Early Results in Egypt Show A Mandate for Islamists

[General Mung Beans]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

Early Results in Egypt Show a Mandate for Islamists
Amr Nabil/Associated Press
Election officials in Cairo on Wednesday counted ballots that were cast in the first round of parliamentary elections this week.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: November 30, 2011

CAIRO — Islamists claimed a decisive victory on Wednesday as early election results put them on track to win a dominant majority in Egypt’s first Parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the most significant step yet in the religious movement’s rise since the start of the Arab Spring.

1 of 4NEXT
PREV
Video: Egypt Votes for ParliamentUnexpectedly large crowds turned out to cast their votes in Egypt's first parliamentary election since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in February.

Multimedia
Interactive Feature Arab World Uprisings: A Country-by-Country Look.Related
After Second Day of Voting in Egypt, Islamists Offer Challenge to Generals (November 30, 2011)
Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.
.The party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, appeared to have taken about 40 percent of the vote, as expected. But a big surprise was the strong showing of ultraconservative Islamists, called Salafis, many of whom see most popular entertainment as sinful and reject women’s participation in voting or public life.

Analysts in the state-run news media said early returns indicated that Salafi groups could take as much as a quarter of the vote, giving the two groups of Islamists combined control of nearly 65 percent of the parliamentary seats.

That victory came at the expense of the liberal parties and youth activists who set off the revolution, affirming their fears that they would be unable to compete with Islamists who emerged from the Mubarak years organized and with an established following. Poorly organized and internally divided, the liberal parties could not compete with Islamists disciplined by decades as the sole opposition to Mr. Mubarak. “We were washed out,” said Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, one of the most politically active of the group.

Although this week’s voting took place in only a third of Egypt’s provinces, they included some of the nation’s most liberal precincts — like Cairo, Port Said and the Red Sea coast — suggesting that the Islamist wave is likely to grow stronger as the voting moves into more conservative rural areas in the coming months. (Alexandria, a conservative stronghold, also has voted.)

The preliminary results extend the rising influence of Islamists across a region where they were once outlawed and oppressed by autocrats aligned with the West. Islamists have formed governments in Tunisia and Morocco. They are positioned for a major role in post-Qaddafi Libya as well. But it is the victory in Egypt — the largest and once the most influential Arab state, an American ally considered a linchpin of regional stability — that has the potential to upend the established order across the Middle East.

Islamist leaders, many jailed for years under Mr. Mubarak, were exultant. “We abide by the rules of democracy, and accept the will of the people,” Essam el-Erian, a leader of the Brotherhood’s new party, wrote in the British newspaper The Guardian. “There will be winners and losers. But the real — and only — victor is Egypt.”

Results will not be final until January, after two more rounds of voting. And the ultimate scope of the new Parliament’s power remains unclear because Egypt has remained under military rule since Mr. Mubarak resigned as president in February. But Parliament is expected to play a role in drafting a new Constitution with the ruling military council, although the council has given contradictory indications about how much parliamentary input it will allow.

The emergence of a strong Islamist bloc in Parliament is already quickening a showdown with the military. Brotherhood leaders announced Wednesday that they expected the Islamist parliamentary majority to name a prime minister to replace the civilian government now serving the military. In response, a senior official of the military-led government insisted that the ruling generals would retain that prerogative.

The unexpected rise of a strong ultraconservative Islamist faction to the right of the Brotherhood is likely to shift Egypt’s cultural and political center of gravity to the right as well. Leaders of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party will likely feel obliged to compete with the ultraconservatives for Islamist voters, and at the same time will not feel the same need to compromise with liberals to form a government.

“It means that, if the Brotherhood chooses, Parliament can be an Islamists affair — a debate between liberal Islamists, moderate Islamists and conservatives Islamists, and that is it,” Michael Wahid Hanna, an Egyptian-born researcher at the Century Foundation in Cairo, said this week.

The ultraconservative Salafi parties, meanwhile, will be able to use their electoral clout to make their own demands for influence on appointments in the new government. Mr. Hanna added: “I don’t mind saying this is not a great thing. It is not a joyous day on my end.”

If the majority proves durable, the longer-term implications are hard to predict. The Brotherhood has pledged to respect basic individual freedoms while using the influence of the state to nudge the culture in a more traditional direction. But the Salafis often talk openly of laws mandating a shift to Islamic banking, restricting the sale of alcohol, providing special curriculums for boys and girls in public schools, and censoring the content of the arts and entertainment.

Their leaders have sometimes proposed that a special council of religious scholars advise Parliament or the top courts on legislation’s compliance with Islamic law. Egyptian election laws required the Salafi parties to put at least one woman on their electoral roster for each district, but they put the women last on their lists to ensure they would not be elected, and some appear with pictures of flowers in place of their faces on campaign posters.

Sheik Hazem Shouman, an important Salafi leader, recently rushed into a public concert on the campus of Mansoura University to try to persuade the crowd to turn away from the “sinful” performance and go home. He defended his actions on a television talk show, saying he had felt like a doctor making an emergency intervention to save a patient dying of cancer.

The new majority is likely to increase the difficulty of sustaining the United States’ close military and political partnership with post-Mubarak Egypt, though the military has said it plans to maintain a monopoly over many aspects of foreign affairs. Islamist political leaders miss no opportunity to criticize Washington’s policies toward Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the Palestinians. And while Brotherhood leaders have said they intend to preserve but perhaps renegotiate the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel, the Salafi parties have been much less reassuring. Some have suggested putting the treaty to a referendum.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an Israeli official acknowledged concerns: “Obviously, it is hard to see in this result good news for Israel.”

Some members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority — about 10 percent of the population — joked Wednesday that they would prepare to leave the country. Previously protected by Mr. Mubarak’s patronage, many have dreaded the Islamists’ talk of protecting the Islamic character of Egypt. Some Brotherhood leaders often repeat that they believe citizenship is an equal right of all regardless of sect, even chanting at some campaign rallies that Copts are also “sons of Egypt.” But Salafis more often declare that Christians should not fear Islamic law because it requires the protection of religious minorities, an explanation that many Christians feel assigns them second-class status.

Most Copts voted for the liberal Egyptian bloc, which was vying for second place with the Salafis in some reports. It was an eclectic alliance against the Islamists, dominated by the Social Democrats, a left-leaning party with ties to the revolution’s leaders, and by the Free Egyptians, the business-friendly party founded and promoted by Naguib Sawiris, the Coptic Christian media-and-telecommunications tycoon.

The results indicated that some of the candidates and slates put forward by the former ruling party appeared to have won back their seats. It was unclear how large a bloc they might form, but they could prove sympathetic to the familiar mantra of stability-above-all that the ruling military is putting forward.

[fgalkin]

Again. Country with a 98% female genital mutilation rate.

What did people expect?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Flagg]

Again. Country with a 98% female genital mutilation rate.

What did people expect?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Well then clearly they're subhumans who don't deserve the blessings of democracy.

[Simon_Jester]

Flagg, stick to what people actually say. You can't sarcasm away the fact that poll results like this are predictable.

If religious fanatics, and people who roll over and play dead when religious fanatics tell them to, have that much power in a country, who in heaven's name do you expect to win an election? The anticlerical party?

Now, we can ask: is it better to have an Islamic fundamentalist party voted into power than to have a tyrant running the place? The answer can be "yes," or "I don't know," or even "it doesn't matter what I think, it's the Egyptians' call, not mine."

But we shouldn't just randomly look at anyone who says the outcome was predictable, and say they must HATE DEMOCRACY for holding the Egyptian electorate in contempt.

[Flagg]

Flagg, stick to what people actually say. You can't sarcasm away the fact that poll results like this are predictable.

If religious fanatics, and people who roll over and play dead when religious fanatics tell them to, have that much power in a country, who in heaven's name do you expect to win an election? The anticlerical party?

Now, we can ask: is it better to have an Islamic fundamentalist party voted into power than to have a tyrant running the place? The answer can be "yes," or "I don't know," or even "it doesn't matter what I think, it's the Egyptians' call, not mine."

But we shouldn't just randomly look at anyone who says the outcome was predictable, and say they must HATE DEMOCRACY for holding the Egyptian electorate in contempt.

fgalkin, in the Egyptian revolution thread basically supported the Mubarak regime due to his hatred of Egyptians for female circumcision. There's some context for you:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 6#p3467576

I was originally sympathetic to the protesters, but then I found out that Egypt has a 95% rate of Female Genital Mutilation. Mubarak tried to ban the practice repeatedly, but no one listened, and 9 out of 10 Egyptian women are still clitoris-free.

So, fuck them. They get democracy when they stop being bronze age savages. Until then, a dictator is all they deserve.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Simon_Jester]

Ah. Fair enough.

Of course, it does Strange Things to the traditional narrative of Western democracy when we run into a country where there's a popular custom of taking half the population and butchering their genitals as children, and where the brutal dictator running the country tries to overthrow that custom.

I'd like to hear your substantiative thoughts on that. Do the Egyptian people have the right to do that to their children? Does self-determination and democracy include the right to do that? Is democracy always best? Or only sometimes best? What do you think?

[Flagg]

Ah. Fair enough.

Of course, it does Strange Things to the traditional narrative of Western democracy when we run into a country where there's a popular custom of taking half the population and butchering their genitals as children, and where the brutal dictator running the country tries to overthrow that custom.

I'd like to hear your substantiative thoughts on that. Do the Egyptian people have the right to do that to their children? Does self-determination and democracy include the right to do that? Is democracy always best? Or only sometimes best? What do you think?

Well the US butchers a substantial portion of its male children's genitals, so I guess we don't deserve democracy either. I'm not going to get into a which is worse pissing match, but clearly allowing the Egyptians to decide their own fate is better than "fuck em, let them eat Dictator". If they want Islamists to rule them, too bad for them and for us, but it's their decision not ours. And even under Mubarak who was supposedly trying to stop the female circumcision they had a 90%+ rate of it going on, so obviously he was doing a heck of a job with that.

[Shroom Man 777]

I'd like to hear substantiative thoughts on who should have the right to decide what's best for Egypt and the people in it.

And even under Mubarak who was supposedly trying to stop the female circumcision they had a 90%+ rate of it going on, so obviously he was doing a heck of a job with that.

Maybe those in power never really gave a fuck for what's "best" for Egypt or Egyptian people as long as they served someone's (foreign?) interests.

So, I guess, neither democracy or dictatorship is what's best for Egypt. What's best is kowtowing to the certain foreign interests that certain nations have in that region. When they figure that out and conform to that five year plan, well, then nobody's gonna mind what's actually going on over there and we can have ourselves a nice little freedom party.

[Norseman]

And there goes my plans for a cheap vacation in Egypt

[Simon_Jester]

Well the US butchers a substantial portion of its male children's genitals, so I guess we don't deserve democracy either. I'm not going to get into a which is worse pissing match...

It would seem to me that you just did, and that you are arguing for moral equivalency by the way you bring this up. Or have I misunderstood you? Or perhaps you're being sarcastic and I don't get it?

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't believe that there's equivalency- though I'd like it if you would talk about this in depth, rather than trying to do argue by sarcastic one-liner.

But I do think you shouldn't make veiled accusations that I have said "Egypt doesn't deserve democracy because of female circumcision," by attempting to apply this same straw argument to the US and the practice of male circumcision.

I'd like to hear substantiative thoughts on who should have the right to decide what's best for Egypt and the people in it.

Sure. That ties into my own comments:

"Now, we can ask: is it better to have an Islamic fundamentalist party voted into power than to have a tyrant running the place? The answer can be "yes," or "I don't know," or even "it doesn't matter what I think, it's the Egyptians' call, not mine."


But before I go into that, I want to note that one thing I'd like to hear you in particular say, because I'm curious, is what you think would really be best for Egypt. Assuming (say) that other countries simply didn't exist. Or didn't care what happened in Egypt at all, or whatever. So that the decision had nothing to do with other countries, or with foreign interests telling Egypt what to do, and had everything to do with giving the Egyptians a government that doesn't suck.

You see, I know that there are plenty of people in plenty of countries who don't care what Egypt does as long as it obeys them in some respects. They're happy as long as the ships keep going through the canal, and they don't start bombing Israel, and blah blah blah. These people were fine with Mubarak and will automatically oppose any government in Egypt (democratic or not) that stops doing the things they want Egypt to do.

But what about those of us who aren't imperialist jackasses? Am I still allowed to have an opinion about events in Egypt, given that I'm not saying I think someone should force them to do what I say? If I have an opinion, do I just suddenly end up in the same camp as the "bomb them with white phosphorus bayonets" crowd when I say "If the Egyptians wind up governed by a fundamentalist party, that is bad for them and I will not be happy?" Because hell, I say the same thing about my own country, and all other countries. Is it that I'm an imperialist? Or is it that I just don't think fundamentalism is a good way to run a country?

I'd like it if we could have a conversation about Egypt that won't turn into another repetition of the same old song and dance routine we've gone through before. A conversation where we are free to express positive or negative opinions about things in Egypt, saying "this is good, this is bad," without the whole thing turning into a pretext for one bunch of people to whale on another bunch of people, without huffing and puffing and "BOMB THEM," and without accusations of imperialism and hatred of freedom and so on.

Is that all right with you?

[fgalkin]

Again. Country with a 98% female genital mutilation rate.

What did people expect?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Well then clearly they're subhumans who don't deserve the blessings of democracy.

Considering that this election would probably be their last for a long time, they don't WANT the blessings of democracy.

They voted for Islamists. Democracy is incompatible with shariah law. Ergo, they never wanted for democracy, they wanted a religious dictator instead of a secular one and conned the West into supporting them. Which makes them idiots, and yes, barbarians.

By the way, I never called them subhuman. Project much?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Bakustra]

The roots of the Muslim Brotherhood's strength don't come from "lol Egyptians are such barbarians" anyhow. They come from several major factors. One of the largest is that the dictatorial rulers of Egypt since Nasser have been aligned closely with the western democracies and have often trumpeted their love of secular democracy, damaging its legitimacy as an opposition, leaving Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood to form the majority of the opposition. Even larger is that Egypt's rulers, like many semi-western aligned Middle Eastern and North African nations, deliberately cultivated Islamist opposition to use them as boogeymen to keep western money and aid flowing in to prop them up, leading to those being the only opposition groups able to operate. The initial victories, while fueled by this, are also consequences of the division between left and center-left parties in Egypt. But the thread title is misleading. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a Salafist party, has rejected Salafism, and is unlikely to seek a coalition with the Salafist al-Nour Party over the centrist New Wafd Party, which is likely to end up on par with al-Nour in the final results at least, judging from polling results over the last few months.

As for whether the Muslim Brotherhood is "fundamentalist", I'm afraid I'd need a more solid definition of what that entails in an Islamic organization. Certainly they are conservative, and very much so, but are we to suggest that they are equivalent with al-Nour?

Considering that this election would probably be their last for a long time, they don't WANT the blessings of democracy.

They voted for Islamists. Democracy is incompatible with shariah law. Ergo, they never wanted for democracy, they wanted a religious dictator instead of a secular one and conned the West into supporting them. Which makes them idiots, and yes, barbarians.

By the way, I never called them subhuman. Project much?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Wrong. The Muslim Brotherhood is a democratic organization seeking to rule democratically. Its membership is too large for it to be a secret society of super-villains dedicated to establishing dictatorial rule without people knowing about this. Oh, wait, you think that these results mean that all Egyptians "wanted a religious dictator instead of a secular one and conned the West into supporting them." You're fucking ignorant and horribly, horribly bigoted. I mean, you literally called all Egyptians "barbarians." I hope we can get you into full-on Islamophobic rants by the end of the week, and by the end of the year, I fully expect you to be giving racist diatribes about the "Ay-rabs". But maybe you have too much self-control for that, seeing as you appear to recognize at least that your beliefs are, in some ways, wrong, by declaring "Fgalg u our rale rcasit!!!!" (This was about as accurately as I could depict the innards of your head without resorting to crayon, drool, and vomit).

[K. A. Pital]

Roots of any heavily religious movement comes from bad education. Religion is a form of delusion. Delusions only triumph when education is inadequate and conditions are miserable. Sadly enough Egypt meets all the criteria. I wouldn't describe a lack of education as "barbarism", though.

[Bakustra]

Roots of any heavily religious movement comes from bad education. Religion is a form of delusion. Delusions only triumph when education is inadequate and conditions are miserable. Sadly enough Egypt meets all the criteria. I wouldn't describe a lack of education as "barbarism", though.

I don't think that education has as much to do with it- Egypt is better-educated overall than India is, after all. And there are plenty of centrists, social democrats, and socialists running for office, which leads to another part of the problem- there are so many left-wing and center parties that they keep each other tiny. Several alliances formed in the run-up to the election, but most of those have fallen apart. So we'll have to wait and see how it all ends up- there's still a run-off election and two more rounds to go for the lower house.

[Shroom Man 777]

I'd like to hear substantiative thoughts on who should have the right to decide what's best for Egypt and the people in it.

Sure. That ties into my own comments:

"Now, we can ask: is it better to have an Islamic fundamentalist party voted into power than to have a tyrant running the place? The answer can be "yes," or "I don't know," or even "it doesn't matter what I think, it's the Egyptians' call, not mine."

I'm going to agree with the underlined and Flagg's "If they want Islamists to rule them, too bad for them and for us, but it's their decision not ours."

But what about those of us who aren't imperialist jackasses? Am I still allowed to have an opinion about events in Egypt, given that I'm not saying I think someone should force them to do what I say? If I have an opinion, do I just suddenly end up in the same camp as the "bomb them with white phosphorus bayonets" crowd when I say "If the Egyptians wind up governed by a fundamentalist party, that is bad for them and I will not be happy?" Because hell, I say the same thing about my own country, and all other countries. Is it that I'm an imperialist? Or is it that I just don't think fundamentalism is a good way to run a country?

Who's allowing or not-allowing you to have an opinion about events in Egypt? And what's the big deal with what you opine or say? I guess if you're not being a shitpiece going on about how only some people deserve democracy while fucking bronze age savages don't deserve democracy and should get some form of shitty non-democracy, then you're probably not a shitpiece going on about how only some people deserve democracy while fucking bronze age savages don't deserve democracy and so on and so forth, and you're probably an alright guy.

I think "it doesn't matter what I think, it's the Egyptians' call, not mine" is a pretty agreeable statement, for better or worse. I think it's a laudable thing to say when others are so nauseatingly derisive towards a nation and a people that've just freed themselves from a dictator, and so ready to judge from their pompous little high chairs what's good or best for these guys or what they deserve or whatever. These people certainly don't have the right to decide what's best for Egypt and the people in it. At least if the Egyptians get fucked over, they'll be fucked over by their own hand and can learn from that and hopefully eventually figure out for themselves what's what. Of course, we know that there'll be lots of other people just waiting to help them fuck themselves over, and there probably won't be a pretty ending to all this.

I'd like it if we could have a conversation about Egypt that won't turn into another repetition of the same old song and dance routine we've gone through before. A conversation where we are free to express positive or negative opinions about things in Egypt, saying "this is good, this is bad," without the whole thing turning into a pretext for one bunch of people to whale on another bunch of people, without huffing and puffing and "BOMB THEM," and without accusations of imperialism and hatred of freedom and so on.

Is that all right with you?

Yes, a conversation without assholes going on about bronze age savages and "dictatorship is all they deserve" would be nice.

[Flagg]

Again. Country with a 98% female genital mutilation rate.

What did people expect?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Well then clearly they're subhumans who don't deserve the blessings of democracy.

Considering that this election would probably be their last for a long time, they don't WANT the blessings of democracy.

They voted for Islamists. Democracy is incompatible with shariah law. Ergo, they never wanted for democracy, they wanted a religious dictator instead of a secular one and conned the West into supporting them. Which makes them idiots, and yes, barbarians.

By the way, I never called them subhuman. Project much?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

You really are a dumb racist douche. You call them barbarians because they elected people you don't like, then accuse me of being a racist? You should be in a padded cell my friend.

[K. A. Pital]

Roots of any heavily religious movement comes from bad education. Religion is a form of delusion. Delusions only triumph when education is inadequate and conditions are miserable. Sadly enough Egypt meets all the criteria. I wouldn't describe a lack of education as "barbarism", though.

I don't think that education has as much to do with it- Egypt is better-educated overall than India is, after all.

Considering the effect of religion on India... I wouldn't say the example is nice.

[Count Chocula]

I can't say I'm surprised by the turn of events. I fully expect Libya to go all fundie-Sharia-kill Israel, too. Yes, I AM exaggerating. I suspect that US and European foreign policy in the Middle East will be...interesting in 2012. As long as the Egyptian government takes no action to close the Suez or mass tanks on their southern border, though, our Foggy Bottomers will probably pretend nothing's changed.

[Bakustra]

I can't say I'm surprised by the turn of events. I fully expect Libya to go all fundie-Sharia-kill Israel, too. Yes, I AM exaggerating. I suspect that US and European foreign policy in the Middle East will be...interesting in 2012. As long as the Egyptian government takes no action to close the Suez or mass tanks on their southern border, though, our Foggy Bottomers will probably pretend nothing's changed.

So, do you know what the goals and beliefs of the Muslim Brotherhood are? Or of any of the major Egyptian political parties in this election? You pretty clearly don't from what you're posting here.

[K. A. Pital]

I can't say I'm surprised by the turn of events. I fully expect Libya to go all fundie-Sharia-kill Israel, too.

Um... the Muslim Brotherhood and the LIFG are very different structures, you realize? And it is Egypt discussed.

[Col. Crackpot]

So much for the Arab Spring bringing peace and reason to the region. Get ready for the long Arab Winter. The second Arab-Israeli war should be interesting.

[Count Chocula]

"God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations."

I can't say I'm impressed.

[Bakustra]

So much for the Arab Spring bringing peace and reason to the region. Get ready for the long Arab Winter. The second Arab-Israeli war should be interesting.

On what do you base this pronouncement? Egypt, at least, is moving towards regular elections. Tunisia has already done so. All that remains is Libya of the successful revolutions, and the faint hope that Syria's government might collapse suddenly. So at the very least, democracy is winning out in the region. Secondly, I'm not sure why you think that a "second Arab-Israeli war" will be an inevitable outcome of this. Could you share your thoughts on the matter?

"God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations."

I can't say I'm impressed.

"We believe that the political reform is the true and natural gateway for all other kinds of reform. We have announced our acceptance of democracy that acknowledges political pluralism, the peaceful rotation of power and the fact that the nation is the source of all powers. As we see it, political reform includes the termination of the state of emergency, restoring public freedoms, including the right to establish political parties, whatever their tendencies may be, and the freedom of the press, freedom of criticism and thought, freedom of peaceful demonstrations, freedom of assembly, etc. It also includes the dismantling of all exceptional courts and the annulment of all exceptional laws, establishing the independence of the judiciary, enabling the judiciary to fully and truly supervise general elections so as to ensure that they authentically express people's will, removing all obstacles that restrict the functioning of civil society organizations, etc."

That would seem to be more accurate than your naked Islamophobia in terms of detailing the beliefs and goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. I'm glad that you managed to dodge the question through literalism, though.

[Simon_Jester]

But what about those of us who aren't imperialist jackasses? Am I still allowed to have an opinion about events in Egypt, given that I'm not saying I think someone should force them to do what I say? If I have an opinion, do I just suddenly end up in the same camp as the "bomb them with white phosphorus bayonets" crowd when I say "If the Egyptians wind up governed by a fundamentalist party, that is bad for them and I will not be happy?" Because hell, I say the same thing about my own country, and all other countries. Is it that I'm an imperialist? Or is it that I just don't think fundamentalism is a good way to run a country?

Who's allowing or not-allowing you to have an opinion about events in Egypt?

If when I express an opinion about events in Egypt, I am shat on by people who find it funny to decry me as an imperialist, or who ignore me because they would rather talk about imperialism in general than Egypt in particular, then while I am not prevented from having an opinion, I am marginalized. Much as my opinions might be marginalized were I to express an opinion about the injustice of bombing some group of brown people, in a group of people who are too busy bitching about evil brown people to pay attention to what I am saying.

I would like to have a discussion about democracy in Egypt, and in general about democracy in countries where the average citizen's idea of freedom, rights of the individual, and so on do not match the ideas traditional in the democratic countries of the West.

For example, how well does democracy work when the average voter thinks his religion is oppressed by the fact that he can't freely go beat up members of a different religion? How well does democracy work if people vote into office a corrupt thug who sees no reason to hold another election? Will not these people soon find their government, this demon of oppression they voluntarily made, turning upon them and tearing them up, just as it turned on the minorities they despise?

And I think that's less than they, as human beings, deserve. People should not be tricked into supporting a government that will ruin them. Although the majority who voted for bad things are not entirely free of moral responsibility when those bad things happen. Just as if I vote for destroying the rights of brown people, I cannot complain if some of that destruction splashes on me and my own rights are in jeopardy. Such criticisms of my behavior would only be fair.

And what's the big deal with what you opine or say? I guess if you're not being a shitpiece going on about how only some people deserve democracy while fucking bronze age savages don't deserve democracy and should get some form of shitty non-democracy, then you're probably not a shitpiece going on about how only some people deserve democracy while fucking bronze age savages don't deserve democracy and so on and so forth, and you're probably an alright guy...

Yes, a conversation without assholes going on about bronze age savages and "dictatorship is all they deserve" would be nice.

Well, let us ask a theoretical question, one inspired by what is happening in Egypt but not totally relevant to the case of Egypt.

Suppose you have an institution like 20th century Turkey, where there is a constitution and an elected parliament, but where the army has a tradition of staging a coup whenever the elected government tries to change the constitution and give itself powers that would undermine the limits on its power. Or to reduce religious freedom, or things like that.

What do we say about this? Is it undemocratic, and therefore bad? Or is it pro-freedom, and therefore good? Can there even be such a thing as undemocratic forces that promote people's rights, or a right that trumps democracy?

Or to take another one, should people in a democracy be able to vote away their freedom of religion, their freedom of speech, or suchlike? Should this be easy? Hard? Impossible? I do not know. I would like to hear what people think.

[Col. Crackpot]

So much for the Arab Spring bringing peace and reason to the region. Get ready for the long Arab Winter. The second Arab-Israeli war should be interesting.

On what do you base this pronouncement? Egypt, at least, is moving towards regular elections. Tunisia has already done so. All that remains is Libya of the successful revolutions, and the faint hope that Syria's government might collapse suddenly. So at the very least, democracy is winning out in the region. Secondly, I'm not sure why you think that a "second Arab-Israeli war" will be an inevitable outcome of this. Could you share your thoughts on the matter?

Yes. Democracy is winning out. The problem is the Democracy in Egypt is producing what appears to be the beginnings of radical theocracy.