Which Egypt do we root for?
Jan 28, 2011, 11:06 AM | Updated: Mar 28, 2011, 3:48 pm
Egypt is one of those pretend democracies — where the same party and the same president always wins, almost all the money is controlled by a few privileged people at the top, and half the population lives on two dollars a day.
At some point, people get fed up:
“It’s about freedom of expression, and corruption, and abuse. But above all it’s about unemployment and the price of food.”
So is the United States going to urge our pal President Mubarak to embrace REAL democracy? I remember when democracy was the universal cure:
“Democracy can open up the world’s eyes to reality.”
Except in Egypt’s case, you know who’s waiting in the wings if Egypt holds truly open elections: the Muslim Brotherhood.
Whose motto is: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
And they’re not exactly friends with Israel either.
The Brotherhood has now been joined in the streets by a much more diverse group of protestors, but the fear is that if Mubarak goes down, Muslim Brotherhood takes over — and Egypt becomes Iran 2.0.
So what to do? Well, President Obama has called for civility. But it was Egypt’s imposed political civility that got it into trouble. All the debates became meaningless. And when they started getting real this week, the government imposed the ultimate civility, by shutting down the Internet — and let me just check here —
Nah, it’s not working.
