What kind of democracy can we expect out of Egypt?
I cannot imagine that the Muslim Brotherhood or any other nascent political proto-party of Egypt is any more sophisticated than your ordinary editor at Al Jazeera. Perhaps their English translators leave much to be desired, but I have yet to read anything at Al Jazeera that gives me any confidence that they or their audience is particularly educated. Which is to say for the purposes of provocative debate, that Al Jazeera is not quite as sophisticated as Fox News, or perhaps, owing to their popularity here and abroad Al Jazeera is exactly as sophisticated as Fox News and for exactly the same reasons - to support a particular worldview with political consequences.
Either institution is inevitable if one expects peasants to participate in the proxy of representative government. So each enables the rabble to 'speak truth to power'. Each is 'the voice of the people'. Each is relatively idiotic, and necessarily so.
So now American liberals are faced with the disheartening possibility that in countries like Egypt, there are many millions who would like their own Sarah Palins. Of course the idea that a woman might emerge to rule over the Nilotics is not unprecedented, but I hear no female names trotted out these days. Whatever the candidate and case may be, the fact remains that no matter how romantic this revolution may seem, its eyes, ears, arms and legs are of people who are, by and large, uneducated and unsophisticated in political matters.
It has been said that such things don't matter so long as the people get to express their will and exert self-rule. Every time you see Sarah Palin's face, is that the thought that comes to mind? Of course not. You are political snobs and elitists and so am I. I would not be led by populists and I have no patience for identity politics, but you can bet that has all the political currency necessary in Egypt. Egypt would be lucky to have Sarah Palin, and we all know it.
I steal from Powerline the following short item with a very important highlight:
Byron York had the good idea of going back to the survey of attitudes in Muslim countries that Pew Research Center did last year, to see what it tells us about Egypt. The results of that review are perplexing yet highly relevant to the current crisis.
If the Pew data are correct, Egyptians have a striking ability to hold, simultaneously, seemingly incompatible beliefs. For example:
[A]mong other discoveries, the Pew researchers found that 84 percent of Egyptians favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion.
In another survey, Pew found that 90 percent of Egyptians say they believe in freedom of religion.
"Freedom of religion" seems to lose something in translation. More:
When asked which side they would take in a struggle between "groups who want to modernize the country [and] Islamic fundamentalists," 59 percent of Egyptians picked the fundamentalists, while 27 percent picked the modernizers. ...
And yet at the same time, says Richard Wike, associate director of Pew's Global Attitudes Project, "We found support for some specific features of democracy -- free media, civil liberties, an independent judiciary." Indeed, 80 percent of Egyptians place a high value on free speech, 88 percent on an impartial judiciary and 75 percent on "media free from government censorship."
And 82 percent of Egyptians have an unfavorable view of the United States. Think how bad it would be if it weren't for the Obama administration's "smart diplomacy."
So there you have it. Whether enhanced democracy in Egypt turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing likely depends on which of these inconsistent strands of belief proves dominant.
So people might not believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is a big or small factor in Egypt, but considering what the overwhelming majority of Egyptians believe about Muslim excommunication, it makes little difference. It will be an Islamic society and the separation of church and state there would be a nullity.
American liberals have very little problem suggesting that America would suffer if the likes of Sarah Palin were elected to lead the land and her followers became the political majority, but Palin would never be so tyrannical as any such leader as the people in Egypt would empower through their revolution. Whomever succeeds Mubarak will be painted in pleasing colors by the American Left who refuses to face up to the real implications of such forms of democracy. Just like Mubarak was.
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