Friday, February 11, 2011

My hopes for Egypt

Egypt is not Iran, nor is it Iraq or any other country. To lump them in with all the other governments of the Middle East/Africa is intellectually lazy and insulting. More than anything, it proves a belief that Americans are ignorant not only of world affairs but also of Islam. Despite what the likes of Beck and Hannity or any of the others harbingers of doom want you to think, not every Muslim wants to install a global caliphate nor do they want to destroy America. What it does show is that they are still completely sworn to the neoconservative ideal which seems to finally be rapidly loosing support in the GOP.

The problem we do face is that for decades, the US has propped up dictators like Hussein, Mubarak, Noriega and others in the interests of access to resources or canals. To think the people of those countries wouldn't hold that against us when they do finally get to choose their new government is naive. In this case, we didn't instigate regime change but we did prop it up and human nature is to get away from the chains that bound as far as possible when the chance presents itself. What I do think will happen is that Egypt is a more secular and advanced nation than say Afghanistan and while the new government will be probably less a puppet of the US, I do not believe that they will become anything like a fanatical theocracy. Once a country has become accustomed to technology, freedom and sadly, consumerism, they are not very likely to revert to a religious and paranoid political system although ironically, we may end up headed there before Egypt.

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