So I get mail from the Left and Right. This weekend I recieved an urgent call to sign a petition in solidarity with the People of Egypt from some activists at Change.org. Here follows the text:
On January 25, we the people of Egypt took to the streets to demand our rights!
We are not unified by one party, class or religion: we are not Muslim and we are not Christian, we are not rich and we are not poor - we are the multifaceted people of Egypt - Muslims and Christians and Egyptians of all classes.
We demand our civil, political and human rights.
We demand the immediate resignation of the president and parliament.
We demand a new constitution.
We demand free and fair elections.
We demand the complete and total release of all political prisoners and detainees.
We demand the return of open access to all communication networks.
We demand that the police stop shooting at us, stop their brutality and stop their attacks on journalists.
We are the January 25 movement, and we are not going to stop until our demands are met!
We call on Egyptians and our international supporters to sign this petition of support, which will be sent to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, officials in the interior and foreign ministries, and Egyptian embassies all over the world.
Exactly what kind of political change is gotten from this level of statecraft? None. This is the kind of verbiage one expects from 8th graders and I mean that there are nothing less than the best intentions of people operating at the emotional level of middle school children. That's not always a bad thing. It's great language to shout at rallies, and there are probably a dozen good reasons to run a mob at exactly this pace, but for something to be written down and signed by intelligent people all around the world? Are you kidding me? I have 99 cent game software on my telephone with more sophisticated and legally binding text.
When I was a college student, it didn't take me long to understand that when there are people suffering from oppression, there are generally intelligent men and women among them. Such people generally don't like being represented by bellicose or mendacious louts, nor by sentimental romantics. But here in American society there are always those who are so swayed. Well let them sign the petition. I won't do it. I do very well remember the anti-Apartheid movment and I do recall the Harare Accords, knowing they were long-standing documents pieced together by fine political minds in exile from South Africa. Copies of the Accords were in broad circulation amongs the radical politicos like myself - I wish that I could find one now. It gave me an idea of what to expect in the language of founding principles, and from that I began to examine our own founding documents more closely.
Today's news, from my perspective, is that Mubarak has taken advantage of the relative peacefulness of the large demonstrations as evidence that he needn't step down until the regularly scheduled September elections. So much for revolution. But that's a good thing. Surely by that time, some of these manifesto writers can get in a semester of law school, and perhaps a better grip on exactly what reforms have a chance of getting implemented in Egypt.
Recent Comments