WASHINGTON DIARIST NOVEMBER 23, 2011
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Democratization is not an event in the life of a society, it is an era: a protracted turbulence. There is no other way. Dictatorships are more easily established. But if strong nerves are required for the birth of a liberal order, so, too, are open eyes. In the interval between the fall of a tyranny and the rise of a democracy, a lot can go wrong. Every saga of democratization includes adversaries of democracy, whose objection to the tyranny that fell was that it repressed society for the wrong reason. I have been reading Al-Ahram Weekly to improve my understanding of the turbulence in Egypt, particularly of the Islamist forces in the Egyptian storm. There I learn that the Muslim Brotherhood has reconciled with the Salafist parties, and all have signed a “charter of honor” drawn up by a group unironically named the Sharia Law Organization for Rights and Reform. (The al-Wasat Party, which as far as I can tell is a genuinely moderate Islamic party, has not subscribed to the charter.) The charter is full of edifyingly progressive elements. It declares that people have a duty to vote, and that voters should serve as monitors against fraud and brutality; it forbids the buying and selling of votes, and (I am quoting the reporter) it “calls on voters not to give their vote to any candidate who contributed to the corruption of political life under the former regime.” Be still, my American heart. But now for those open eyes. The civic punctiliousness of the true believers turns out to be purely tactical. The reporter begins his piece by explaining that these efforts of the Islamist parties are animated by “their determination to work together to secure the defeat of liberals and secularists.” The behavior of the Muslim Brotherhood in the latest agitation in Tahrir Square confirms such a view. They stood with the liberals and the secularists against the military, but only until their political interests were imperiled: when proposals were made to postpone the upcoming parliamentary elections, in which the Islamists have a lot to gain, the Tahrir spirit suddenly deserted many of them.
AND THAT IS NOT ALL. The League-of-Women-Voters provisions of the “charter of honor” are founded on a series of fatwas. Democratic behavior was enjoined by non-democratic authority. In the short term, and compared with all the non-democratic behavior that has been enjoined by non-democratic authority, this may seem like an advancement, an encouraging ray of enlightenment; but it is important to remember that democracy is proved not by democratic motions but by democratic reasons. A man who votes in an election as his imam or priest or rabbi tells him to vote is doing only a pseudo-democratic deed. Before it is a political method, democracy is a human definition: it insists that the individual is fundamentally autonomous, and capable of independent thinking—the intellectual work that is obligated by a self-governing society. Religious liberalism may be motivated by either religion or liberalism: if the former, it is infirm liberalism; if the latter, it is infirm religion; but whatever the admixture, the dissonance is undeniable. Religious liberalism may also be the preferred means of religious illiberalism. And that illiberalism will be described as freedom: as Isaiah Berlin once warned, “Enough manipulation with the definition of man, and freedom can be made to mean whatever the manipulator wishes.” A fatwa is not an argument, it is the antithesis of an argument. The assent that it demands is not based on persuasion. To compel liberalism is to misunderstand it, and to provide it with unreliable foundations. After all, a free and fair election is never all that God wants. And so I read, also in Al-Ahram Weekly, that “leading members of Islamist and Salafist parties have already issued fatwas telling Muslims not to vote for liberals who they denounce as ‘infidels and unbelievers.’” These edicts treat the ballot as just another opportunity for obedience. The celebration of the rights of the Islamists, of all Egyptians, to express themselves in the post-Mubarak era must at some point give way to a consideration of what they are expressing—and also of what they are not expressing. In an open society people may choose not to be open.
BUT STILL I SEE mainly celebration. “This is February 12!” a protester in Tahrir Square exclaimed to a reporter for The New York Times. “We have finally succeeded in reclaiming our revolution.” And: “‘There are no parties here,’ one young man said to his friend as fighting flared on a side street. ‘No Muslims and no Christians.’” These utterances are evidence only of the liminality of the square, its exemption from the political strains beyond its hallowed confines, where it is not February 12. It was beautiful that Copts guarded Muslims as they knelt in prayer in Tahrir Square, but it was also delusory, since Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt after Mubarak are alarmingly different. Why do demonstrators always confuse the quality of their own experience, their mystical moments of unity, with the condition of their country, with its progress? (This was the case also in Zuccotti Park, whose campers have been ludicrously compared to the valiant souls of Tahrir Square. While they were lovingly making soup for each other, the Republicans were lovelessly pillaging Dodd-Frank. Occupy reality!) Perhaps only solipsists can survive against certain odds. When Egyptian liberals demanded that the military put in place a declaration of basic rights in advance of a possible Islamist victory in the parliamentary elections, and the military tried to exploit the idea to secure their own immunity, the Muslim Brotherhood retorted in a statement to the liberals: “Will you respect the will of the people or will you turn against it?” This is standard-issue Rousseauist demagoguery. The people does not have a will. The people has wills. The wills conflict, because they represent alternative conceptions of individual meaning and social meaning. The contest between the visions ought to be settled peacefully, of course, with the instruments of representative democracy; but this is no time for patsy liberalism. The Islamists do not agree that a codification of rights is a condition of democratic life, and regard it instead as an outcome of democratic life that they wish to avoid. But rights are prior or they are not real. So a hard liberalism is needed now, respectful but suspicious, coldly resolute, undeceived by the bliss of passing solidarity, aware that the party of the open society has too often assisted in its own demise.
Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic. This article appeared in the December 15, 2011, issue of the magazine.
38 comments
The question "Where Are Egypt’s Liberals?" assumes apriori that there are Egyptian liberals. I'm not so sure. Prof. AbuKhalil from U of California, writes approvingly: " I want to mention that many intellectuals and leftist activists also participated in the attack on the Israeli occupation embassy. Famed Egyptian director, Khalid Yusuf, participated in attacking the wall outside the embassy with a hammer. " And, Samuel Tadros, an Egyptian journalist, writes: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/what-makes-egyptian-liberal-liberal_576896.html "The question, then, is not, how could an Egyptian “liberal” partake in a round of Holocaust revisionism? Rather, it is whether Ahmed Ezz el-Arab and others like him are in fact really liberals. That is, is it possible to be a genuine liberal and an anti-Semite at the same time? Of course not. Egyptian anti-Semitism is the starting point of a political ideology that has dominated the region for more than 60 years ..."
- NR165279
November 23, 2011 at 6:52am
The above comment by yours truly. Sorry.
- noga1
November 23, 2011 at 6:54am
Leon Weiseltier asks the question where are the liberals in Egypt? The country has 80 million people. Since Muslims are 1.6 billion with 60% under the age of thirty, Egypt must have 48 million people under the age of thirty. As for economics the GDP per person is around 6,200 USDollars. Comparing with Turkey having 72 million people and GDP per person of around 15,000 USDollars. Israel has 7.7 million people and GDP per person of around 35,000 USDollars. Syria has 22 million people and GDP pp of 5,200 USDollars. Egypt is 90%+ Muslim, 5 to 9% Coptic Christians. Cairo is the city of a thousand minarets. Egypt prays five times a day, and life goes on around the prayers. Thus Leon I ask what is the meaning of a liberal. Is he going to ask for acceptance of others views? Is he going to promote understanding, commerce, industry, science? Creation of a middle class that works hard to earn a living, instead of demonstrating all day long against the restrictions that impede progress and the pursuit of happiness? And oh yes all of these to be done around saying prayers five times a day. Somewhere we squeeze the attack on the Israeli embassy. And the attacks on the Coptic Christians. All to be done around the five times a day of saying prayers. God the Almighty and all Powerful forgive me because I have sinned. Please give me the strength to continue in this world of hardship and pain. Prayers are healing treatment for the injustices that leave us helpless. It is mighty nice that we can say prayers five times a day. It heals our soul, and obligate us to be respectful of our fellow humans.
- JAIMECHUCH
November 23, 2011 at 9:46am
Noga - well spoken. It's tough to see how liberalism can flourish (in Egypt or anywhere else) without extinguishing anti-semitism. Freeing one's self of racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, etc, is the sin qua non of liberalism. May you and yours (and everyone else on here) have a happy Thanksgiving.
- Tristan
November 23, 2011 at 10:47am
Apart from institutional anti-semitism, what about women? The above beautifully written article illuminates disturbing facts, the most disturbing of which, to me, is reflected in the illusion that young Google employees and other open minded Egyptians are somehow going to flourish in an Islamist state. I think this is going to be a disaster. One can only hope that access to the world via media will have a moderating and modernizing effect over the long run. In the short run are we looking at a mirror of KSA? This never used to be the model in Egypt. Ever, that I know of.
- Sophia
November 23, 2011 at 12:50pm
For one thing there used to be thriving "foreign" communities in Egypt. Jews, even.
- Sophia
November 23, 2011 at 12:51pm
Sophia, you are correct. In my last job before retiring I spent some time talking to a Jewish woman who had grown up in Egypt. She and her family now comprised a "thriving" community in the United States.
- skahn
November 23, 2011 at 2:17pm
"I think this is going to be a disaster. " http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-unrest-stirs-fears-inside-israel-144324115.html "Israeli officials and media commentators have made no secret of their concern about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, expected to perform well in the elections scheduled to begin on November 28. "It's our main concern," Vilnai said Wednesday. The top-selling Yediot Aharonot on Wednesday headlined its front page "Between Cairo and Tehran" in reference to the rise of Islamist forces in Egypt. And the Maariv newspaper reported that Israel's army chief Benny Gantz "has presented to the security cabinet a scenario involving the cancellation of the peace treaty" between Egypt and Israel. The report was denied by the military and Vilnai said it was premature to talk about the treaty being annulled. "The cancellation of the treaty is not today -- and I stress the word today -- a reality," he said. But he acknowledged Israel fears a serious degradation in ties with Cairo once a new government comes to power. "But when Egyptian government stabilises after a long electoral process, we expect it will seriously undermine the accord," he said." ___________ Sharia, antisemitism, and reneging on treaties.
- noga1
November 23, 2011 at 3:55pm
When I think of Rousseau, I think of the Reign of Terror that came out of his ideology and defined terrorism, which is not a tactic but rather fascist genocide. I agree that it would be good to be soberly hopeful for Egypt. At least I am.
- djcho77
November 23, 2011 at 6:56pm
I agree with most of what LW said here but take issue with the following: “When Egyptian liberals demanded that the military put in place a declaration of basic rights in advance of a possible Islamist victory in the parliamentary elections, and the military tried to exploit the idea to secure their own immunity, the Muslim Brotherhood retorted in a statement to the liberals: “Will you respect the will of the people or will you turn against it?” This is standard-issue Rousseauist demagoguery. The people does not have a will. The people has wills. The wills conflict, because they represent alternative conceptions of individual meaning and social meaning.” I don’t know how Rousseau got into the discussion. Firstly LW misunderstood Rousseau’s notion of the “will of the people.” This idea which was purposefully used by Robespierre and other French Revolutionaries, doesn’t apply to an election of a government. Like “noble savage” (in another context) it’s an a-priori concept that postulates the coming together of people to set up a community. Rousseau think that in some pre-historical time such an event occurred in order for communities to exist at all. In a negative sense we can say that revolutions express the withdrawal of consent by people of the ruling authority: hence the French, American, Russian revolutions as well as the current upheavals in some Arab countries the will of the people expressed itself in rejecting the social compact that had ruled those societies. It doesn’t mean that what followed after the revolution expressed the will of the people. The closest to such a compact, I believe occurred in the US with the establishment of the constitutional convention which worked out a set of always that had to be ratified by the voters. The will of the people is not an action (like voting, or cheering a “leader”) it is a process that sets up laws that people pledge to live by. Second, no one who reads Rousseau’s writings would ever think that the writer would have accepted Sharia law as representing the will of the people. Even from the point of view of Islam these laws come from god and are not to be voted on by people. People have to accept them in total since rejecting them is an act of heresy. Rousseau was a democrat who didn’t believe that people need to live by supernatural law. Seeing Rousseau and an advocate of totalitarian rule falsifies his thought. Anyone who has ever read “Reveries of a Solitary Walker” couldn’t have made such a mistake.
- arnon
November 23, 2011 at 9:55pm
Like all of Leon Wieseltier's columns, his contribution to TNR's conversation about the Egyptian transition and, more generally, the Arab Spring, offers a promising start. LW's commentary on the dilemmas of Egyptian liberalism in the context of a revitalized Moslem Brotherhood especially commands attention. Yet the past six days in Tahrir Square challenge LW's too quick assumption of some sort of unity or cohesion in the Brotherhood. Especially in the fourth and fifth day of the public manifestations in the Square, the Brotherhood's various factions -- some ideological, others generational -- have publicly disputed the organization's initial response to this new, democratic opening. Among the voices most critical of the Brotherhood's more politically tactical, less democratically committed, leadership have been Egyptian liberals. As these dissentiing voices intermingle under clouds of tear gas, something like a new conversation is taking shape. Might not close attention to this recent dialogue modify -- perhaps even challenge -- LW's despair over the fate of Egyptian liberalism?
- texbart
November 24, 2011 at 9:49am
"As these dissentiing voices intermingle under clouds of tear gas, something like a new conversation is taking shape." This is meant to be ironic, right? I don't know what texbart would talk about Under "clouds of tear gas" but in such a situation I would be too busy clearing my head off tear-gas to talk.
- arnon
November 24, 2011 at 10:06am
"As these dissentiing voices ..." Ah, such optimism, like the cloudless month of March.
- noga1
November 24, 2011 at 11:51am
Private, personal and confidential: To: Arnon (Nobody else can read this) OMG: (literally) don't tell me, (rhetorically) don't tell me Gwen is going to wind up with Rex! Another +/- 60 pages to go. G.E. kind of fantastic but long winded, don't ask!
- basman
November 24, 2011 at 3:04pm
There really aren't any major surprises at the end, except that... but I'll let you find it out for yourself. I liked the novel as I do most of George Eliot's work. Just finished a 700 page novel by Balzac so length isn't a problem for me. George Eliot did write many shorter works and some which are the same length as DD. Did you read Middlemarch?
- arnon
November 24, 2011 at 4:52pm
Speaking of long books I also just finished a 700 page history book which would go well with DD: "Jerusalem: The Biography" by Simon Sebag Montefiore
- arnon
November 24, 2011 at 5:29pm
Yes but about 46 years ago in second year university when callow was my middle name. I don't remember it to well and should give it another shot. I chose Deronda because of the Jewish theme.
- basman
November 24, 2011 at 6:01pm
p.s. I admire your reading vigour. Just noting what you read makes me tired :-)
- basman
November 24, 2011 at 6:02pm
Just finished a great (size and taste) Thanksgiving feast. Well, Basman, I read novels the way others watch sports or movies. Like sporting events there is a lot of down time when very little happens in most novels (unless you read for style) and you just have to wait for the activity to pick up. I seldom read for themes or meaning. I think about that the second or third time I go over a book, if the book is worth a second reading.
- arnon
November 24, 2011 at 7:58pm
...I seldom read for themes or meaning... I was corrupted by my literature studies: I do nothing but unless I'm reading fluffier stuff, which I do my good share of. Seldom get to second reads let alone thirds, except for Huckleberry Finn which I reread every couple of years. I'll be tallking about a book wiith a few people in a few weeks somewhere else, so will need to reread The Outsider which like Middlemarch I can barely remember. Enjoy the rest of your holiday and watch out for the tryptophan if you're not already asleep.
- basman
November 24, 2011 at 10:25pm
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4152973,00.html According to Guy Bechor, (an Israeli journalist who spends many hours reading the Arabic media and blogosphere), three forces emerge from the Egyptian "spring": The military, the Islamists, the Arab Street. Nowhere does he even mention "liberals". "From a stable, powerful state, Egypt is turning into a country that is perceived as unsafe, overcome by despair, and dangerous. This is anarchy. When anarchy is being worshipped, it becomes the real ruler. Democracy a delicate resource Should there be no forgeries in the parliamentary elections, radical Islam is expected to make great inroads next week, and possibly even take over the country’s political system. We are not only referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, but also to more radical forces, including the Salafists – the most radical element – which are running in the elections as a party as well. And so, Egypt will become home to three power centers that are hostile to each other: The military and defense establishment, which will have trouble accepting the loss of power and already wish to set up a supreme defense council based on the Turkish model that would counter the parliament and government; the religious establishment, which amazingly enough shall turn into the country’s strongest civilian force, something that appeared illogical only a year ago; and the third factor, the street and the violence; or in other words, the anarchy. "
- noga1
November 25, 2011 at 7:00am
http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3208.htm "Sheik Osama Bin Laden is a man who waged Jihad for the sake of Allah, and we pray that Allah will unite us with him and the martyrs in Paradise. My brothers, in Islam, we say with great pride that we adhere to the Jihad for the sake of Allah… Crowd: Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Tawfiq Al-Afni: We are not waging Jihad for worldly benefits or for positions. By Allah, we have only come to pledge our allegiance to Islam. We wage Jihad for the sake of Allah and the Koran. […] We respond to Your call. Please turn our skulls into a ladder for your glory. Crowd: We respond to Your call. Please turn our skulls into a ladder for your glory. Tawfiq Al-Afni: We say to infidel America: By Allah, if you contemplate coming to Egypt, you will encounter men who love death more than you Americans love life… Crowd: Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Tawfiq Al-Afni: I say to the Jews: if you contemplate harming Egypt or its Muslim people, you will encounter men who seek death more than you seek life… Crowd: Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Man in crowd: Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad is here. Crowd: Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad is here. Man in crowd: Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad is here. Crowd: Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad is here. […] Tawfiq Al-Afni: Oh Allah, grant us martyrdom for your sake."
- noga1
November 25, 2011 at 3:56pm
Arab hatred towards Jews and Israel will only intensify as they perceive them to be weak and cowardly, on the brink of defeat and collapse. The public rhetoric has grows a lot louder and bolder in the last couple of years.
- noga1
November 25, 2011 at 6:40pm
Hey Malahat, see you in about a month.
- basman
November 25, 2011 at 11:15pm
American foreign policy should do everything it can to encourage secularists in the Arab countries and in Iran. But given the historical and cultural realities the Muslim countries in the Middle East are likely to remain a threat to civilization. Let's make it clear that an attack on Israel is an attack on the United States, period. Let's maintain American military hegemony. The alternative to the above is a) a second Holocaust, and b) the decline and fall of western civilization.
- bulbman1066
November 26, 2011 at 1:02am
Commentators on Leon Wieseltier's important column veer between uncomprehending disbelief of the importance of the question that he poses and lazily cheap irony. Under the billowing clouds of teargas, as Firas Al-Atraqchi makes clear in a splendid column in The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/firas-alatraqchi/egypt-protests_b_1111164.html?, a consequential transition has begun. I put the question to LW again: Might close attention to debates on the ground of Tahrir Square cast some light on the situation of Egyptian liberalism, in the same way that attending to the Putney Debates of the New Model Army helps to grasp the progression of Oliver Cromwell's and the Grandees' Proposals for Justice in 1647?
- texbart
November 26, 2011 at 11:03am
"Might close attention to debates on the ground of Tahrir Square cast some light on the situation of Egyptian liberalism, in the same way that attending to the Putney Debates of the New Model Army helps to grasp the progression of Oliver Cromwell's and the Grandees' Proposals for Justice in 1647?" NO! Cairo is not Cromwell's England.
- arnon
November 26, 2011 at 1:09pm
Arnon insists that we pay no attention to the debates in Tahrir Square. And then he/she willfully misreads a simile, prefaced by "like," as an identification. In the face of blunt denial and deliberate obfuscation, little discussion is possible. Nonetheless, this liberal hopes that Arnon represents a small, reactionary group, not the larger readership of LW's TNR columns.
- texbart
November 27, 2011 at 7:13am
I'm with Arnon on this one. The debates in Tahrir square are inconsequential on their merits. They are consequential in what they reflect--the failure of the "revolution." The protests now are reflexive as either one of two things will happen: the army will simply maintain control and/or the Muslim Bros will ascend. I'm afraid of a repeat of 1979 in Iran. But Liberals in Egypt--save for a few political outliers, give me a break. Texbart is some vaporous world of his own here.
- basman
November 27, 2011 at 3:59pm
TExbart, you are trying to pass of reactionaries at Tahir Sq. as "liberals." What kind of dialogue can real liberal have with an Islamicist? Ask the country's Copt community about the power of liberalism in Egypt. Who is the reactionary, then?
- arnon
November 27, 2011 at 4:19pm
"And then he/she willfully misreads a simile, prefaced by "like," as an identification." What the f... do you think a simile is? It's an equation. A metaphor is a substitution while a simile is a comparison: examples: 'my love is a red rose" and "my love is like a red rose" One substitutes rose for love, the other equates them. In substituting one thing for another you stress the differences as well as the similarities. When you equate two things you stress the similarities. Tex was equating England in Cromwell's day to Egypt today. I say nuts to that.
- arnon
November 27, 2011 at 4:27pm
Rhetorical point of order: I always thought of similie as a sub set of metaphor with emphasis on "like" or "as," with the functonal difference between them that similie makes comparison explicit, whereas metaphor is the generic comparative necessarily incidental to our use of language. So if I say "x's argument strains comprehension" there's an implicit metaphor in the imagery and meaning of "strain." I could have said "Trying to understand x's is like me straining myself to do something difficult." Or I could have said "X's argument is difficult to follow," follow also having a metaphoric function here. Interstingly, and as a tetstament to the inherent ambiguity of language, nothing in my example necessarily spells out that X's argument is a poor one. It may be a poor one thus difficult to follow; or it may a good one but subtle and/or complex and hence difficult to follow. Also, finally and briefly, I'd argue that in metaphor's comparison, differences are not being highlighted as well as similarities being highlighted. The disitnction between similie and metaphor is more, I'd say, the explicit as against the implicit in the comparison.
- basman
November 28, 2011 at 1:05pm
Yes, basman that is the usual explanation, but when you compare two very dissimilar thing like "rose and love" what strikes us most is the dissimilarity between these items.
- arnon
November 28, 2011 at 4:24pm
Well, let's take your more straight forward examples. My love is a red rose. My love is like a red rose. Your argment is that in the substitution, the metaphor, differences are being highlighted too but in the equation, the similie they are not. This isn't well founded, with respect. A similie is not an equation. An equation is 2 + 2 = 4 or 2 + x = 4, solve for x. An equation is the assertion of exact sameness. It's odd to say 2 +2 is like 4. It's right to say 2 +2 is 4. Like or as go the suggestion of similarity and the similarities in your example are expansive; they range as far as the imagination in a reasonable exercise takes them. If anything, your example of a metaphor, my live is a red rose is more like an equation than is a similie because literally it's positing an ostensibe equation: A = B. But that's only literally because the metaphor properly understood is saying implicitly my love is like a red rose, but is leaving the like or as out. Different effects my turn on the explicitness or the implicitness of the comparison depending on the larger rhetorical context, but the notion of substitution as highlighting differences is actually the inversion of that. In omitting like or as, one is softening differences, softening, that is to say, the qualification on the comparison, which either like or as import. That softening is a result of implication. Both formulations in your example ultimayely ask the question "how is it that my love can be compared to a rose." No?
- basman
November 28, 2011 at 6:36pm
I was talking about metaphors, above, basman. Difference between the two is that one is implicit the other explicit. In any case saying that Cairo is/is like Cromwell's England is false. It's false whether you state it as a comparison or one identifies the two through metaphor.
- arnon
November 29, 2011 at 9:09am
I should add if you are still here, basman, that metaphor/simile in poetics is very different than its use in historical discourse. In fiction/poetics the willing suspension of disbelief kicks in. In historical narratives thee is no such thing.
- arnon
November 29, 2011 at 7:55pm
Do you really think so? Of course literary art is one thing and, say, historical narrative is another thing. But I'd think that metaphor and simile operate in the same ways in each mode of discourse, albeit in the service of different ends, the former presenting an illusion of reality encapsulated by the notion of "as if," and the latter trying to account for literal reality encapsulated by the notion of "as so." What would be the functional difference(s) in their operations in each mode?
- basman
November 30, 2011 at 4:36am
I would like to nuance the argument a little bit. I'm not so sure that independent thinking is necessarily a prerequisite for democracy, or, to be more specific for our purposes, democracy building. The pumping fists of the Arab Spring are Muslim fists, lets remember. To complain about influences from Islamist and Salafist parties is to blind oneself to the what actually goes on in "Arabic" countries. Maybe we can find pockets of securalists, but even they have their either private or public religious inclinations. Isn't it true that not having some sort, any sort of religious affiliation will immediately disqualify a candidate for the American presidency? Religion is kind of a trump card that overdetermines the entire conversation on freedom. The Arab Spring is a movement that is demanding less restrictions, not necessarily "more" freedom. Subjection to Sharia Law is just the universe of expected forms of governance. We are just fooling ourselves if we think "their" democracy will resemble anything like ours. Our hardheaded insistence that they do is pure obtuseness that hides the fact that people never think independently when it comes to politics. They just step in line and salute.
- markhigham
December 10, 2011 at 5:16am