalist, had traveled to observe, uh, democracy burst forth like magnolias after Saddam’s fall.
But sadly, I have to agree now, instead, with Rieff, who sagely observes that conditions are actually quite dire, and that it is largely America’s own fault; instead of shaping – and strengthening – the hearts and minds of Egypt’s people, we have strengthened the military machine that has oppressed them – and which may soon be turned against us. As any Egyptian woman knows, justice and the rights of “disadvantaged groups” have not exactly been America’s priority in Egypt. And that may cost us, as much as it costs Egypt.
So the real question in my mind now is what America will do next – and how it will respond to the needs of Egyptians on the ground; for whether the Muslim Brotherhood wins power in the next Egyptian government or not, it will inevitably gain power among the people.
It’s too soon, I think, to be sure of what this means for American national security; but it is clear what it means for Israel. It is also clear what it means for millions of Egypt’s women. Most will be unable to leave, a result of Islamic “tradition” that prevents them from traveling alone; but some will escape, and they will need somewhere to go. Will Americans open their arms to shelter them when they need us – or send them back to the “democracy” from whence they came?
Double hat tip: China Confidential
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